On September 4th, our adorable little niece Makena was born!  It’s been so crazy I haven’t had much time to look through the zillions of photos until now so I’ll try to keep it to a minimum, but I’m just going to warn you that it was really hard so there’s a lot :-)

Couldn’t resist including this one.  I shot this just after Jim came into the waiting room to tell us she had been born – the proud new Grandparents full of smiles! 

She was born at 6:54am – 8 lbs, 5 oz and 21 inches long

My beautiful sister and her brand new baby girl :-)

Here’s one with the new Daddy too!  They look just a little exhausted after being in the hospital with no sleep for more than 24 hours.

A Daddy-Daughter moment :-)  SO CUTE!

A few new baby details:

Nice and comfy all snug in her blanket . . .

Another shot of mommy and baby:

Makena decided she needed to open her eyes for just a little bit and check out her new family.  SO CUTE!

And of course, the proud new Uncle & Aunt!  We were seriously soooooo excited :-)  And we still are!

Amy and Makena went home from the hospital on Sunday and after giving them a week to relax, we decided to come by and visit.  Since I’m so behind in posting these, I figured I’d throw in a few new ones while I’m at it :-)  (Wow – I just realized I’m using A LOT of smiley faces in this post!  What can I say – I love being an Aunt! ;-)

Amy had her all dressed up in a purple dress for us . . .

Here’s a shot of her Daddy kissing her goodnight – so sweet :-)

Makena pretty much slept the whole time we were there, but she did wake up for a little bit to get changed.  I totally love both of these :-)

And then of course, she ate some dinner and returned to her “milk coma” as Amy called it.  Looks pretty relaxed, huh?  Love it!

Congratulations Amy and Jim!  We love you guys so much and are so excited you’ve brought such an adorable blessing into all of our lives.  To Makena: we are so proud to be your Aunt and Uncle!  Can’t wait for you to get bigger so we can all go out and play and do all kinds of fun things together!  Oh and try not to run away every time you see us with a camera – we’re going to be taking ZILLIONS of photos of you for a long, long time :-)

In July, I gave Ryan tickets to a Diamondbacks game as part of his birthday present so today we headed out to Chase Field to see the hometown D-Backs take on the Cincinnati Reds.  I should preface this post by saying that I’m not exactly a baseball “fan”.  I usually work or take a nap when Ryan is watching a D-Backs game, but I must admit I had a really fun time today :-)  Of course I did have the camera to entertain me during the slower moments!

I had no idea when I bought the tickets that it was Dan Haren bobble-head night, but I am proud to say that we came home with two of them.  Here’s Ryan looking ever so proud of his new prized possession.

A few of my favorite shots:

A little fan cheering for her team.

This guy sitting near us was keeping score in his program.  I kept thinking to myself, “Doesn’t he know that there’s a GIANT hi-def screen up there that does that for you?”

Baseball does have some odd traditions though – I mean how often in life do you see a taco running across a baseball field?  SERIOUSLY.

Love this one – if you look really close you’ll notice that Stephen Drew is blowing a bubble :-)

Here’s Ryan again – looking very intense during the final inning.

Sadly, the D-backs won’t be counting today’s game in the win column, hence Ryan’s expression in out little self portrait . . .

But there’s always next game :-)

On Saturday, Ryan and I had the pleasure of shooting the wedding of Kevin & Elizabeth.  We had a blast shooting their bridal portraits just last week even though somehow it feels like it was A LOT longer ago than that!  (Check out those photos HERE!)  This gorgeous couple became man and wife at the Mesa Temple at about 10am.  It was a scorcher here in Phoenix, but these two and their families were so wonderful to work with, despite the heat!  Such nice families!  Everyone was so sweet and so genuinely happy for the couple.  It was really an honor to be apart of such a special wedding.  Here are some of our favorites from their day:

The day began at the East/Mesa Hilton where Elizabeth was preparing for her day.  This location had special significance to us because it’s where we first met with them AND where we got married back in 2004 :-)  Awwww (how cute, right?)  Here’s a shot of Elizabeth getting her hair done – how cute is she?

The Dress.

The Shoes.

The lovely bride – all smiles :-)

Kevin kept sending over silly text messages . . .

A shot of Kevin waiting to drive his Bride-to-be to the Temple.

Married!

Couldn’t pass up a silly shot of the whole group :-)  Wahoo!

They rented an AWESOME corvette to serve as their chariot for the day.

After doing portraits out in the heat, everybody got to relax for a few hours before the reception later in the evening.

I just loved the custom Jones Soda bottles they had made!

And they bought matching Converse for their nephews – AWESOME! 

LOVE this!  Right after cutting the cake they both warned each other to behave . . . 

So much for the warning! :-) 

The first dance . . .

Congratulations to Kevin and Elizabeth!  We had such a great time working with you guys and we hope you’re having an awesome time on your honeymoon!  Best wishes for a long and happy life together :-)

**** CLICK HERE to see a slideshow with tons more great shots from their wedding day!