Amber + Ryan = Married!

Amber & Ryan were married at the beautiful Japanese Friendship Garden in Phoenix earlier this month.  I had the privilege to 2nd shoot alongside the talented Brittany Hogan for this sweet couple.  The day was perfect.  The weather cooperated and the location was just beautiful.  Amber and Ryan were so sweet and so excited to be married!  They put so much personal effort into the day, Amber even made the decadent brownie cake all by herself!  I have never known a bride to make her own wedding cake!  It was so yummy!  Anyway, here is all the awesomeness of the day...

The ceremony site really was breathtaking.  Such a great choice of venue!

A beautiful string quartet played for their ceremony.

Amber was so excited to sign the license!

I love the light in this one.  So romantic!

The amazing cake!

Their first dance was so sweet and full of emotion.  Love both of these next shots.

Amber dancing with her dad.  Love this one too...

One of my favorite parts of weddings is when the guests just get out on the dance floor and let loose.  I love catching them when they have no idea the camera is pointed in their direction.  These are so much fun!!

Congratulations Amber and Ryan!!  And thank you so much Brittany for letting me tag along!

Lil Miss Maddie

Oh my oh my, its been a little while since I've had a newborn at the end of my lens!  This incredibly sweet little one is the newest addition to the Branton family, joining big siblings Bella and Zack, and boy is she loved!  Madeline Rae was over a month old when we did this shoot last week, but still so tiny and so sleepy!  In fact she slept for almost the entire session and was such an angel!  I love them all so much!!

If you're jealous of Maddie's adorable hair flower, you can have one too!  It's handmade by Maddie's Aunt Cindy, and you can check them out on her Etsy shop.  They come in adult sizes, too!

Jenna - Tucson, AZ Senior!

Meet sweet Jenna, who drove all the way to Gilbert from Tucson to have her senior photos done!  How fun!  She is super involved at her school, is in marching band, plays lacrosse, and probably does a million other awesome things.  AND she is going to Brazil for her graduation gift!  How awesome is that??  Anyway, here's Jenna...

Thank You!

I just wanted to give a quick update on Arizona's Prop 100 (I blogged before about it here).  The voting was yesterday and it passed!!  THANK YOU to all who voted and took an interest in this issue.  Our kids need the funding at their schools and unfortunately, this needed to happen.  Since my last post on this issue, the Gilbert School Board voted to keep social workers employed no matter how Prop 100 turned out, which was AWESOME.  They realized that our kids need the emotional, behavioral, and physical support that we provide in order to be successful academically in school.  So, that was great.  But now that the Prop passed, all of our employees get to keep the same pay, and not nearly as many are losing their jobs.  Literally HUNDREDS of jobs were saved just in Gilbert, THOUSANDS in the state.  Also, class sizes are staying the same, meaning they are not growing to ridiculous numbers like they could have had this not passed.  Anyway, I am done with the soapbox, I just wanted to say a quick thank you to all who voted and who value the education of our kids.  You rock.  :)

#47 - Check!

#47: Finish my family tree wall.

Another one checked off the list!  This has been completed for months now.  I just have neglected to actually take some pictures and post them.  I got this idea from my friend Kristen at work, and I LOVE it.  We had a huge blank wall just off our living room, and I didn't like the lame photo arrangement that was there before.  It needed some life.  So, I painstakingly hand painted this tree, which took a few weekends of having the ladder and paint in our hallway!  I got the knobs at either Anthropologie or Hobby Lobby (two of my most favorite stores in the universe) and the frames came from wherever I could find them.  Most of the photos are of Greyson, but I'm sure that will change as our family grows.  I just love this wall now.  It is so much fun, and everyone who comes to our home loves it too.  Definitely a great use of the space.

The whole thing:

And just to give you a size reference, most of those are 8x10's.  The bigger one of the 3 of us is an 11x14.  So the wall is fairly big.

And my favorite details:

Those knobs make me happy :)

And, in case you were wondering what the boy looks like these days, here is a fun shot of him today before some pool time:

Kacia - Mesquite High Senior!

Meet Kacia, so cute, sweet, and smiley!  We had so much fun in a new location I had never tried before.  Turned out pretty good, right?  Even though we were crawling under fences AND I put my hand in duck poo.  Yup, that's right.  But, totally worth it :)