Remembering When

I've never been one to get sad about our children growing up {yet} but I do enjoy capturing each of their various stages in memorable ways, so for each child I've always been sure to either take them to do a 6 mon. + 1 yr old professional photo shoot, or a 9 mon. + 18 mon. professional photo shoot. Since we live in Logan, that has always taken us to the convenient JCPenneys, but after Elyse's last 9 mon. photo shoot there, I knew that we were done. I was officially craving a look more our style....more modern and fresh, all while still staying timeless and classic. Thankfully, a friend of mine just had a wonderful turn-out at a studio called Camera Shy (located in Lehi, West Jordan, and Gardner Village) and since we were headed down to SLC anyway for the holidays, I jumped at the opportunity to book us a session!

Originally I was just going to have it be for Elyse....it landed on her 18 mon. milestone exactly! But when I learned it was the same price regardless of how many children, I decided to do our boys as well and oh.my.goodness. Can I just say how pretty much every.single.shot of them turned out amazing?! Those of us with kids knows how hard that is! :O I don't know if it was their fun environment, or if our kids just like smiling better for real photographers, but I truly am in LOVE with the entire bunch of our 60 photos that were taken.

Another thing that's cool about them is their pricing. It's $89 per session (it was easy for me to find a $5 online coupon!) which includes a CD with all the photos and rights to re-print on your own. They'll also do prints at $5 per page (or larger if you'd like). We were running short on time on our pick-up day, but it was very inexpensive and easy for me to just hop onto to snapfish.com (they were running a 40% off entire site promo) where I ordered 80 4x6's, a couple 8x10's, 3 5x7's, and a 11x14 for $34...including shipping!!!! So, for $84 + $5 tip for photographer + $34 for a ton of prints = a total of $123 seems like a total deal to me!

While speaking of those adorable 3, here's some written snapshots of memories I know I'll forever want to remember....

Benjamin (5 yrs)
Has already figured that Santa isn't really real.
Asks what the weather is like every time we mention a different place (he's a planner like me).
Takes notice of all the little things...like when I was putting him to bed one night he said to me "Mom, I really like the Christmas towels you hung up in the bathroom." I just love how he notices and appreciates things like that. :)
Wants to take guitar lessons so that he can sing on the radio.
Jumps at the chance to pick out outfits for his little sister....he's been doing this for her ever since she was an infant!

Grant (3 1/2 yrs)
Sings me the song "You Don't Know You're Beautiful"...I die every time!
Is a math wizard.
Likes to help me bake and cook.
Laughs hysterically at the book Polar Babies (it's not suppose to be funny but it really is).
Every few days he'll fall asleep crazy early...like 6:30 pm and sleep until around 9 am the next day.
Remembers the songs he learns in Tumbling class and sings them while either standing on his head or chasing around his sister.

Elyse (1 1 /2 yrs)
Loves sliding down her new slide!
Is now a free roamer around our home....took down all of the baby gates last week!
Put away her high chair and replaced it with one of these floating chairs that we bought back when Benjamin was little (gives us back one of our dining room chairs!).
Happily dances whenever her brothers play the keyboard.
Delights in sledding and doesn't mind falling face first into the snow.
Yells "Mommmm-maaaaaay" quite frequently...as in, right now....

Hope you're all enjoying a fun start to the new year! So far I've spent 2015 de-cluttering, cleaning, and re-arranging. LOVE the feeling of NEW + CLEAN any way I can get it!