the Henderson Family

Could this really be our fifth year photographing this lovely family?? The Henderson's have been with us since the very beginning. It has been a amazing to not only watch this family grow and change, but to also see our photography evolve from year-to-year. To be quite honest, I think dad Ronnie, actually enjoys these sessions more than the rest of the family--why else would he choose to do them on his birthday?? lol -- Miss Jaelynn, one of our most darling subjects, is no longer interested in childish, trivial props, like bubbles and faux, glitter snow...oh no, this young lady made it very clear that her sights are on Hollywood. Little brother, Zachary "Boo-Boo", is completely content with a stick and some dirt, oh and of course, Mommy must be within a stones throw of him at all times. Then there's Tanya, the getter of all the kisses, slobber, and other fun gifts that can be passed along with loving on mommy. What I love most about Tanya is her ability to laugh at it ALL.

Pulling it off---As moms we know that pulling off a family portrait is nothing short of rocket science. Seriously, there should be an award of some type. This is the usual family portrait scenario; we spend countless minutes scouring the sears catalog, or weekly Walmart circular in hopes of picking out those perfectly coordinated outfits, (which of course, never has our size in anything that we ultimately choose. So we decide to wing it, anyways who's gonna notice if its three sizes to big). Next we strategically plan nap time so as to have our precious children perfectly awake and ready to be all smiles for the portraits (again, this never works. Even if the child has religiously taken a nap at 2pm everyday for his entire 3 yrs of life, on portraits day he decides this will be the day he will make it the entire day without a nap, a new personal record). Ahh, then comes the always joyful combing of the hair. If we have managed to get to this point without a major meltdown by at least one family member we feel as though we may just be able to pull it off. Of course, that's just about the time that we notice that our delightful, precious four year old must have fallen asleep with the gum she has swiped out of our purse while we were dressing her little brother, and now we're frantically screaming for our hubs (who by the way, is usually downstairs in the recliner catching the last quarter of the football game) to grab some peanut butter, and the scissors on his way up (which most times will be that one pair of left handed scissors, that wouldn't even cut butter that we've had in the junk drawer for the past five years and keep saying we're gonna throw away). Finally, we toss everyone in the car, head out the driveway, when we remember we forgot the checkbook which is still sitting on the highchair next to little Billy's strained peas. We finally get in the car, buckle the seatbelt and take a long, deep breath, then it never fails, somehow between getting in the car and arriving for the session we end up having at least one noticeable stain on our perfectly matched sweater, our hair ends up looking like we had just rolled out of bed and possibly combed it with a fork. But then........the photographer a few weeks later, sends us that secret password and we view those portraits of our beautiful family and we once again, silently say to ourselves, "You are ahhMAZING"!! Followed by, "I am NEVER doing this again!!" lololol!! :o)