Cat People: Bellingham Family Photographer

Jim and Canda are some of our favorite people and I loved every minute of photographing them in their home on the beach with their cat babies yesterday. Cats are pretty much just like kids on photoshoots, they whine and give you ornery looks and you have to bribe them with treats. 😉 Here are some of my favorites form their session.

Thanks for being such wonderful friends Jim and Canda and thanks for not killing me like I know you wanted to Tutti and Peppers.

Autumn’s 7th Birthday: Splatoon Party

So my middle child, Autumn turns 7 today. She’s about as amazing as I can possibly imagine any daughter being. She’s adventurous, kind, thoughtful and a really fun person to be around. Right now she wants to build robots for her “job” and really really wants to visit Japan. She’s really into this video game called Splatoon for the Wii U right now too. She loves playing by herself or with her brother and she absolutely loves to tell other kids about it, especially when they come over. It’s a really fun game, with cool art, so when she asked me to help make her a Splatoon Inkling costume for Halloween and throw a Splatoon themed birthday party I was pretty excited about what fun things we could do.

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Yesterday was her party, and I was SO glad the rain held off until after the party since we live in Bellingham and its fall
.and doing a party theme that involves “ink” (paint) and 15 kids really isn’t conducive to being held in my house! The kids shot watered down paint from squirt guns (about 1/2 paint and 1/2 water), threw some paint and water filled water balloons and used rollers in the “Splat Zone.”

 

We bought this paint art spinner for kids to make splatter paintings to take home.

 

And had a “Octoball Playground” set up with water marbles, which the kids loved and are a really cool sensory activity. I put them out with our marble racers on a shower curtain on the ground.

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I made the cake, its four 9 inch round layers with bright colored frosting between each layer, black fondant on the outside and icing all over that I basically threw at the cake. Complete with our Amiibo on top! I kept the inside of the cake a surprise, which Autumn was really excited about.

We also had a Photo Booth set up with some Splatoon and other costume pieces and at the end of the party we printed the kid’s strips to take home.

Of course we had Splatoon set up on a TV for kids to play! We brought our TV down to our guest room and moved most everything else out so kids could pile in and out from the party in the yard.

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Next we gave every kid a can of silly string and let them have it. Some were a bit nervous about it, but there was lost of giggles!

Plus the kids jumps on the trampoline (which we covered with streamers), and ran around playing and having a good time. For party favors we have Splatoon coloring sheets, paint cans that I glued colored card stock “drips” onto that were filled with bright colored pencils and crayons and a few pieces of candy, plus everyone took home a squirt gun that was the closest I could find to a Splatoon style ink gun. There was;t much out there for Splatoon parties as I was looking so I thought I’d blog this to hopefully help some other families looking to throw a Splatoon themed kid party. The only sad thing was the only thing Autumn asked for for her birthday was Splatoon plashes- which don’t exist to my knowledge, but hopefully the fun party made up for it!

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Beautiful Ashland Wedding

It is time again for my once a year wedding. I usually tell people “I don’t do weddings,” but the truth is I usually photograph about 1 per year, usually for a close friend or family member or when it feel like a good match and I’m not on call for a birth. This year I was pleased to photograph Al and Kate’s wedding in Ashland, Oregon. Both are incredibly talented actors with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and good friends of my friends Rodney and Sarah who’s wedding I photographed down there last year.
Kate was such a lovely, graceful bride, if you;d have passed her on the street and not known she was getting married in a few hours, you wouldn’t have even guessed. I am happy to get to (over) share so many images since lately I have been so engrossed din birth photography where I sometimes don’t get to share any or only a few from any given family. So I apologize in advance for how many will be included in this post. The whole day and all the people were just so beautiful and the reception was SO much fun. I adore seeing people having a good time!

Welcome to the world Lioness: Bellingham Birth Photographer

Today I got to document a sweet baby girl’s entrance into the world at home, with her mom, dad, two big brothers, two midwives and two doulas! It was such a beautiful celebration! Lioness, you are so loved already and your mama is so strong! Here are some of my favorites form her birth today. board0board1boad2

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