it rained before and after

We haven't had family pictures taken in so long!  It feels great to have these beautiful shots of our family to cherish for years to come!  I am so thrilled with how they turned out.  I spent a lot of the day prepping the kids.  I told them that we were taking pictures so we could capture how our family loves each other.  Then we google image searched examples of family photos and I let the kids pick out poses they thought we should do.  The first one on this post was Evie's idea.  Avett picked one where everyone was holding their own gun. Then we came across a picture of a family of six completely nude and they were all laying on top of each other (no worries, all parts were somehow properly covered)  We all got the giggles and Evie made me reassure her several times that we would not do that pose.

I am really grateful to capture our little family at this stage.  Just the 4 of us.  We've grown a lot together and learned a lot from each other.  We are all being refined by each other every day.  I'm so grateful that grace is something I really learned a lot about last year and that it is something I apply to my motherhood as often as I can.

We love our little children and pray for them every night and express our gratitude to Heavenly Father for trusting us with them.

photos by Kristin Benton Photography 

anniversary shoot

I would literally go anywhere John Murphy led.  I trust him with my whole heart and my whole life and everything that we have ahead of us.  I am so proud of him and all that he is doing.  

Tonight he has a meet and greet with a top 10 in the nation accounting firm.  He got his suit dry cleaned yesterday just for tonight. They reached out to him a couple of weeks ago wanting to meet him after seeing his resumè.  We are hopeful for the prospects of upcoming internships next year.  I am so excited for what the future holds.  Most days I just sit back in awe of the man I married.  I am proud to be doing life with him by my side.  

I was so excited to get the rest of our anniversary photos back and I couldn't be happier with how they turned out.  Get ready for a lot of pictures of us.  Oh and we kiss and canoodle...a lot. 

family pictures

It has been forever since I have had the time to blog!  To be honest I miss it a lot. I really miss writing. 

This year has been one that I think we will look back on and wonder how we ever survived. We've never been so busy. Between John having full-time school and a job and me with seminary and two little kids to take care of we've hardly seen each other. But it's made the moments that we do have time together even more special. 

This year has been a year of growth for all of our family. I have really loved teaching my early morning seminary class and getting to know all of the seminary youth in our ward. I love many of them like my own and I love learning about the gospel together every morning.

Evaleigh will be three next month and I can hardly believe it. She is such a sassy responsible and joyful little girl.  She walks around saying sweet things to us like "Merry Christmas!" And "I love you mommy you are beautiful!". She is such a sensitive sweet little soul.  

Avett is our little explorer.  He climbs all over the place and especially all over us. I've never seen a little boy love his mother so much and I love that about him.

 John is trucking along with school and doing a great job at it. He is a very good student and studies a lot. He also works with the men at church. We are both loving what we are doing and even though we are busy we are happy and very blessed.

christmas card

Here are a few shots from some pictures I took of Evaleigh for our Christmas card. I'm lucky I got 4 usable ones out of her, she was SO distracted by our drippy rug drying on the banister of our deck. I had fun taking these of her though, I used the chalkboard wall I made last week.

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and that you got to spend it with the people you love!

We are still stuck in our Christmas bubble here with watching movies in front of the fire and letting the babies roll around on the floor and play with their gifts. We are holding on to the last bit of the season by drinking the last of our wassail and eating Christmas candy til we are sick! I don't want this to end.

kites & a persimmon tree

Here is another one of my sets for Holly Robbins.  My vision of handmade fabric kites and lace garland in the trees came out exactly how I hoped it would.  We shot in the horse pasture on our property under a persimmon tree by the brick red picnic table.  

(A special thanks to my sister coming to save the day and getting EJ to give us these big grins!  That little girl is obsessed with her Aunt Bekah>)

(Ej is wearing one of my baby dresses and a re-purposed headband which I had originally made as a detail to put on my wedding dress before my mother and sister veto'd it.  Glad I used it for her instead!)

To book a fall session with her contact her at info@hollylrobbins.com, visit her webpage, or facebook page.

The fall session fee is $30.00 and print collections start at $40.00

Don't miss out on this chance to get beautiful updated family photos!