My dear friend and Alpha Phi sister from JMU welcomed her second son into her family this past month and her family of four is precious.  You may remember their family session from last spring which had beautiful bright pink colors from those spring blooms.  Looking back at just a year ago it’s crazy to see how much their first son Lincoln has changed!  He was so much smaller.  Now he’s grown into such a sweet big brother to baby Theo.  While I can’t speak from experience, I would imagine that many parents bringing home a second baby worry about how the first baby will feel and react.  Christina and Erik are over the moon to see how caring and helpful Lincoln is as a big brother!  You should have seen how sweetly excited he got when it was his turn to hold his baby brother.  He was perfectly calm and stepped up to the responsibility like a champ! 

This session was my first session since the fall which means it was also my first session since knowingly being pregnant with baby girl!  At 32 weeks pregnant, I was a little nervous about how I’d hold up especially since newborn sessions can be a longer and more demanding process.  Add COVID to the mix and we knew we’d have to get a little creative with how we did the session to avoid risk and stay safe for everyone involved.

Typically I do the whole newborn session indoors, starting with the nursery and doing the newborn portraits in the nursery and then the parent and newborn portraits + family portraits in the home as well.  I knew it wouldn’t be possible to be in such an enclosed space with so many people without them wearing masks so we decided to do the family portion of the images outside with a longer range lens so I could stay far enough away, wear a mask but not need them to wear a mask as a family.  I also had Sterling tag along so that he could carry my bags, drive my to and from and be the entertainment since I was more limited with my usual jumping around shenanigans to get smiles.  🙂  And entertaining he was!  He had everyone laughing as he bopped me on the head, helped me show the poses I wanted and was an all-around goof.  He may be enlisted to come to all my sessions from here on out.

We may have used an exceptional amount of hand sanitizer, restrained from hugs we normally would have given, kept our more than enough distance, and had to be way less hands-on than I usually am but I still think these images turned out beautifully.  I’m so glad we were able to make it work so that they could have these memories without risking anyone’s safety.  🙂

I am especially in love with the giggly images and the ones of Theo just gazing up at his momma.  I have to admit I got super teary editing those thinking of how excited I am to see the way my baby girl looks up at me and Sterling.  Ugh cue the tears again!

Enjoy the images of this beautiful family of four!