i heart faces: hilarious outtakes!

it's the last week of i heart faces and they've decided to end the year with those photos that aren't picture perfect, but make you smile just the same. honestly, most of my outtakes get deleted in the editing process. i had some photos, though, that just make me laugh when i see them. so here are my five top outtake photos--at least, the five ones that i could most easily identify :)





i'm especially excited to see what the guest judges have to say this week! i regularly follow a couple of them and love their work. check out the other hilarious outtakes this week over at i heart faces.

i heart faces: pets only!

it's another pets week over at i heart faces, and as much as i love my pepper-dog and cats, my recent trip to disney's animal kingdom gave me a ton of photos to choose from! so for this week, i chose my favorite out of the bunch--a sweet moment between two hippos in the africa section of the park.

when we first got down to the observation area, it looked like only one hippo lounging under the water. but then we saw another one tucked in close beside, taking a nap. i'm not sure if it's a couple or a parent/child--but i just loved it. the colors of the fish swimming in the foreground and light coming in through the water also added to it, making it one of my favorite pictures from the trip.


head on over to i heart faces to check out the other pets pictures this week!

i heart faces: sweet dreams

this week's theme at i heart faces is "sweet dreams." as much as i wish i could use that photo of pepper and justin in bed, it won for the pets category and can't be reused. so i went back in my photo library and thought i would share a story that is close to my heart.

this is jonah.
jonah is the son of my dear friends, matt and patrice. i was able to capture jonah's birth (and as someone who hasn't had kids or experienced a birth before--can we say wow?) and then have continued to follow them on their journey as they learned jonah was diagnosed with epidermylosis bullosa.

this picture was taken when he fell asleep following one of his daily dressing changes--each limb and his stomach and shoulders stay wrapped with several layers of bandages and gauze to prevent blistering and protect his skin. you can read about patrice's adventures with jonah and taking care of him at their blog. there, you can also buy one of their magnets (another "we heart" thing!):
which contributes to debra.org, an organization dedicated to research for EB.

i love being able to tell jonah's story, and i always love being able to photograph him. he will never have perfect skin and he will face many challenges in his life. but the only downside to sharing a sleeping picture of him is that you can't see his eyes. jonah's amazing blue eyes show you he has hope. his smile shows complete joy and adoration for his parents. and i can't wait to take many many more photographs of jonah as he continues to grow and live out the amazing life God has planned for him.

check out the other sleepy photos at i heart faces this week :)

i heart faces: we heart tooshies!

i'll be honest--i really thought i had nothing for this week and was just going to sit out. i mean, where in my photo library do i have a tooshie-focused picture?

and then i remembered a photo in one of the recent shoots i did that might just fit the bill--
this is silas (featured in the bubbles week photo, too) and his "motorcycle." he loves that thing and will ride it all over the place. one of the best home videos that his dad recorded was after they watched the x-games on espn and then silas made his own motorcycle ramp out of pillows and did stunts just like the big guys on TV.

so there it is. the only tooshie i feel like featuring on the blog :)

check out the other tooshies this week over at i heart faces!

i heart faces: sun flare

this week at i heart faces, they're focusing on the love of the sun flare. i had one photo that immediately popped in my mind, so i went back to this time last year and one of my favorite family shoots...


i love all sorts of sun flares--the starburst kind are great, but the elusive rings are just awesome. and his expression of joy and laughter--well, you can see why this was the image that i thought of.

head on over to "i heart faces" for more sun flare fun this week!

i heart faces: autumn beauty

i'm back in for another week at i heart faces. this week's theme is autumn beauty, and i loved the photos that i took a couple of weeks ago of my good friend lisa and her family. the setting was just beautiful and just epitomizes fall for me. this was one of my favorite moments from that morning--honestly, i had a hard time choosing...

the kids are so nonchalant here, and i love little matthew finding the camera and showing us his gorgeous blue eyes.

head on over to i heart faces to check out the other fall photos this week!

i heart faces: halloween dress-up!

monkey see, monkey do...




rhys is at that perfect age where he wants to be just like his big brothers. and just like his big brother before him, he gets to make an appearance in the monkey costume this halloween. he was just adorable and gave me some big smiles! many thanks to rob and kim for letting me borrow him :)

and just for fun, i get to share my pumpkin puppy. pepper was just a few months old when i took this picture last year, and the halloween t-shirt was just the beginning of my love affair with dog clothes.


check out the other spooky, fun, halloween photos over at i heart faces!

i heart faces: pink week

it's pink week over at i heart faces, and i scoured my photo library to find a good selection. i don't have any pictures from breast cancer events specifically, but i love attending our local relay for life event every year. and as i was going through my photos from the past couple of years of relay for life, this one jumped out at me...

i don't like cancer either. i've seen it take the lives of family members and friends. i've watched others fight it, win the battle and go on living their lives as survivors. and with breast cancer in particular, i've supported my aunt and other relatives in their diagnosis and treatment. it is often treatable and the most important tool in fighting it is early detection.

please do regular monthly exams and your annual physical with your doctor. support cancer research through programs like relay for life with the american cancer society or breast cancer research with the susan g. komen foundation. click daily on the breast cancer site to help fund mammograms (or purchase things through their store--i bought several of my christmas presents through their website last year and saved rainforest land, but it can go towards the breast cancer fund as well if you go through their particular store.)

and finally, check out the other "pink week" entries at i heart faces this week!

i heart faces: excited

it's been a while since i've featured molly and lily on the blog, so i figured this was the perfect picture for this week's theme--excited!
lily's expression is priceless here! so animated and cute. i loved the colors that we used for this shoot and the urban setting. no one would believe that it was a gross cloudy day in march and we were wrapping the girls up in their jackets in between locations.

be sure to check out the other excited pictures over at "i heart faces" this week!

i heart faces: blue

i have lots of pictures that could have qualified. shades of cerulean ocean. carolina blue sky. turquoise-tinted rooms or crisp lakes in deep depths of navy.

but my favorite shade of blue comes in smaller forms :)
thanks for sharing those beautiful blue eyes with me, josh :)

check out the other "blue" entries over at i heart faces this week!

i heart faces: candid

when you're on a trip with 30-some teenagers, the bus breaks down and you're stuck in mcdonald's parking lot...

what do you do to pass the time?




check the cell phone/blackberry.

head on over to "i heart faces" to see the other candid photos this week!

i heart faces: contemplative

for this week, i went with one of my favorites from a recent senior shoot i did. meghan has a gorgeous smile, but when i asked her for a more serious, thoughtful face, she easily made it happen. i love the close-crop in this one, the colorful bracelets and background and the beautiful details around her eyes.


and for the pets entry this week, i gave another canine some attention this week! i have tons of photos of my girl pepper, but this picture of cooper, a basset hound, just seemed fitting for the already contemplative week.

check out the other contemplative entries over at "i heart faces" this week!

i heart faces: nostalgia

every day, we're asked to be mature.

grow up.

put your big girl panties on and deal with it.

suck it up.

roll with the punches.

go with the flow.

move on.

but every now and then...

wouldn't it feel good?

wouldn't it be cathartic?

to just have a big ol' crying fit like we used to?



now that's nostalgia :)

check out other nostalgic entries over at i heart faces this week!

i heart faces: bubbles!

my other "bubbles" option was a photo of my brother and sister-in-law leaving their wedding surrounded by bubbles, but i just wasn't feeling it.

so when in doubt--borrow some kids and try again :)
silas was more than happy to give me some great faces as we played with bubbles in their backyard. check out the other "bubbles" entries over at i heart faces!

i heart faces: crazy silly funny face!

it's time for another week of photos over at i heart faces and i had fun picking out my entries for the two categories this week.

this is one of my "out takes" from david and lynn's photo shoot a couple of months ago with newborn joshua. at this point, we were going on about 2 hours of shooting and david was getting a little silly. and i just kept shooting. my favorite part of this picture is lynn's reaction to david's crazy face, and then josh just watching the whole thing from their arms!




this is a non-judged category, but i liked the different perspective on this picture. nothing makes pepper-dog happier than riding in the car with the window down...


head on over to i heart faces to check out the rest of this week's photos!

i heart faces: at the beach!

it took me a little while to find a picture for this week's theme, which was kinda surprising considering how much we're at the beach during the summer. i guess i like to take a lot of landscape photos there :)

but i saw this one and after a little bit of tweaking in photoshop (love both pioneer woman's and coffee shop's actions!) i thought the colors just popped.

this is my darling husband, justin, and his nephew, tyler, in the background. i love both of their expressions--they were having a blast boogie-boarding and caught some great waves that day.



check out the rest of this week's beach pictures at "i heart faces"!

i heart faces: feet!

when i first heard that this week's theme was feet, i couldn't help but think of this photo. this is a family with three boys under the age of 5 (well, when this picture was taken. the oldest just turned 5 a few weeks ago) and their dad is known for wearing converse chucks everywhere. they showed up for their family portrait session all in chucks, and i thought it was the cutest thing. i love the rolled-up cuffs on their jeans, how one pair is in motion, ready to run (and he was! we chased him around that day and had a hard time getting a shot that wasn't blurry) and the little baby chucks up on the bench.

the mom loved it, too. this shot is hanging above their fireplace!

make sure you head over to "i heart faces" to check out the other entries for feet this week!

i heart faces: sports in action

i had almost forgotten about my pictures from the ecu homecoming game last fall that i could use for this week's challenge: sports in action! this is one of my favorites--you can see the energy of the team ready to take the field, and i love that drew steele (a young man with down syndrome who is on the sideline at all ecu games) is included in the huddle before they run on, with skip holtz (our head coach) leading the way.

check out more at "i heart faces" this week!

i heart faces: pets!

it's another entry for "i heart faces" this week--and this is one of my favorite pictures of pepper dog.

i took this one on a lazy saturday and managed not to wake my darling husband in the process. she really is such an adorable dog with so much personality.

head over to "i heart faces" to check out more pictures of pets and sports in action!

"wedding bells" week at i heart faces!

it's my first time entering the weekly contest over at i heart faces, but the wedding bells theme is one that i knew i could work with!

so i pulled out this one out from last year. alan and rachel actually just celebrated their first anniversary, but it's still one of my favorite shots.



head over to i heart faces to see the other wedding themed pictures!