The Snyder Kids

Meet Jillian, Jenna, Nathan and Nolan. They are the awesome kids of an old high school friend that I've reconnected with on Facebook. I admit to being SOOO nervous about this shoot. Aside from my own kids, I've only ever shot a single child. Here I was jumping into FOUR kids... definitely a big change of pace for me! They were SO good and I really had so much fun working with them!


Katie got a chance to get in on this one. She's such a great mom.

The girls had some fun jumping around.

Thank you so much Katie and kids! I had a blast working with you guys.

Little Northern Michigan vacay

Even though it was a little vacation, I have lots of pics! So, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy!

Last week we got back from Clear lake Resort, up in central northern MI. We had fun and it was nice to get away. It was the perfect distance too. Not too far, but far enough! I was pleasantly surprised that Addie did GREAT in the car. This is the girl that complains about the car ride to Target. A huge thank you goes out to Grandma and Grampa Hosking for the portable DVD player for the car. Definitely eased the pain!

So, here is where we stayed. It was..ummm...cozy. Actually it wasn't that bad, tight, but not bad. Well, the bathroom was a bit of a challenge. We'll just say that not only was it tiny, but the showers were lightning fast!

But, how can you complain when you wake up to this view every day?

Here we have Jim and Aidan getting ready to go fishing. Aidan was so excited to fish and I think Jim was just as excited to take him.

But miss Addie and Zoe were not happy that they weren't invited. Here they were just staring out the door watching the guys fish.

Here are they guys, doing their thing.

While the guys were fishing, the dew on the grass caught my eye and I thought it may be neat to take a pic. This isn't exactly how I hoped it would turn out, but I still like the color and clean feeling.


As many of you know, this summer has been dubbed the "bummer summer" since it's been a bit cooler than in previous years. With the weather up north being a good 5-10 degrees cooler, we were a little disappointed that there wasn't much beach time. It actually wouldn't have been too bad it wasn't so windy. Jim and the kids braved the weather to swim a couple times. The kids (especially Addie) love the water.

She LOVES the beach.

Digging in the dirt is her favorite part.

I don't know what Aidan was doing here, but he was having fun!

He loved looking for sea shells. I know, freshwater lake, no seashells. But he found a bunch of snail shells. He was pretty excited about that!

Even Zoe had fun!


Then we rented a pontoon boat for a couple hours. The kids really seemed to like it. Again, it was a little cooler than we would like, but it was nice and peaceful. Here the kids are enjoying ice cream candy.

Then the guys decided to try their luck at fishing again.

And Addie gave boat driving a try.

She finally got a chance to fish and LOVED it! She took it very seriously!

I don't know what she's doing here, but you can sure tell she loved being on the boat!

Aidan gives his best pirate impersonation. No, he's actually squinting from the sun, but he sure looks cute!

I was obsessed with the clouds over the lake. It was at this time I wished that I had a nice wide angle lens. I just love those big sky shots. I never get the opportunity to do that at home!

Then a rare thing happened. I handed Jim my camera in auto and had him take a pic of me with the kids!


I love this pic of Aidan. It was just one of those moments I was sitting down, playing with my camera when Aidan sat next to me. I said "Hey Aidan!" he looked at me and I snapped. I just love his eyes here. I didn't touch them in Photoshop either (except size/sharpen for web). Every once in a while I nail my focus and get so excited! And Look, you can see Addie in the bokeh!

Annnnd, here is our deck view from our last night on vacation. The first couple evenenings were too overcast to give much color. So pretty!

That was our little get away. I can't say it was exactly relaxing with the kids, but it was a nice change of scenery!

The princess and the piggy

Addie is one funny girl. She's so very girly but so messy at the same time! For her birthday, her Aunt Kim and Uncle Matt got her this adorable dress up outfit. She just loved being a princess. That is until she looked up at me with wide eyes and told me she wanted to "fly in the sky". Poor girl, I think I devastated her once I told her that although she had on wings, she couldn't really fly. :o( She promptly told me to take the dress off.

Here she is BEFORE the flying request.


On the flip side, the girl is so darn messy when she eats! I literally have to strip her down so she doesn't destroy her clothes. I even have to make sure her hair is pulled back, because it often ends up caked if I don't. Food ends up all over her face, hands, body, sometimes the booster chair and floor. Aidan was no where near this messy and stopped wearing a bib long before he was two. This girl would much rather eat with her hands....especially if it's food like pudding, yogurt or apple sauce. This shot doesn't do the true mess justis. The washcloth I used to clean her up was covered!

Little Tiger

Last week, Aidan started Tae Kwon Do. We thought now would be a good age to join. He's in need of some discipline and help following direction. This is a fun environment and boy, does it wear him out! Here is a quick snap of him in his outfit.

Blog under construction

Ugh, I'm trying to figure out what to do with my blog and am temporarily in chaos mode. I want to give my blog a bit of a face lift, but I'm not very technical. I don't understand a lot about computers. Just the basics that get me by. One of the main things I want is for my pics to show up bigger. I thought I figured out how to do it, but my landscape oriented photo's got cut in half. So, for now I switched to this very basic Blogger template, since it allows my bigger pics to be shown. I hate it though. It looks so blah and unprofessional. Another item on my blog wish list is for me to allow categories. This way if I refer someone to my blog for session work, they can find it among my personal posts. My friend Kelly from Blissful Chaos and Kelly Gorney Photography
pointed me in the direction of a template that I can install that I think will fill my requirements. She used it on her photography blog and it looks fab! The problem is that I'm clueless on installation! And with these two kids, I never have a few hours to set aside to figure it out. So, if I want to do it, then I'll have to have a night that I can stay up until the wee hours.

My next problem. Should I keep my photography and family blogs together or separate them? The are pros and cons to doing it each way. The biggest con will be having to keep up with two blogs. I struggle at times with keeping this one fresh. So, two may be over my head. Then again, I won't have to worry about posting more snapshot type pics on a family blog. I won't have to worry about potential "clients" (can I say client's since I'm not close to being in biz?)seeing snapshots and think that's a representation of my work. Ugh, anyway, I would love to hear your thoughts. Family, do you mind seeing my session work? Speak up, come out of hiding! I need your opinions! Haha!

A little neighborhood shoot

So, I took the kids on a little "shoot" around the neighborhood. NOT EASY!!!! Normally when we take walks around the neighborhood, I note little pockets that I that I think will be good locations. Unfortunately, these are all near the road and it's crazy hard to watch both kids, especially Addie while I'm shooting Aidan. So, I was very rushed during most of these and the kids weren't feeling it.

First, there is this cool red building that I think is and apartment. There are two cool doors in the front, but unfortunately they face east, and we were out in the evening.... or the sun was on the other side.

But I got these and I think they're fun.


One way to know you kids hate when you take them on photo shoots? Subtle signs...or more specifically finger signs. Think Aidan was saying something here? Hahaha! I still like it though.


Then I got this one of Aidan. This makes me swoon. As many goofy faces and unusable pics I get of him...then I get one of these. ♥


As much as I love that, I love it in B&W even more.


Then we walked back down to this tiny park at the end of our road. I don't know why they call it a park, it's more a overlook to the lake. There are a couple benches and some sporadically placed flowers. It's a nice little place!

Here they are, checking out the lake. Aidan was actually looking for dead fish. Silly boy.


Then I got this one of Addie. Same place, but somehow the angle I got this at made this itty bitty teeeny tiny park look like a beautiful field. And oh yeah, this light! So pretty!

Some of the kids in the back yard

A few weeks ago we were just hanging out in the backyard and I got out the old camera and took some shots. Love them. Love the kids.


When did he get so big?

Just a quick snap of Addie with her brothers football. At times she can really be a tomboy! Here it looks like she's about to say "Go long!"
Love her expression here! ♥