Peterson Family

I got to hang out with Zoie and Zeke again last week, but this time I had the opportunity to take portraits of them and their extended family hanging out and laughing with each other.

Liz (in the center of the picture below) flew in from out of state with her daughter and I could see in every one's face how excited they were to have her them there.

Here is an image of Liz her with her daughter Rose Mary. I just LOVE this image. Rose Mary's eyes are so innocent and sweet. And Liz looks proud of her little girl. Every time I see this image I cannot help but to start singing "John Deere green. Billy Bob loves Charlene...." I don't know the rest of the lyrics so those are pretty much on repeat in my head. This is one of my favorite family portraits!

I learned that Gary (in center of the picture below) collects John Deere tractors and that the family has said for years that they should have a family portrait taken with some of the tractors. He actually has 12 tractors! I asked him I could bring my Cub Cadet over and he laughed at me. :)

The Yard

Last week I went around the yard smelling all of the flowers that were in bloom. I am really glad that I did because today we had a storm and most of my flowers are gone and so are the leaves from the trees.

Everyone is fine. Noah didn't appreciate his nap being interrupted by the storm. He didn't like the fact that we grabbed him from his nice warm bed to bring him to the basement. He cried and kept saying that he wanted to go up to his bed. After the storm past, I showed him the hail and I think that he finally understood why we needed to be downstairs.

Here are some shots that I took of my yard last week:

And this is what my yard looked like earlier today:

Mother nature is pretty amazing. That is all that I can say.

Zoie and Zeke

Zoie and Zeke invited me over to play and take pictures of them last Thursday evening. Before I knew it, almost 2 hours had past and Zeke was asleep in his Daddy's arms. Here are few images that led to Zeke's sweet dreams.

I am working on a slideshow that will be uploaded to my website (www.raivala.com) in the next few days! I am still trying to figure out what music goes best with the princess dress and a little boy with a cute Mohawk. I am looking for something sweet with a little bit of Disney and a dash of rock-n-roll. Hmmm....

The Gregory Girls

I met two sweet little angels last week when they came over to have their picture taken. We giggled with each other and acted silly. Here are some of the images from our time together.


We had a little cheerio break...
and story time...

Do you see why I called them sweet little angels? They are just so adorable!

What's new

The last few weeks have been world wind....and I love every moment of it. One of the things that I did was that I photography seminar called Bellies and Babes that was held by Sandy Puc. I have never seen so many photographers in one room before. There had to have been at least 300 people from around the country in one room. It was amazing to learn about how Sandy photographs pregnant bellies and little babies. I walked away from there with quite a few ideas so let me know if you or anyone that you know would like a belly or baby portrait session.

I've been busy with Ethan's (my 4 year olds) preschool too. I took some pictures for the school and helped with a plant sale fundraiser.