We met up for this newborn photo session in South Haven at the park and the morning light was amazing. South Haven before the rush of the season kicks off is so peaceful and pretty. We were able to get a lot of great shots of Brooklyn and the weather was perfection.

I’m so happy Mike and Jordan asked me to do photos of Brooklyn and Natalie. They are an amazing, laid back family full of love. Jordan makes having a newborn look like a breeze and she’s such a natural go with the flow mama. Mike just rolls with it and makes sure his girls are well taken care of. I look forward to watching this family grow in the coming years!

The Essenburgs are quite the talented bunch. Eric has pottery and guitars galore so it was really awesome to incorporate a lot of their life into these newborn photos. I absolutely love the freedom and challenge that comes with working in a small unknown space to create some magic.

Eric had some super cool things we used for the baby, including his guitar case and head wraps. I think it always helps keeping babies calm when you keep them in their own environment and do an in home newborn session as opposed to taking them to an unfamiliar place.

Again, thank you Elicia and Eric for having me capture this special time in your lives growing your family. It was an honor to come to your home to photograph Elena! What a Christmas miracle!

Kate and Annie are the best big sisters of all time. They have such a love for their new baby brother, and look at him so lovingly in admiration, but are so sweet and gentle with him. They did such an amazing job of holding him for photos and their smiles were out of this world! Momma did some practicing with them! It was fun catching up with their auntie Melissa as well who did a fabulous job on their hair.

We did some lifestyle newborn photos of baby ty in Becca’s home as well as some outdoors in the yard to get a good variety. In either setting I love all the baby details of the little feet and momma holding him. Ty did pretty good considering we definitely moved him around a lot and his sisters were loving on him throughout. I’m sure he was exhausted after his big photo shoot. We managed to get a lot of photos taken in a really short amount of time. We didn’t do much posing, but focused mainly on the siblings with their new baby brother.

Becca is such a great mom raising such a fierce tribe. I’m so happy for her to have both her girls and a baby boy now too! It was an honor to do these lifestyle newborn photos at their home. Newborn babies always seem to take my breath away at how tiny and mighty they are at the same time. The time just goes so quickly.

The past couple of months we’ve just been settling in to being a family of four. I’ve been overwhelmed many moments by feelings of gratefulness and blessing, and I’ve also been overwhelmed by feelings of exhaustion. Our daughter has taken on the role of big sister so beautifully. She is finally spreading her wings a little bit and gaining some independence. Our little Mr Jaxson is cool as a cucumber, the opposite of his sister. I had heard about babies like him. It was an odd feeling when we brought him home and he just slept instead of cried like his sister. He came into the world basically sleeping through the night which is so phenomenal. I keep waiting for the other shoe to fall, but he’s just a happy, smiley, laid back little guy so far. It’s been a learning curve going places with two kiddos. It’s a little intimidating honestly and didn’t help that he was not a fan of his car seat until recently.

So while I’m busy raising these two little precious peanuts I am indeed still taking many, many photos. My sessions have shifted in the years. I originally got into photography many moons ago to photograph my dog, Kippy. I loved street photography and photographing life in the real world. While I enjoy the cute posed thing when I can get it, and I do have studio lights and backdrops and soft boxes and umbrellas, my camera just goes along in the diaper bag these days. I click fast and try to soak in the moments. Here is a bit of our past couple of months: