I had a great time in Sacramento this week for baby M.’s newborn session.  She was so full of smiles!  Typically, I’m lucky to catch even one smiling picture, but with her session, she was smiling left and right!  Here are three favorites for a little sneak peek…

My son turned six last month and I had tons of fun planning a camping themed party for him!  If you follow me on Pinterest, you probably already know that I’m a bit obsessed with party planning.  I was really excited with how this party came together… Lots of work but it paid off when my little Gavin told me that his party ROCKED! 

I ordered the invitations and all the tags from BrightSide Prints and was so pleased with how everything turned out.  Jill did an amazing job designing everything!   

I forgot to take a detail shot of the ”Camp Gavin” banner, but the middle flag says “established 2006″… thought that was so clever and cute!

I made the cake with homemade chocolate mousse (try this recipe!!!) and saved some marshmallow ghosts from Halloween for the party.  I was definitely planning ahead!  The acorn idea was a Pinterest find and they were super easy and REALLY yummy!

The s’mores bar recipe was the BEST bar recipe I have ever eaten (if you’re a fan of s’mores… which I am!  Try it!).  Recipe found HERE.

The camp cookies were purchased on ETSY here.  I’m not usually a fan of sugar cookies, but these were seriously delicious!

The fort kits were the take home gift… They ended up being quite a bit of work, but after hearing from party guests about how much they have enjoyed them, I decided that it was worth it!

Each kit included a sheet with grommets on the corners (my awesome hubby did all the work on those!), rope in different lengths, clothespins, clamps, suction cups, and a flashlight.

I love how this girl one turned out!

The day of the party turned out to be bright and sunny but very, VERY windy.  That combo caused all the chocolate to melt and everything to blow all over the place, so I ultimately had to bring everything inside… try to ignore the cluttter in the background!  I like how the mason jar drink cups turned out and the paper on them doubled as a place to write their names and keep track of which drink was for each child!

I also bought some plain muslin bags online and then stamped on each of them… aren’t the little tags cute?  (also from Brightside Prints.)  The Trail Mix Bar turned out to be a huge hit with all the kids!

For the craft project, the kids decorated pet rocks. 

The big finale was the marshmallow shooters (my hubby also made and spray painted all ten of these!  He was so helpful with the party planning and ran the party while I was running around like crazy taking pictures!).  The kids had a little marshmallow war in the backyard.  SO fun!!!

Whew!  Aaaaaaand now to plan the next party!  Hahaha!

I was talking to another photographer about fun urban locations in Sacramento and I realized that I never blogged the session that I wanted to show her… so here it is!  Noelle graduated last year and was one of my senior reps.  She is a total natural in front of the camera, so this session was super fun!  We kept shooting until it was too dark to take anymore pictures!  Here are my absolute favorites from this session…

Jocelyne and Paul were married at the LDS Sacramento temple back in December… yes, I am WAY behind on blogging!  Their wedding day was absolutely gorgeous and I felt honored to be a part of it.  Here are some favorite images from their big day…

My sister and her family visited us here in Monterey last week and I talked her into doing some maternity portraits.  I’m so glad she agreed!  She is always so beautiful when she’s pregnant and who can pass up having pictures taken in the beautiful Monterey/Carmel area?  I can hardly wait for her new baby girl to arrive in May!!

One of my new year’s resolutions for 2012 is to do a photo shoot of one or all of my children each month.  It’s my solution to the whole “the cobbler’s children have no shoes” theory (which I am totally guilty of!!).  I thought it would be fun to choose a theme each month to make it a bit more interesting, so January’s theme was “glitter”.  I took my oldest daughter, Kate, out for a super quick photo shoot… it was seriously about 15 minutes and we just walked down the street to the park, but I totally love the pictures we were able to capture!  And she had lots of fun playing with the glitter.  Check out my favorites…

This one is going up on the wall, for sure!  LOVE!

It was SUCH a treat to travel from Monterey over to Rocklin to photograph newborn twins, Lincoln and Isla!  They could not possibly be any cuter and I had such a fun time at their session (truly, I love photographing newborns!!!).  At just barely a week old, they were super sleepy and the session went amazingly well.  They were born just three days before Christmas, so I had to work the santa hat in there, too… I’ve got a TON of favorites, so here’s a little picture overload for ya!Gotta love a smiley newborn!  Check out the dimple… I’m a total sucker for dimples!!!

I love when my wedding couples opt to do a bridal session together before their big day!  It makes the wedding day so much less stressful, since there’s more time to visit with friends and family, rather than spending tons of time posing for pictures… We’re able to get in some extra locations and do the session close to sunset, when the light is soft and beautiful.  Jocelyne and Paul were married last month and their bridal session was so much fun to photograph!  The light was unbelievable that afternoon!  I had a fun time getting to know the two of them before their wedding and we had a chance to get some great shots.  I had a really hard time choosing which pictures to post on here… there were SO many good ones.  Aren’t they just the cutest couple?!  I adore photographing people so in love!