This is Binky.  He’s our family Elf on a Shelf.  Despite what you’re most likely thinking, no… he’s not a trapeze artist, even though he’s always had an urge to run away from Santa’s workshop and join the circus.  Nope, he’s just one of the many elves who report to Santa’s ear the behaviors of many a child from all over the world.  This little guy (and I do mean little) was assigned to my family.  He came to live with us last year.  He arrived by mail on the day we moved into our new house, complete with a letter from Santa and everything.  My kids love that Binky is here to spy on them and bring a little Christmas magic into their lives!  They were beside themselves with excitement when Binky popped back into their lives a couple of weeks ago for Christmas ‘09!

Yesterday Binky surprised us all when we found him dangling from the fan… I guess he was trying to get a good look at the kids that day.  Who knows?  Wonder where he’ll end up next… Hmmm!  Only time will tell!

Edited To Say:  Help B + B receive a FREE 5×7 by commenting on this blog post…  They only need 25 comments!  So, please, leave a note and let them know how fab they look! 

Wow!  The session from yesterday evening was wonderful in so many ways…  The clouds provided the perfect filtered light.  The candles provided the perfect amount of romance to compliment their sweet relationship.  And, the happiness and love that these two exuded was incredibly uplifting.  Congrats, B + B… I’m sure your upcoming destination wedding will be completely wonderful and magnificantly beautiful!

Here are just a few many of my faves:

I love it when I get some laughter… Always makes me smile!

A change of outfits… and, voila!

Okay.  I’m gonna leave you hanging now… There are so many more I’d love to share, but I really want to keep some of my other favorites unseen until B + B get to see their gallery!  Sorry… please forgive me!  ;)

xox, reata

These past few months feel like one never ending children’s birthday party where I’ve been playing pin-the-tail on the donkey and someone has blindfolded me, spun me around several times, and yelled GO!  I’ve been so busy with all the holiday sessions, destination sessions,  holiday orders + cards, 2 of my kids birthday parties, Thanksgiving, Christmas shopping…  the list goes on and on.  But, although it’s been a whirlwind of a fall season, I’ve somehow managed to keep my sanity and enjoy myself!  

Life is grand.  Here are some random photos from my life I haven’t had time to share with you, until now.

I took this over the Thanksgiving holiday of my three girls…  Check out the wide range of emotions A2 displays in only about TWO mintues time!  What a hoot!

The photo I used for A2’s holiday themed birthday party invite…

An impromtu photo shoot while the girls were scouting locations with me one afternoon…

And, I also have to mention that this afternoon I had an AWESOME engagement session with two totally sweet and obviously in love people…  Here is a completely random sneak from their session!  I can NOT wait to post more from it tomorrow when I’m not so dead tired!  I’ve been thumbing through their images tonight trying to pick out my faves and I can tell it’s going to be hard to narrow it down for their real sneak…  :)  

I don’t know how it happens, or why it happens, or if it’s just my imagination for that matter… But, I seem to always get the HAPPIEST babies EVER during my photo sessions!  This sweet little lady just turned one and proved to be one of the most smiliest (is that even a word?), bouncy, cuddly, cheerful babies out there!  Seriously, she was just too. much. fun!!  And, even though we pushed her session to the max amount of time (a FULL two hours!), she never ever shed a tear or gave a frown.  Just pure bliss.  I fell in love instantly and wanted to take her home in my pocket (and/or carseat) so she could come play with my 2 year old, A3.  And, because she was such pure bliss, I knew I’d love her images just as much as I loved being around her (and her mom and dad, might I add)…  

So, even though it was hard to narrow it down, here are some of my faves!

As soon as I saw her strike this pose, I thought to myself: Holy cow, did she reeeally just do that dance pose?  Apparently, she did!  My camera doesn’t lie!

And lastly:

xox, reata

… and unbelievably adorable! 

From the moment I saw these three little cuties (who happen to be my sweetheart neices) in their session outfits, I knew I’d fall in love with their entire gallery of photos!  And, of course, I did!  I could hardly even choose which ones to blog about because I love them all so much!  And, knowing how sweet and cute these little girls were being during their session made me fall in love even more.  They were so proud to be my ‘models’ and did such an amazing job listening to EVERYthing I said to do so intensely and did it all spot on!

Here are some more of my favorites from their session:

I seriously love this next one…  A-DOR-A-BLE!

And lastly:

Good job, E, A, and C!  Love you!

xox, reata

Can I get any luckier?  I mean, honestly, I feel like I have THE best job in the entire world…  I get to explore parts of the city I never knew existed looking for cool locations, work with fabulously awesome families, and create fun, heartwarming images that will be cherished for a lifetime!  And, to top it off, everynow and then, I get to share my passion with some of my friends….  And, that makes me VERY happy!  

The session in this blog post today features my good friends (and now clients!)…  The G Family!  Our family met them a little less than a year ago, but I tell you… It honestly seems like we’ve known them forever!  The are that kind of family.  You know, the family that other families are drawn to…  Honest, fun-loving, hard-working, kind, and loyal.  I was delighted when Momma J asked me to be their photographer…   I hope I captured at least half of their families’ spirit with my camera!  

There are so many that I am completely smitten with, but this little thang called Thanksgiving is calling and I can’t share them all yet!  So for now, here goes some of my instant faves!

This is a look only sweet little sisters are allowed to give their brothers…

…only to turn back around to give me this look:

And lastly…

Much more to come… Can’t wait to show you guys, G Family!!

xox, reata

Honestly, I really love a good ol’ 20’s vibe every now and then.  I mean, come on, who doesn’t?!?  The era is soaked in sophistication, class, and to me, personally, wonder…  The ways of living back then really intrigue me, as do their clothing, architecture, and pretty much everything else that had to do with the times. 

When I suggested to the Austin-based photographer, Miss J, that she and her family should adorn themselves in fancy smancy attire – complete with bowties for the boys, I had no idea how far she’d run with the idea!!  I couldn’t have been more thrilled when I showed up to her shoot this past Sunday and they were super decked out and in high spirits!!  Hats off to Mr. A for being such a completely amazing sport…  You can tell he must be used to it, being married to a photographer and all!  But, still…. He was so awesome!

One more thing I must mention before I show you their very long sneak peek (I couldn’t decide where to stop, so I’m showing you guys quite a bit!)…  Little Baby Boy has got to be one of THE most HAPPIEST babies I’ve ever seen in real life!!  He was all smiles and all show from the moment we got there till the moment we left.  No tears. No fussing. Just smiles.  Totally lovely.  :)

And, now the sneaks:

It’s no wonder he’s so happy… He has great parents!

Like I mentioned earlier… She’s also a photographer!  So, we did what any two level-headed photographers would do at a time like this…

I took pictures of her taking pictures of me.

We’ll end this post in the same place we started it… 

xox, reata

… I met this lovely family on the campus of The University of Texas in Austin to do a fun family shoot.  We strolled around leisurely through the muggy, yet cool, weather having a bit of fun getting to know eachother and captured some adorable photos of their lovely kids and, of course, some great ones of the whole gang! 

Here are some of my favorites:

Little man kept us on our toes…  He knows how to walk (and run!) and likes to excersise ability regularly!  I love this next one…  Little Miss K decided it would be better to just lay down and wait for her baby brother to sit down and get in the picture, rather than staying posed the whole time.  So real and in the moment… love it!

And lastly:

xox, reata

is why I love Austin, Texas so much.

Phenom weather.  Characteristically advanced housing and buildings.  And fun, wonderful people.

These are from the first session I did in Austin this past weekend…  Me and M have similar taste in just about everything it appears and so once we got started chatting/emailing back and forth about our ideas for her anytime session, we could hardly contain the excitement!  We were like two middle school girls rambling 100 mph about the hot substitute teacher in Algebra class…  Only, there wasn’t any hot sub.  And, we weren’t doing Algebra.  We were planning her anytime session….  and we chalked it full of personality and sass.

Now, keep in mind…  It was hard to narrow it down for this post… I wanted to post all of them.  Literally.  I like them that much.  But, I’m not gonna share them aaaaall right now (gotta make M wait for something in her gallery!), so here are the lucky ones that made it through to the blog:

At this point in the session, I was thinking to myself, Is it even possible for her to be ANY cuter?  And, how in the world are we gonna top this rockin red dress and amazing blue Schwinn??  Is it even possible???

Well, it was.

Meet Henry:

These last two were literally some of the last shots I took of the beautiful M before the setting sun forced us to call it quits…  I’m sure glad we didn’t didn’t stop before we got these!  Love them!

xox, reata

This mini session in Dallas was so much fun….  Little Miss Thang, as I was calling her (and her mom confirmed that she often calls her that too!), was just about as cute as can be and knew exactly how to work the camera!  She worked it and worked it… And often showed me a thing or two about posing.  For every pose I showed her to do, she showed me at least one or two other ones that were much more creative than mine.  

For example:

Seriously.  This little girl had so much personality and I was able to get so many great pictures of her…  Unfortunately, I don’t have time to show them all because I’m about to leave for Austin (Destination: Austin Sessions!).

But, here are a few more faves before I go…  And also, a little bit more evidence that Miss Thang knows how to pose like no other.

And a few of mom and dad…

More of Miss Thang to come soon, Momma J….  Hope the suspense doesn’t overwhelm you!!  :)

xox, reata