This family is like family to me. I find myself saying that about the majority of the people that I work with, but only because it’s true. My career as a photographer has unwittingly allowed me to be privy to some of the most intimate bonds among parents and their children, I see people when they are equally joyful and vulnerable because of that joy. And you don’t spend every year since *before* these little ones were even born photographing those interactions without becoming part of the family. Occupational bonus. I can’t put into words how much of a privilege it has been to watch these girls grow up before my eyes and in the process, become such close friends to their amazing parents. I tear up thinking about the very first phone call I had from Zeke all those years ago and comparing that to the gigantic smiles and huge hugs all around when I saw everyone again in Denver just a few weeks back. And then to get to work with the gorgeous Flatirons outside of Boulder, Colorado as my backdrop??? Blessed? Fortunate? Sublimely grateful? #allthefeels and yeah, definitely going to have to make Denver a repeat destination for family photography every summer from now on ;-). Who’s in?

As per usual, I had a hard time picking a favorite from this family session, so for grins, I’ll just go with THIS one.

Things you should know about this photo session:
1. These may be the most down-to-earth and laid back people I’ve ever met in my life and it is SO good for me to work with people like that. Their calm draws me in and makes me lighten up and see things that I might not have seen otherwise. I’m not sure mama realizes it, but it’s true.

2. The same thing happens when I’m lucky enough to have her as my yoga instructor at Modo ;-). And that’s why I love that place so much!

3. The breakfast tacos were a bit of afterthought, but it was perfect! During session planning, I asked her what they liked to do as a family and she half-jokingly replied, “Eat breakfast tacos.” Well, the early start to catch the sunrise began to take its toll on little man, so we decided to just give in and head over to grab breakfast tacos. I had no idea how CUTE and photographically awesome that place was. WIN!

4. I LOVE big sis’s freckles.

5. I also LOVE this pic totally improvised between mom & dad ;-).

6. That adorable fence where the kiddos are holding hands up there is now gone!!! It was a reminder of how quickly beautiful things come and go and how fast Austin seems to change sometimes.

The post I’m about to show you is probably one of the most incredible homes/properties I’ve ever had the pleasure of working in in Austin. SO much history with this home and it thrills me to think that there is a modern day family with their two energetic and happy little girls living here and enjoying every little charm this place has to offer. My jaw hit the floor over and over again with each little nook we got to explore and I just kept saying over and over again how lucky these children are to get to grow up in such a magical place.

One of the things that really struck me was how kids are kids, no matter what their environment…zooming down this elegant hallway on a stuffed zebra ride-on. How fun is that??????

And then we went outside…jaw on floor again.

Don’t miss my fav pic by this antique cart HERE.

It’s as if that gorgeous light was there as solely to enhance the magic and beauty of these sweeties and the property.

Once again modern + childlike meets historic + natural.

Even the pupsters put on some fun faces for us!

But the ultimate was this majestic old oak tree. Wow. Just wow!

Love that we got to go fishing ;-).

And also love her cute little face up there 😉

As much as I shared their love for this amazing place, I think what I loved most about this session was how down-to-earth and laid back mom and dad were. They were completely engaged with their kids and were game for getting on the ground to play with them throughout my time there. Sure, these girls are going to have wonderful memories in this home, but those memories will be mostly due to the fact that their parents helped make those memories *with* them!

Earlier this summer, we celebrated the anxious anticipation of the birth of these twins. And then a few weeks ago, I finally got to meet these girls! Any parent of multiples can tell you that raising newborn twins can be quite challenging and when you’re trying to do that while raising a toddler, things can seem pretty crazy at times. But this mommy and daddy were made for the job and they just took everything in stride, which made my job to document their lives with twins + a toddler all that much more fun. #1 bit of advice to anyone juggling life with twins is to maintain your sense of humor, as in exhibit A below:

We really did have to laugh because just as we would get all three kiddos calm and happy and picture ready, inevitably one would need something else. And it was perfectly okay for all of us to take plenty of snack breaks during the photo session ;-).

Oh, look at that perfect little newborn swirl. Sigh…

The two images of dad up there were snapped in quick succession. I didn’t realize I had gotten both of his PERFECT expressions until after I got home and flipped through the images. His face says it all, lol!

Oh, bless their pupster, who just wanted to be in every.single.picture. we took! Loved it!

We were finally able to convince big sister to be in on some of the family photos and truly, she was just as sweet as she could be to her baby sisters. It’s a lot to ask of any new sibling to accept a new baby into their home and she’s working through that times TWO. I saw mom and dad do an amazing job of making sure she was getting plenty of love and affection in spite of us oooohing and ahhhing over the babies and that is pretty spectacular. But personally, my fav big sister picture came at the very beginning of our session HERE.

And wow…how any newborn mommy can look this radiant–let alone a newborn mommy with twins–is beyond me.

I do love that we were able to give mommy some quiet snuggle time with just the babies.

I also love how each parent somehow got a clone ;-).

Everyone in this family of FIVE gets gold stars for doing a fantastic job throughout their photo session for sure!

So, a few years ago, I happened to experience on of my most favorite photo shoots of all time with this beautiful young lady and a butterfly ;-). I could not get over the fates at work when, as I was planning a spur of the moment trip to Denver, her mommy contacted me to let me know they were in Colorado and could we work out a new photo session because they now had a baby boy! Turns out that she is just as sassa-frassy as she’s always been.

It also turns out that baby boy is just as adorable as his big sister!

I was very excited to get to work at this crazy colorful spot in downtown Denver…loved it’s modern look with jagged lines and cool shapes. But it wasn’t without it’s challenges. Quite literally after I had taken but a single image, it started to rain on us :-(. We ducked under the cover of various overhangs, hoping it would pass. Eventually, the rain did let up…for a while.

Fortunately, this family doesn’t take long at all to warm up to the camera, so we were able to work quickly and still get amazing interactions with everyone in a short time. So, I wasn’t terribly worried when we saw the clouds rolling in again.

My favorite part of the session comes in the following series of images. Little guy is just learning to walk and he actually took a few steps on his own while I was luckily snapping away!

The looks on their faces says it all! He was so proud of himself and his sister was just as happy for him! It was precious! And sure enough, just as we finished those last couple of images, the storm *really* hit…it was like a Texas storm! Crazy lightning and a torrential downpour that wouldn’t let up! I was so happy we were able to squeeze in some amazing images with them before the storm sent us scattering to our cars ;-).

For one reason or another, we kept having to reschedule his newborn photo session. I actually think it worked out for the better because he was absolutely amazing during his shoot…so incredibly expressive and turning his head and following me with the camera, smiling and cooing and completely wrapping all of us around his cute little baby pinky. His big brother even let us take a few pics with him in between his busy schedule of watching the trucks on TV and playing with his blocks ;-). These boys are both so handsome! Well done! Another fav HERE.

[All images in this post by the amazing Jody Mack Photography in Charleston, SC. Thank you, Jody!!!!]

Oh wait. *I* said that. Seriously, WHAT was I thinking?!

NOTE: There’s a long-winded post following, but as part of my Pinkle Toes 10 Year celebration, I want to invite all of my friends and clients to join me in the 5th Annual Fight Like a Girl 5K on October 16th, 2016. I have team (Pinkle Toes Photography) AND from now through 9/14, you can get $5 off your registration. If you join my team, I don’t think you need to use the offer code, but if it asks for one, try EARLYBIRD. I would be more than honored if you and even your family would come run or walk this race with me. I know it’s a short window for that discount code, but it’s my hope that you’ll just impulse sign up with me and you won’t have time to talk yourself out of it. If you’ve never done one before, what a great time to start! I promise I’m going to be taking it easy, by the way, as this run is fresh off the heels of the Brooklyn Half Marathon the week before ;-).

Mkay, now for the post (oh, if you’re looking to update your running playlist, I’ve shared mine below!)…

So I’ve been talking off and on here about some big changes that I’ve made in my life over the last 1.5 years (barre and yoga) and I will admit to you on here I made those changes with the hopes of NOT having to run. But as I progressed in barre, I realized I was still missing something and once again inspired by my friend Leah, I decided to try to take up running. I guess that was Feb/March of 2015? I used to (half-heartedly) run cross country track in high school so I thought this would not be a problem for me. I guess I forgot how LONG ago that was, because just starting out trying to go one mile was a HUGE challenge for me. I was totally crushed to realize how difficult this was going to be for me.

After the first week or so of trying to run 1-2 miles a couple of days, I was pretty much done. But blast it if my friend Kate didn’t somehow convince me that it would be a wonderful idea for me to sign up to run a flippin’ HALF MARATHON (3M in January of this year). I really don’t remember what she said to sway me, but I did and *then* I used peer pressure to convince some other pals AND my sister (who has just done AMAZING things with her running) and even my 60-year-old super woman MOTHER to run it with me.

But this post is not about the half marathon. And it’s not about how wonderful running is because honestly this summer, it hasn’t been very wonderful for me *at all*. Instead, this post is about a few of the lessons running (or trying to run) has taught me over the course of 19 months:

1. Know your limits and work up to your miles gradually. I really didn’t think I would have to “learn” to run…human beings all know how to run, right? It’s like walking, but faster. Duh. And my super Type A (read: competitive) personality simply would not let this go and so I tried to push myself too far and too fast resulting in…
2. Injuries (they suck). So, on day one, I went out and bought the cutest running shoes I could find. Turns out, they weren’t actually designed for running, nor were they the correct size (too small), and I wound up with a stress fracture almost immediately. I did what everyone says NOT to do on an injury and tried to simply “run through” the pain and sure enough, that just made the stress fracture take even longer to heal. I went through two other pairs of shoes before I finally found ones that worked for me, but unfortunately, because I continued to push myself much too hard, thinking I needed to make up for lost time, I spent literally month after month (up until just this summer) painfully injured in one way or another. Which leads me to…
3. Foam rolling saves lives! Okay, maybe not literally, but close enough to me. Honestly, foam rolling looked pretty stupid to me and I didn’t see how that was supposed to be helpful with injury prevention until I (yet again) broke rule #1 and jumped from 8 miles to 12 miles with nothing in-between and completely messed up my IT band on both sides. Folks, I wouldn’t wish that kind of pain on my worst enemies. And it takes *forever* to heal. I ended up having to run my very first half marathon knowing that at any moment, that pain was going to come back, and sure enough, around mile 7-8, it pretty much brought me to my knees. I truly didn’t think I would be able to finish that race. I truly don’t know how I did. I truly wish that I hadn’t because it wasn’t until probably 4 months after where I could run even 2 miles pain-free. I finally broke down and bought a foam roller and let me tell you that it is my best friend and I spend time with it religiously. Also let me tell you that it was NO picnic when I first started foam rolling. It was incredibly painful and only just now after using it at least once a day (about 5 min.) consistently for 8 months do I not feel pain that makes tears well in my eyes. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? But it truly is worth it. I was pretty much convinced that my very short running career was totally over and I would never be able to run without pain, but I’ll have you know, I did a 10K Sunday and I was totally pain free!
4. You will PR quickly and frequently when you first start and that feels amazing…until you stop PRing. Some of you may have read about my recent blah runs on my Instagram feed (here and here). I was really tempted to not post those things because I don’t like to be negative and whiney and really, who wants to show their dirty laundry online? But let’s keep it real: I’ve put in hundreds of miles on my feet and not every run is going to be exhilarating. A fast run isn’t necessarily a successful run. A challenging run isn’t necessarily a failed run. And something else–and this is not meant to be discouraging in any way–but it never gets easier. The first 3 miles of any run are always super tough to me and that was tough for me to accept at first…I thought after doing this for a few months, I would just leap through all of my runs like a graceful gazelle. Sadly, that is not so, lol. This week, I’m pretty sure I reached the peak of running geek-dom when I started listening to running podcasts *while* running, but it’s been a wonderful, refreshing change and very so inspiring to hear that ALL runners, no matter how long they’ve been running or how far they’ve run, have had the same ups and downs as I’ve experienced. Knowing this encourages me to seek new motivations to run even after I’ve met certain goals. And to be kinder to myself, leading to…
5. After each run, take time to be grateful in your running and to yourself. As shallow as it sounds, I started out running merely to lose weight, but now, I’m *this* close to just getting rid of the scale in our house because being skinny just doesn’t mean that much to me any more. I want to be strong. I want to be healthy. I want to be happy. I want to be challenged. I want to be persistent. I want to win all the things. I want to fail and be forced to learn from those mistakes and try again. I want to properly appreciate this ability I have to run at this point in my life and I plan to take advantage of it as long as I am physically able. We end barre class by thanking our bodies and yoga with thanking ourselves and one another, so why shouldn’t we do the same when running? A new habit I am incorporating into each of my runs is to spend at least a couple of minutes at the end on these thoughts:
   1. This run is done and I’m glad I did it!
   2. I’m grateful for the opportunity to run. It is a privilege.
   3. Thanks to my body for working so hard and to my mind for supporting the journey.

And there you go, my thoughts on my running journey thus far. These may not apply to everyone, but I wanted to share them just in case it might be the push needed to inspire someone to keep moving even when they feel frustrated (“Forward is forward,” right, Kate?). Feel free to share any words of wisdom you have in the comments or if you can relate to anything I’ve written here, let me know! If you want to follow along with my ups and downs, visit #runpinklerun on Instagram.

I’m starting to get more excited about my next half marathon in Brooklyn in October! It’s so out of character for me to go out of town *just* for that, but I am so blessed to get to see and run it with my friend and inspiration, Lena! Oh, while I’m on that topic, I know I already mentioned a few people who have been super inspiring to me and there are a few more that come to mind: Regan, Pete, Laura G., Minnette (or should I say, Marathon Manet?), Elicia, Melonie & Zeke, and oh, my word, so many more that I just know I’m leaving out. They honestly may not even know how much they affected me, but they have and I just want to say thank you!

Again, I would LOVE to get to run the FLAG 5K with you next month, so please, please, please consider signing up. I was drawn to this particular race because of Lindsay’s story — melanoma devastated our family and the families of several other people I know. I very much appreciate what the H.O.P.E fund does for the families of cancer patients.

And finally, some of my favorite running songs! Be warned that I tend to get a bit angry while running (sometimes, you just have to) so many of these are NSFK!!! Any more I should add to this list?

I have been honored enough to follow your journey as a family through so many of the greatest joys and even the toughest times. It made my heart swell with happiness to get to see the fruition of your years of planning and saving and imagining to turn your home into the home of your dreams. You did an incredible job and you deserve ALL the time in the world to bask in the wonderful feel of it all. Enjoy these years as you continue to raise your kids there, relive the countless memories you made for them in this space when they one day move away, and–in the very distant future–create precious new memories while snuggling with your grandchildren on that couch. Welcome home. Again.

(Fav mother-son moment HERE).