Tonight was so surreal. See that little guy sitting on dad's lap? Yeah, this was him two years ago. And now he has a new brother that could possibly be his twin. And then to see how the older two kids (I use "kids" for lack of a better term, I promise, G) have grown into handsome/beautiful young adults. I just kept having to rub my eyes and pinch myself. In mom's words when I asked her to describe her vision for the session: "...document where we are. son taller than his mom, but not dad. daughter getting so pretty and surviving as the lone girl. j being crazy. baby being snuggly." Is this for real? Is this what I'm going to be staring at in a few years myself (son taller than his mom???). Wow. I'm so not ready for that. But they are. And they take everything in with such grace and love. They set a pretty darned good example--well, minus the little run-in with a rogue stroller and a sidewalk. Yeah, other than that...pretty amazing.

If I'm being honest, driving out to their home tonight, I was soooooooo tired. I had my head buried in paperwork all day long and I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to muster the energy needed for 3 bubbly kiddos. But from the *second* she opened the door, I instantly felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I just knew we were going to have a great time tonight. And we did!!! Erin...I'm so thankful to know you and your family and I hereby promise (in public) that we *will* have a playdate before another year goes by!

I thoroughly enjoyed working and chatting with her tonight. Such an exciting time in her life as she finishes up high school and ventures off to a BIG city (as in New York big) to start following her dreams. But the more we talked, the more I realized that as much as things have changed since I was in high school, much more than that has stayed exactly the same. And that's really cool....

...because it makes me feel like I'm not quite as as old as I actually am. ;-)

Had to laugh: we rescheduled her senior portraits due to freakishly strong winds only to end up on a day that was just as windy ;-). But you know what? It worked out for us just lovely, I think.