(Minus the actual birth…. at least for you to see!)… I had the HONOR of being IN the delivery room for this little baby.  I must say… I was quite nervous.  You only get one shot at these pictures— but I am so happy with how they came out and know Leyla’s parents will be too.

She is AMAZING… her lips… her hair… everything about her.  I can’t wait for her “newborn” session next week (although… you don’t get much more newborn than this!)

PS:  VOTING ENDS TOMORROW AT MIDNIGHT (see TWO posts below!!!)!

ENJOY:

(right before baby is born):

She meets her big brother and sister:

The contest is the post BELOW!!!!!  If you have problems voting, please just leave a comment (which is how I did it last year– and thought I’d be high-tech and actually have a voting thing on my blog… but it is just causing headaches!)

ANYWAY…. As you probably figured out, we went to Mexico just after Christmas for a week.  My mom is ALWAYS wanting a family photo– and there is just nobody ever around to use my fancy camera and take one of all eight of us.  I told her I’d figure it out on vacation… so we got all dressed up for New Year’s Eve– went to the beach, got all set up… I took some shots to make sure all the settings were correct– and then we found some innocent beach-walker to try to take the same shot I was taking (but with me in it).  The look on his face when I handed him my monster camera was pretty funny.  Anyway… out of the 10-15 he took, we got one we were pretty happy with!   My dad (who is an awesome photographer himself) took the family shot of myself, husband and kids… and I took the rest.

We LOVE how it turned out (it’s even better in person!)  ENJOY and Happy 2010!!:

UPDATE:  The voting system is not perfect… so if you get on to vote and it says you have already voted (this is happening for people who are in the same network), then please leave a comment below as to who you are voting for and I will add them in at the end!  Thanks– sorry about that!!!

I am sure many of you remember this contest from last year!  I have picked some of my favorite pictures from the past year– and will post them below for you to vote on!  Please feel free to share this with your friend and family because whoever has the most votes by January 16th will win.  And… this year the prize is even better!

1st prize:  FREE session with me anytime during 2010!  (plus an 16X20 of the winning image)

2nd prize:  Free 16X20 of their image

3rd prize:  Free 11X14 of their image

To vote,  just use the voting system at the bottom.  Please only vote once per every 12 hours… I can tell.  Actually, the new system won’t let you!  :)

PS:  If I didn’t pick a picture of your family, don’t worry– I still think you’re cute!  And to be fair… I did not pick ANY pictures of children I knew before I started my photography business.  So don’t send me hate-mail!  :)

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And so excited about 2010!  Thank you to all of my 2009 clients who made last year such a blast– and for trusting me to take images of your family that you will hopefully treasure forever.

We spent over a week in Mexico– and I am in love with SO many of the images we brought home with us (my dad took some amazing pictures of our family– how rare to have the photographer in the photo!)– so I will share some of those over the next week… but I just found this one of my sister with my two babies and had to share.  How gorgeous are all three of them?  (yes.. we all had coordinating outfits for our New Year’s photo session– which included having waiters and other tourists take pictures of all 8 of us together– can you say heaving editing!?!?)  Ha!

ENJOY:

and wow… love it in B&W too: