It’s been amazing to watch this family grow. The nicest most humble and kind friends you could ever ask for!

I think I am the luckiest girl in the world. I get to photograph the most beautiful and kind people. When I met up with this family, their sweet little baby girl Summer stole my heart. The cutest little baby, dressed so elegantly. It was her very first time having professional photos done too. What an honor to get to take her pictures. It was a cold day at the beach in Palos Verdes but she did fantastic and I was able to get lots of great shots.

I looooooove this family. Love, love, love. They are so amazing, and I enjoy every single second I spend with them.

I have been photographing Vanessa since Alina was in the belly. It’s so wonderful to watch this family grow. Vanessa has a wonderful blog that I follow called De Su Mama where she documents her love of everything from literature to her family. I was lucky enough to connect with them on a visit when they came out from their home in Nevada. I am proud that she decided to use these images for the branding of her blog and that she trusted me to bring her vision to life. Isn’t her family gorgeous!

Letty is one of my best friends from high school. We have kept in touch through the years  and I am in awe and completely inspired by the mother, wife and woman that she is.  I am so lucky that I have been able to document the girls as they grow.

I stopped by her house on the way home from vacation this summer. I was excited to see them.  We drove 8 hours  straight to get to them , we couldnt take any breaks because I did not want to waste any  light.  True and my hubby were pretty awesome to not complain lol!

She had told me there was some pretty spots around her house.  On the drive I tried to envision what it may be like….. Well,once I was in her gated community I was floored by the amazing surroundings. I was in picture heaven!   Her baby girls are so gorgeous, and she has a wonderful husband!  I had fantastic time. Best of all was getting to spend the evening together with my boys and her girls. Her are some of my favorites from the afternoon <3

***A note to Letty

Amiga, I just want to say I love you to pieces. Thank you for being the best friend a girl could ask for. I am so proud of all your accomplishments and where you are today. It’s more than we could have ever hoped to dream for laying on the floor as teenagers taking about the future… Te quiero por siempe.

I love and ADORE this family. There are no words that can describe how much it means to be there for them for all their most important moments. I met them when they were pregnant with their baby girl and now they have their son too. To watch them grow has been such an honor.

Several months ago as I decided to post a contest/giveaway for a deserving mom. I had been and still feel very blessed first of all to have the true chance, to be a MOM, and secondly to do what I love for a living practice the art of photography. Feeling so blessed, I decided to give a photo session with myself to the winner. I was looking for a mom that could appreciate the gift of being photographed, someone who wouldn’t necessarily have the budget or time to do a photo session with me. I posted the give away on my page and asked you all to nominate a deserving mom. The Jamie Cryderman family won the contest, she was nominated by her best friend Niccole for not only being a deserving mother, but in hopes that if she won the little fraction of time and interaction that is captured during a photo session would brighten her spirits. Jamie is a wife and mother of four, my decision on naming her the winner was because of the following: Life is a balancing act of work, family, friends, kids, and activities that fill our daily lives. Imagine adding to all of that a chronic illness, like Lupus. Lupus in short is a chronic inflammatory illness that affect various parts the body especially the skin, joints, blood, and kidneys. Lupus can make daily life very difficult because when it is active common symptoms include joint stiffness, pain, extreme fatigue, confusion, and depression. Imagine the stress of daily living especially with kids now add all of the above. Now comes one of the worst parts since Lupus has very few visible signs friends and even your family may be unaware of the amount of discomfort and pain the Lupus patient maybe suffering. Jamie has Lupus and and after learning of her story she was just what I was looking for, a deserving mother. The Cryderman family photo shoot happened at a local park and I want to say that Jamie is blessed with four beautiful children and a husband who adores her. I had so much fun with them. I joked and kidded with them the whole time. During their photo shoot I fell down a hill and landed on my camera. My camera survived for all of you who are wondering but I ended up with a grapefruit sized bruise and had the wind knocked right out of me. The only other time I had ever had the wind knocked out of me was when I was ten years old and had a group of cousins land on me as they rushed to get to the candy that had exploded from a piñata. Lol, the mental imagine of both these events makes me laugh. Needless to say I think the photo shoot was worth it because the pictures are priceless. I hope you love the images from my deserving mom contest as much as I do . If you want more information about Lupus please visit www.lupus.org