What they are giving their children is priceless: a home full of happiness and unwavering love.   It has been a tremendous privilege of mine to photograph their family connections since their daughter was just a baby in mama's tummy. (You may recognize them here).

Four years since I first met them, they now have three children, and Maria still mothers her family with pure love, grace, and beauty. She sets the mark for me as a mother myself. When we walked out to their garden that night, I didn't quite comprehend what I was about to witness until I saw the the pictures. Maria pulled out her face painting supplies (she mentioned that was one of the things they loved to do together) and set to work on creating artwork on each of her children. It was such a beautiful scene--and at the risk of sounding like an artsy goob, I teared up when I got a chance to flip through the images from that night. But really, I have to wonder if she has *any* idea the kind of memories she's creating for her children every time she does things like this for them. She exudes devotion as a mother and as a wife. She is my shining example of everything a mommy should be. I am honored to know her and proud to call her a friend.

Okay, well once I got over the fact that the little guy greeted me with, "Are you coming to clean the house today?" *then* I had fun. But my gosh, I don't think I've ever laughed and played so much in one session!!! Of course, part of the deal was that I had to let the kids snap a few pics:

Not bad work, huh?

See, I told you we had FUN!!!

One of the things that I find most fascinating is having the opportunity to photograph siblings of past newborn clients. I followed his older sister from newborn to one year and from the second I walked in for his newborn session, I could see the resemblance. It's AMAZING!!! I can't wait to see if he ends up with his big sis's beautiful locks, too. 

As if it was the "yang" to this "yin," we celebrated his 1 year birthday by seeing just how much color we could find in downtown Austin. We truly did not have to go far--that's just one of the many, many things I love about this city...it is so rich with vibrant color and texture! He was so expressive and that boy TORE into his cupcake. Lucky for us, there was a hose nearby where we could clean up our mess. Probably one of my favorite parts of the session was watching mom and dad work together on that task as a team.

Sometimes, you can strip away all of the color and hip, Austin backgrounds and wind up with something so simple, yet so beautiful. A little green oasis tucked away in Austin with a warm, glowing sunrise made for the perfect playground for this family photo session. They looked beautiful!