I actually did two family shoots while I was in Anna last week, and I had to share a second sneak peek for the other family. By the time we got here the light was lower in the sky, warmer, less dramatic, and just gorgeous. I snapped several hundred pictures. It was so much fun watching the way this extended family interacted with each other, you could just tell they have a *lot* of fun. So many cool textures and gorgeous trees…and oh, oh, oh, did I mention the grass? They were apologetic for not mowing. I am SO glad they didn’t! It was gorgeous, tall, green, luscious, and very photogenic. *swoon*!

Y’all are beautiful EXACTLY as you are!

On Sunday we had a lot of fun working a local dog expo – the Dog Bowl at the Cotton Bowl. We had less than 24 hours to get our booth ready, so it was…um, a bit “stylistically challenged.”

But we made it alright! We took several hundred pictures of several hundred dogs and will spend the next several hundred hours editing, uploading, and sending them out to everyone who participated. Alright, alright…so it won’t *actually* take several hundred hours… ;)

Some of the dogs were cute. Some were funny. And some of the shots I got were so silly I wish they were my dog so I could print them out big and see them every day. Here are a few shots as well as a few entertaining outtakes…my favorite! It was *so* hot that day…lots of doggie tongues hanging out!

For those of you who know how often I move…not really. But it’s *gorgeous* up there.

[insert here admission that I am the worst blogger in history, along with obligatory promise to be better in 2010]

Alright, moving on! The end of maternity leave about a month ago snuck up on me, and I have some blogging to catch up on. Puppies, seniors, and this *swoon* gorgeous family. With the GREATEST. HAIR. EVER. Not joking! Look at their boys’ hair!

The mom called me on Friday afternoon from the highway. They were driving to Texas. Her husband was being deployed to Iraq…on Monday. They needed an emergency photo session because the photographer they had hired couldn’t do it, and they wanted pictures before his deployment. I moved some stuff around and drove the hour and half to the town where they met, grew up, and fell in love. We took pictures on acres of land where generations of their families have swung on tire swings and run through the tall grass.

Totally worth it.

I promised myself I would pick only 8 images for their sneak peek. I lied.

Monica: Thanks for reminding me why I do what I do.