A slightly belated Happy Father’s Day goes out to all the awesome Fathers out there – especially ours!  Here’s a Dad’s day portrait of one of our two favorite Dads – my Dad, Dan :-)

On Sunday, Ryan, Molly and I headed over to my Dad’s house to have a little BBQ in celebration of Father’s Day!  Ryan shot this one of me and Molly as we were getting ready to head out.  Aren’t we cute?  Couldn’t resist posting it . . .

Ryan made his SUPER YUMMY mashed potatoes.  My favorite!  While the boys were out at the BBQ my sister Amy and I decided to do some pre-dinner sampling.  She’s 27 weeks pregnant so she has a pretty good excuse for being impatient!  I on the other hand just really love mashed potatoes . . .

 Some deliciously colorful veggies ready for the grill.

Here’s my bro-in-law Jim hard at work on the BBQ.  Careful - those are some hot peppers! 

There was a bit of Father’s Day drama when we discovered a nest of baby birds in a nearby bush.  My Dad’s dog Sassy proceeded to snatch one of this little guys brothers out of the bush.  It was so sad!  The whole group was horrified! 

Here’s a shot of the whole group watching to see if the mommy bird would come to the rescue of the other baby bird.  Doesn’t it look like the scene of a serious accident or something?  Everybody looks so worried!  Don’t worry though – the little bird was okay :-)

Poor Sassy was in the “dog house” for the rest of the evening . . .

Ryan and I are both SO excited about becoming an Aunt and Uncle!  All night long, I was trying to feel my little niece move.  She never did co-operate, but I guess I still have a few months left to get my sneak peak.  Stubborn little girl!  What can I say – it runs in the family :-) 

And of course, we have to close with a shot of Dad with his daughters, son-in-laws and grand-kids (one grand-kid is in Amy’s belly and the other one, of the furry variety, is on the right)!

By the way, Jim hates having his picture taken so he always feels the need to make a face or do something else equally silly . . . way to contribute bro :-)

Happy Dad’s Day everybody!

After we shot family portraits for the Cummins/Mecham family a few weekends ago, April asked if we’d come make another attempt to get some portraits of just her and the kids.  So last Saturday we made the trek out to their home in Queen Creek to shoot part II.  For the first attempt, we were shooting at Val Vista Lakes so their were lots of distractions for Dylan and Ashton (four and two years of age) and seven month old Avery.  We always recommend an in home shoot when photographing small children - kids are much more likely to be themselves at home, especially at such a young age.

Even at home, there’s only so much posing that kids will stand for!  Here are my favorites of the whole family:

Both of the boys expressions in this next one crack me up!  Boys will be boys :-)

Since the sitting option only lasted so long, we asked them all to walk together . . .

. . . which turned into a race and then ended with this :-)  Hilarious!

Ryan and I had lots of fun just following the kids around and watching them play.  Last time, Ashton was a little shy around us, but he sure showed his photogenic side this time!

He looks deceptively worn out in this shot, but believe me he was outside on the trampoline a few minutes later!

Dylan was super excited to show off his room – he gave us a tour of the whole house :-)

Dylan and cute little Avery.

How cute is she?  So pretty in pink!

Ashton loves basketball – check out this game face!  Could there be an NBA career in his future . . . 

And of course, we couldn’t help but join the boys on the trampoline :-)

So much fun!  It was really great spending a few hours in their world.  Once it got dark, we headed home, our feet in desperate need of a good scrubbing and only a little exhausted :-)  Thanks to April, Dylan, Ashton and Avery for a fun afternoon!

Ever since the launch of Simply Knot Photography, we’ve been not so patiently waiting for our phone contract to expire so we could upgrade our phones.  Many of our clients reach us via email and it’s always been difficult to respond to email inquiries when we’re out and about during the day.  Last Saturday we FINALLY made the switch over to two Samsung Blackjack II smart phones!

These handy little phones have web browsing and email capabilities so we can stay in touch with our clients 24/7!  On top of that they come with lots of other fun features like a 2.0 mega pixel camera, a super cool program that analyzes music to tell you what song is playing, and the ability to use our own mp3 music files as ring-tones and alert sounds.  I have to say, I love that my phone says, “How you doin’?” every time I get a text message!  (For anyone who doesn’t know us all that well, Ryan and I are HUGE fans of Friends so having Joey Tribiani greet me with his traditional catch phase is always a thrill. :-)

Also, I have always been kind of a lazy “texter”.  Seems like way too much work to hit one key a zillion times to get to the letter you want.  I usually get annoyed half way through and just call or email the person.  Now that I have a full keyboard to play with . . . I may never actually TALK on the phone again!

What can I say, it doesn’t take much to make us happy!