Ohhh, today is such a happy blog post! Not that any of them are unhappy, but this one is just plain cute. :)

Meet the men of the hour: fraternal twins Will (on left) and Ryan (on right). How adorable are they!? Just the sweetest things! They will be turning one year old in early June, so these are their first year portraits. :) We took a bunch with super cool mom and dad, too! Mom is the incredibly talented force behind Mae Armstrong Designs; she does custom invitations, stationary, and all sorts of really incredibly crafty projects. I am pretty much addicted to her Facebook fan page feed already as I envy anyone who can sew and has the ability to turn an old shirt into an awesome skirt. Really! And, if anyone is thinking Dad looks familiar, he’s the evening Sports Anchor on ABC11! How do I get such cool clients?!

Will and Ryan aren’t crafting or reading news prompters yet, but rest assured they are destined for greatness… but we’ll have to wait until they can walk first. For now, they’ll just sit around the NC State Arboretum looking really really cute:

Will: “Why am I sitting in this ivy?”

Ryan: “Who, me?”

This picture absolutely cracks me up. So – for those of you to do child portraits – you know that you’ll spend most of the session making goofy faces and sounds and pretty much standing on your head. Will and Ryan could see through my antics and the below picture shows them questioning the particular circus show I was performing at the time.

Ryan modeling his Blue Steel face.

True story: The bear below is none other than Snuggles. Yes, like from the dryer sheet commercials. When I was 5 years old my family took me to some Family Day type thing at the park, but you could enter your name into a contest to win prizes. However, the prizes were totally random (maybe they weren’t… I need my mom to help fill in some of these details), but long story short – I won… a hammer. Yes, the city officials gave a 5 year old a hammer as a door prize. Needless to say, I cried. A lot. Because what I had really wanted was Snuggles… and because what was I going to do with a hammer. So the officials gave in and traded the hammer out for Snuggles, and happily home I went. 20 years later, Snuggles now lives with us in North Carolina and has been re-purposed as a hand puppet for small children I photograph. He’s happy with his new job, and the kids love him. Way to go, Snuggles!

Vogue it, boys!

Aren’t these little gentlemen the cutest? You boys will look back on this twenty-some years later and your girlfriends will LOVE these! :D

the whiteheads are such an amazing family…two wonderful parents and 5 beautiful children! we had so much fun on our shoot last year and even more fun this year. this family is just great! we took the shots at nc state arboretum where the kids ran around and had a great time. it was crazy to see how much the kids had grown in just one year!

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the light was so nice because we shot in late afternoon…it went back and forth between cloudy and occasional warm rays of sun. it gave us a lot of nice summery-type light.

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this little girl is amazing! she was very opposed to getting her picture taken last year, then she came back this year and started requesting poses and backgrounds! it was hilarious…not only is she adorable, but we have the same name! ;)

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this little tot had a photoshoot all to himself due to the one-year-old-ants-in-the-pants-syndrome that caused him to be absent from some of the shots with his older sisters. :) but he sure knows how to work it for the camera when he sits for a while! look at those blue eyes!

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great great family….thanks, guys!

had a fantastic time taking portraits of the whitehead family, my wonderful returning clients, this evening at the NC state arboretum! they’re on a tiny bit of an editing waiting list at the moment, but here’s a sneak peak – a tiny one! :)

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