Happy Monday friends! I hope you all had an amazing weekend! We had a fun weekend over here with just the perfect amount of fun, birthday celebrations,and rest! When I went home over spring break to Virginia Beach, I did a little something for myself! A 35 birthday present just for me that I had been wanting for a long time. I scheduled a photo session with one of my friends who is an amazing family and newborn photographer in the area: Heidi Calma! As a photographer, it’s hard to be IN the pictures. It’s not something I’m super comfortable with to be quite honest, I’m awkward and goofy and it shows in my own unique way. More importantly though, it’s hard for me to capture my own family! I can take a million images of Linc, which is such a blessing. He’s wonderful right now and lets me take as many images as I want, as long as I do in my playful way. My other family members though, they feel the way I do: it’s hard, scary, awkward and out of our comfort zones to be in front of the camera! So, I thought I would take it out of my own hands and enlist Heidi! My gift to myself this year for my 35 birthday was one of Heidi’s specialties: A generation photo shoot and it was perfection!
I scheduled it and I didn’t tell my mom until I arrived! In other words, I kind of set her up 😉 That’s the only way I could do it. I don’t have a whole lot of images of me and my mom together, not even from my wedding. So this session was such a blessing for me in more ways than one.
We got dressed, nothing fancy per my request! I wanted us just how we are on any given day with one exception: Linc! I made sure I styled his hair and he actually put on some decent clothes for this. We showed up to Heidi’s studio and it was pretty comical to be quite honest. I knew Heidi could handle us because she’s a boy mom too. We were in and out of there so fast! Linc was wild of course, but Heidi was fantastic! What she captured was perfection! It was us! It was my mom and I together, laughing and joking and also pretty sentimental! It was Linc and I: wild and chaotic and tender, once in a while! And then of course all three of us!
Here are my favorites from our time with Heidi! Happy 35 to me! By the way… it’s like almost the whole gallery!
Linc loves to read and I’m so happy we brought books so Heidi could capture this time in his life right now!
Also this image below is probably one of my most favorites to date of Linc and I! I’ve always played little games with Linc, but this little piggy, is still his favorite. It cracks that boy UP! he can’t make even two toes!
The book my mom is reading to Linc in this image (which Heidi masterfully captured in a few images that I didn’t show) used to be mine when I was Linc’s age. I kept it at my MeeMaw Helen’s house who kept me every Tuesday and Thursday until she passed away when I was in middle school. I always think of her every day, we had such an incredible relationship. The kind you could never express in words. This book comes really close though.. Little Critter, My Grandma and Me.
Oddly enough, Linc came to Little Critter on his own and when my mom sent over all my old books, he would carry this around. It was the only book he didn’t beat up or destroy. Now, this book lives at GiGi’s house and they read it together all the time.
I brought it specifically to capture in this session but the moments happened on their own. It was almost like we had more generations in this picture… you just can’t quite see them!
Thank you Heidi for capturing these moments for me! I couldn’t have imagined it any more beautiful or perfect!
Susie Crouch Mathias - I love these shots. You will cherish these forever. xoxo