I think it’s safe to say that you all love these three as much as I do at this point! I always get the sweetest comments every time Scooter, Ashley, and Parker are on the blog… understandably so, they’re pretty much the greatest :) The past 6 months have absolutely flown by, and I can’t believe it was already time for Parker’s 6 month photos! This is truly one of my favorite ages to photograph, he was smiling and flirting with me from the moment they pulled him out of the car! He was mesmerized with the camera and tracked it everywhere, clearly he hasn’t mastered the “don’t look at the camera until I tell you to!” approach quite yet :) I’m sure he’ll get the hang of it over the next couple years :) Scooter and Ash, thanks for making me fall in love with my job every time I’m around you guys, and letting me hang out with your sweet boy for the morning :)
Last time I saw Parker he was teeeeny tiny…
and look at him now! LOVE his sweet smile! 
couples that look at each other like this make me REAL happy :) 
look at his big smile!! so cute!
two of my favorites photos from the session… Ashley, your boys are pretty darn cute :) 
look at those eye lashes! melt my heart! 
look at his little toes and chubby arm! so sweet!
HA! this one makes me smile every time! 
this was the first time Parker sat on Scooter’s shoulders, and he thought it was absolutely HILARIOUS! :) 
Ashley, you are so SO gorgeous my friend… that baby looks real good on you ;) 
stoooop it! can’t handle the cuteness! 
this letter was HUGE next to him for his newborn photos… not so much anymore! :) 
LOVE that shot on the right! canvas anyone?!? :) 
Happy Friday! :)
One thing that I always try and think about as I’m taking photos are the people that are going to be looking at them 10… 15… 20 years down the road. I try and think of the people and the moments that will tell a story one day, and photograph those. So when Anna and Jason managed to coordinate all of their parents and siblings to all be in the same place at the same time for Mother’s Day and to meet sweet Harper, they decided to book another portrait session specifically to get lots of great shots of Shelby and Harper with their extended family. I love that Anna and Jason prioritize and value photos, and I know that Shelby and Harper will be so SO thankful to have these photos as they grow up. We kept the session really relaxed and just spent a few hours with everyone playing in their back yard and i’m excited to share some of my favorites! :) Happy viewing, friends!
Anna’s parents and sister Whitney came up from South Carolina for a few days! love this shot of Shelby and Anna’s dad:
and this one of Shelbs and her aunt Whitney: 
Harper slept throughout the entire session! She was super easy to pass around and snuggle :) 
these next two are some of my favorites. I know how thankful I am for photos with my grandparents from when I was younger, and I know Harper and Shelby will love these too: 
all the Sarco girls :) 
sisters :) 
Ooooh goodness. So, my sweet little friend got her first camera as a gift, and to say she was excited is a huge understatement. Can’t you see it in her eyes?!? :) At this point, she proceeded to repeat everything I’ve ever said to her when I have a camera in my hand, and tried to direct the rest of the session since she had her OWN camera and wanted to take her OWN photos :) We heard lots of “you stand there, let me take a picture! I want to take a picture of YOU! You can sit here, or stand here, those are your choices for this picture!”.. i think we’ve created a little monster, and yet I’m totally ready to hire her ;) c’mon once you add those little pigtails, the kid is irresistible :) this look says “okay Jessie, I’ve got it from here…” :) 
the whole family! 
like I said, someone had her own agenda for the rest of the photo shoot once she got her own camera ;) LOVE this photo though and how she has everyone else all lined up ;) 
a few more Harper snuggles: 
love this shot of the girls with their Grandma and aunt Lori: 
Shelby’s uncle Justin found a rainbow just for her:
so many kisses for Harper: 
look at her little fist! she’s thinking hard about something! :) 
after we were finished the session I grabbed Harper for a minute before I left, and Lori grabbed my camera for one more photo :) 
Saturday, May 11, 2013 Posted in My Life
I don’t know that I’ve ever heard her ask for a specific gift my entire life. birthdays. christmas. mother’s day. i’ve never heard my mother ask for anything in particular. so when she called me up a few weeks ago and out of the blue says “so… can i have my own vimeo for mother’s day? thats all i really want, just my own vimeo.” it honestly took me a few seconds to understand what she was asking me for. last summer my friend Brie asked me to record a specific song she loved. then she asked again, and again, aaaand again until I finally gave in and recorded a cover of The Desert Song by Hillsong United as a birthday gift for her. Even though I’ve never shared that video, I had uploaded it to my vimeo site where I keep KGB videos, and you can see it HERE if you’d like. Well, my mom found it somehow, and apparently she and her friends are the people hiking the viewing stats up on that particular video by watching it on an almost daily basis. so she decided that for mother’s day she needed her own :)
i dug through my entire itunes library to find a song that 1) I could sing and 2) more importantly that I could attempt to play on the piano. you see, piano lessons did NOT last very long for me when I was younger and truly the best I can manage at this point is to plunk out chords… not ideal for recording songs by mysself. I tried to think of a song that was significant, and honestly the most common songs she and i sang together when I was growing up were Disney songs (she always made a FABULOUS Aladdin ;) ) There was some Barbara Streisand in there, I remember going through one of her song books and mom would play the piano while I sang or she would do harmony for me, but I don’t think I’m brave enough to attempt a Barbara Streisand song anymore. I’ll leave those for the Rachel Berry’s of the world :) The other name that stuck out in my memory was Bonnie Raitt. I have been singing “Something to Talk About” and “I Can’t Make You Love Me” since I can remember. I’m pretty sure I wore that cassette tape out in her car over the years! So when I recently discovered Bon Iver’s gorgeous arrangement of “I Can’t Make You Love Me” I thought I’d give that one a try :)
So here you go, mama; your very own vimeo :) thanks for spending so many years at the piano with me and for giving me a love of music, lyrics, and singing. those will always be some of my favorite memories with you! happy mother’s day! i love you!
ps- you may ONLY click on this video below if you promise not to judge my piano playing capabilities! anyone want to give me lessons?? :)
I first met Matt and Lauren back in 2010 when I got to photograph their engagement session…
their wedding… 
and their day after session! 
and these days they’ve added one more to their family! I remember dropping off Matt and Lauren’s album at their house soon after they got married and talking with Lauren about how fun having nieces and nephews was, and thinking to myself that Lauren would be the best mom one day, and I LOVED getting to see her and Matt in these new roles of mom and dad :) I have seen photos of their sweet Gracie girl on facebook over the past 8 months, but I have seriously been counting down until I got to meet her myself! As soon as I got there she was literally ALL smiles, and jumped into my arms to say hello with a little hug! Melt my heart! 6-9 months is by far my favorite age to photograph during that first year, and Gracie is a great example of why! they are SO smiley, expressive, and curious about everything! She literally smiled for me the entire time, easiest job ever! :) She has such a sweet spirit, and and I already can’t wait to see her again! :) Get ready for the sweetest little smile you’ve ever seen! :) 
look at those two little teeth she’s got growin’ in there! so cute! :) 
pretty baby :) 
she reminds me of Mowgli in the Jungle Book in this photo with how she’s crawling and her little tongue sticking out :) 
she literally smiled the WHOLE time! made my job SUPER easy :) 
LOVE these next two! 
she was fascinated with the buttons on Matt’s shirt :) 
this little hat and blanket were made my Gracie’s great grandmother (right? Lauren please correct me if i’m wrong!) and i love that we were able to work them in, and that Gracie seemed to love her little hat! :) 
Lauren has been taking photos of Gracie every month with a little sticker that has the corresponding number on it, and i feel like this is a VERY typical 8 month photo… has to play with and explore EVERYTHING around her :) so of course the sticker can’t stay ON her shirt! 
Happy Friday! Have a great weekend! :)
If you go back all the way to last September, I blogged about the ‘gifts’ journal I had been keeping, and #123 that I shared in that post was “new babies growing inside of dear friends”. That had been written down on the first day that I suspected my dear friend Anna was expecting their second baby… had she told me anything yet? nope. it was just a feeling I had after a conversation with her, but i started praying for that baby and thanking God for that gift from that day juuuust incase. A few weeks later when I walked into their home to help her pick out outfits for their fall portrait session, there was a little tag hanging on a framed ultrasound photo that said “#123) new babies growing inside of dear friends” :) i had been right! baby #2 was on the way! :) it meant so much to me that Anna had included that piece of my gifts journal into how she told me she was pregnant, and I still have that tag she made up as a permanent part of my journal :)
so needless to say, i’ve been excited to meet this kiddo from day one! she took her sweet time making her appearance (much to her mama’s dismay!) but finally last Thursday April 25th at 7:28PM Harper Marion Bickham was born weighing 8 pounds and with the most kissable chubby cheeks I’ve ever seen! here are a few photos I snapped of her the next day when I got to visit and meet her in the hospital… seriously could not get enough of her cheeks!
love this photo Anna took of me getting to know my new little friend :) words cannot explain how much I have loved getting to be a part of Shelby’s life over the past year and a half and how much joy she brings every time i’m around her. she makes me laugh and always amazes me with her creativity and imagination. i don’t take it for granted that my friends share their children with me and let me be a part of their world, and i’m so thankful that I get to know and love sweet Harper right from day one :) 
now lets get to the good stuff, and what this post is all about! Harper’s official newborn photos! :) this kid is going to have to get used to my camera, I have a feeling you will be seeing a LOT more of this little girl on the blog :) she was wide awake for the first chunk of the session, but i love how she’s looking at Anna and Jason in these first few:
oh hey there, sweet girl! 
to say that Shelby is smitten with baby Harper is the understatement of the year. she’s constantly wanting to hold her, love her, and give her lots of “cheek smooches!” … can’t say i blame her, those cheeks are pretty irresistible! :) 
LOVE her sweet smile :) 
already checking out her sisters accessories… ;) 
be still my heart… one of my absolute favorites from the session! don’t be surprised if you see this one framed in my house somewhere too :) 
when Anna and I were brainstorming ideas for this session, she came up with the idea of throwing a little birthday party for Harper! Right now Shelby is really into celebrating birthdays, and Shelbs thought it was SO fun that we got to have a little birthday cake and sing happy birthday to baby Harper, and happy “big sister birthday” (the day she became a big sister!) to her! 
ha! so cute :) 
sweet baby :) 
of course we had to throw in her monogram somewhere into the session, and these little bloomers from ChezWhimsy on Etsy was the perfect way to do it! 
how adorable is this hat?! :) 
a special delivery… :) 
one of my favorite moments of their session, and a little behind the scenes shot! while we were moving Harper from one spot to the next, we hear Shelby say “OKAY lion, say cheeeese!! look at me! look up here and smile! Lion, if you smile, I’ll give you an M&M!” hmm where do you think she heard that before? :) remember that black and white photo earlier in the post of her and Harper lying on this same backdrop? yeeeeah, apparently she was taking notes :) you see her holding her little camera up too? i think i’m ready to hire her as my new assistant! i bet she could keep those big wedding parties in line better than I could! :) LOVE this kids imagination! 
when her lion wouldn’t cooperate with her taking his photo, she moved onto accessorizing Jason :) she decided that if Harper needed a bow, that her daddy needed one too. as Anna said in this moment, welcome to the world of having daughters :) 
they have a similar photo of Shelby when she was a newborn in this same basket: 
miss Harper is a good little snuggler :) 
my favorite shot of Anna and Harper… if I look half this good one week after I have a baby, I will be VERY happy mama one day: 
seriously, Harper’s little cheeks are irresistible: 
checking on baby Harper :) 
They have two specific photos up in Harper’s nursery, one of Anna’s mom rocking her as a newborn, and another of Jason’s mom rocking him. I love that Harper will have those same sort of timeless photos to hang in her baby’s nursery one day too :) 
little toes :) 
Happy Wednesday! :)
by Jessie
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