So. Until this weekend I've never had a professional picture taken of our family. I know! I mean I take a ton of pictures of the kids - both crappy iphone ones:
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| If it fits it ships! |
And attempts at nice ones with the "real" camera:
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| Attempts. |
I've even had the posed at a mall portrait studio ones taken a few times:
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| Yeah it's been awhile. |
I try to get the family picture when it's appropriate:
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| We seem to have added a member... huh... |
And since the whole "
mom stays in the picture" movement I've made sure that there's at least a selfie of me to prove I was there:
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| terrible. but I exist! |
But I have exactly zero pictures of all of us that I would want to frame and put on the wall. And our poor third child is only represented like this:
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| At least he's there, right? |
So when
Valerie Gage of
I Heart Life Photography contacted me about doing a session I was SUPER EXCITED. Her work is fantastic and exactly the type of relaxed, quality images that I was looking for:
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| Photos by Valerie Gage of I Heart Life Photography. |
We talked about many different venues and ultimately decided on the Cleveland Art Museum. It's where we had our wedding pictures taken nearly ten (!!!) years ago so it was a nice symmetry to go back after all of this time with all of our kids.
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| 2004. |
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| 2011. |
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| Running around that same lagoon after our portrait session. 2014. |
Valerie is working on editing the images now but once I have them I'm sure I will post a belligerent amount. Also I will be offering a contest where you can win a photo session of your own so be looking for that in early June!!!
After the photo session I was all "We're dressed up! We look like a nice civilized family! We should go out to dinner in Little Italy!" Which rapidly turned into OH NO THE BOYS ARE WEARING WHITE SHIRTS WHAT HAVE WE DOOOOONE:
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| Bleach is my new bff. |
Afterwards we went to the little playground on Random Road to run off the pasta:
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| are you sick of seeing pictures of him in the Tomten yet? 'Cause I might never be. |
And then drove the kids through the city to see the new Playhouse Square Swag:
And Chandelier!
According to my daughter "that's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen"
It was a wonderful day and Valerie was great to work with. Yay for finally having some real pictures of our family!
Disclosure: I received the photo session from I Heart Life. All opinions are as always my own.
