A couple years ago, I attempted to shoot raw images with my canon, but quickly discovered I had no way to open and edit them, so I pretty much gave up on raw. Then a friend gave me step by step instructions on how to open raw images with adobe, so now I am addicted to raw shooting. I took a few of my kids just to get used to editing in raw... here is what I came up with.

On Monday my Aunt Shirley past away. My kids and I were very close to her. We would go see her usually once a week. We would sit on her front porch and talk for hours, while the kids played in her yard. Being around her was always just so... comfortable. She was so full of love and hope that it was hard not to feel loved and hoped for around her. Without effort, she made everyone's life a better life.
Yesterday was her funeral. I didn't think it was a good idea to take my kids to the funeral. They are still so young and don't really understand what is going on, but I still wanted to be there for my cousins, David and Steve, so we went to my Aunt's house while they were at the funeral. We sat outside and played while we waited for everyone to come back to the house. To help keep me from crying, I took pictures of my toddlers. The day was bright and the photos were taking when the sun was high, but oh well. I still like them. Although, she wasn't with us yesterday in person, I could still see her smiling from the porch watching my kids play and I have yet to lose that feeling of being loved and hoped for that I always felt around her.

A few months ago, we went to Lake Mary to see my brother and his family. My brother took my kids to Gander Mountain to buy them fishing poles and then we went down to a pond by his house and the kids attempted to fish for their first time! i had forgotten I had these photos, but was looking through all my pictures today and saw them, so I went ahead and edited them to show y'all.

Last Week, I went down to Fort Christmas Park to take some pictures of Emilie. Emilie is the daughter of my best friend in middle school, Amanda Hall. We lost touch after 8th grade, but recently found each other on myspace and started talking again. When she asked me to do photos of her little girl, she mentioned having a friend with a 2 month old who was in need of photos as well, so I offered to do a mini session for the baby during Emilie's session. All in all the weather was great and I'm happy with the turn out of the photos.

For father's day, I took pictures of my kids for my husband and dad. We didn't spend much time perfecting them. Chase's session lasted like 10 minutes and with Jaime we were outside for like an hour but only shooting for like 5-10 minutes. Chase has gotten to where he'd rather be behind the camera then in front of it, so I have to bribe him to take photos. While Jaime loves having her pictures taking she's just picky about how they turn out... already. i'm not completely happy with how Chase's turned out, but I still like them enough to print them.