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Noah: Six Months Old! 07.18.11 | New Hampshire Children’s Photographer

Noah’s one of the swee­test, cutest, pud­giest babies ever. 10 per­fect fin­gers. 10 per­fect toes. (I love baby hand dimples!!)

So hand­some — and with some of the best expres­sions I’ve ever seen on an infant!

Mmm — snack­time. *nom.nom.nom*

It’s easy to see how he got to be so gor­geous — just look at his stun­ning mama.

Thank you Julie & Noah for having me over on a sum­mer afternoon!

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Jakobi & Juniper 07.01.11 | NH Children’s Photographer

I’m a suc­ker for good sur­pri­ses, par­ti­cu­larly of the birth­day variety. Love to plan them, love to be the inten­ded sur­pi­see, just love them. So when Jac­que called me to see about having some pho­tos taken of her chil­dren, for their father, for his birth­day, it was a resoun­ding YES!

When I arri­ved to my play date, Jakobi was all about sho­wing me the pho­tos from their recent pet­ting zoo visit — hor­sies! hor­sies! do YOU like horsies!?

Once the sli­deshow por­tion of the after­noon was over, we moved on to book club. We read, we chat­ted. The only thing mis­sing were the brow­nies ;)

Jakobi just became a big brother! Miss Juni­per was an abso­lute peach and snoo­zed away the whole time.

I’m com­ple­tely ena­mo­red with this photo. I couldn’t really tell you why, but bet­ween the art­work, the lilt, and the pinky fin­ger it just melts my heart every time.

Juniper!

We’d hoped to get a few of the two of them together, but Jakobi’s ver­sion of being gentle and loving on her loo­ked eerily simi­lar to smothe­ring her and poking her in the eye. ;)

And so we took our play­date outside to the back­yard where I got a com­plete tour of the swing set.

This is their sweet family dog. Such a love. My brain howe­ver, spat the name out and won’t let me recall it. Still deser­ves some blog lovin’ though!

Jac­que is an exce­llent mother. She reminds me of the per­fect 1st grade teacher — just sweet and cal­ming, full of patience and love. She makes it look easy.

We pla­yed some base­ball. We tal­ked about the red sox (they were worth tal­king about then) and we coun­ted one, two. one, two.

a toe-​headed, striped-​button-​down wea­ring, blue-​eyed, little boy in crocs pla­ying in the dirt. what could be better?

patty cake patty cake, baker’s man, make me a carrot, as fast as you can!

Once the dirt was intro­du­ced I was quickly repla­ced. Mom snuck in there though and pla­yed trucks with him in the dirt. This may be on of my favo­rite ‘boy’ shots ever.

Thank you Jakobi for such a won­der­ful play­date! I enjo­yed mee­ting your mum, and Juni & gran (who was there hel­ping out) — and I’m so thri­lled your dad loved his sur­prise! .. Sorry about the Red Sox, Tim. Maybe next year! :)

Hi Melissa! I just wan­ted to let you know that we cele­bra­ted Tim’s birth­day a little early and he’s seen the pic­tu­res. He said it was the best birth­day pre­sent he’s ever been given! ALL of the pic­tu­res are ama­zing and beautiful…we’re going to have a REALLY hard time choo­sing which ones we want to purchase. I’ve sent the link to our family mem­bers, so they will be orde­ring pic­tu­res, too. I just wan­ted to let you know how ama­zing you are and how thank­ful I am to have wor­ked with you. I’m sure we’ll be in touch soon with ques­tions about orde­ring. ~ Jacque

I hope to see you all again, real soon!

much love <3

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Owen turns 1! 06.19.11 | Exeter, NH Family Photography

The amount of times Elton John and his Circle of Life run through my brain as I look at my pho­to­graphy career astounds me. I love where my life has led me!

Raina & I knew of each other in High School — that was a lot of years ago, and aside from the occa­sio­nal friend of a friend ‘frien­ding’ her on face­book, we’ve had no con­nec­tion since. Now, I can’t remem­ber if she said she was AT Sam & Josh’s wed­ding or just saw the pho­tos after and loved them, but either way, she emai­led me about taking pho­tos of her little boy, who has the same birth­day as my (very not so little) boy! There’s only 10 years bet­ween them! wha­te­ver, I’m not old ;)

I was thri­lled when she wan­ted to come back to Exe­ter for the shoot — I really do love my little town <3

They’re just the swee­test family! Owen is a miracle baby, and he cer­tainly knows how to play up the cute­ness angle!

Wal­king and smi­ling at the same time! Even I have trou­ble with that some­ti­mes ;)

Raina brought his birth­day out­fit inc­lu­ding this cus­tom fel­ted crown, which I ado­red. This one reminds me of “where the wild things are”

Let the wild rum­pus begin!

He’s well into his adven­tu­res of being one at this point — when last I spoke to Raina she had to run because he was get­ting into something or the other, and I bet he still is!
In bet­ween adven­tu­res, Raina wrote me this abso­lu­tely touching email -
Hi Melissa,
We chec­ked out the pic­tu­res and they are beau­ti­ful!!! We can’t thank you enough. It was actually very emo­tio­nal for us to look at them and see how lucky we are to be a family of three now. We are still pinching our­sel­ves every day that he is really here and all ours. You cap­tu­red that fee­ling for us and it crea­ted quite a moment when we were all (my parents inc­lu­ded) loo­king at the pic­tu­res and I could see that each of us had tears in our eyes. 
Also, my sec­ret con­fes­sion is that I hate pic­tu­res of myself and I do not feel like I am very pho­to­ge­nic ever. I’m always the one dele­ting pic­tu­res of myself on other people’s came­ras and hate when I see someone taking pic­tu­res. I’m just never happy with them and that can make pic­ture taking very stress­ful. Somehow, magi­cally, you made me feel very rela­xed and took pic­tu­res that I love and am so proud of. I can’t say enough, I’m just inc­re­dibly happy with them and so glad that we found you. Is it too soon to hire you now for the rest of our family pic­tu­res in the years to come?? :)
Thank you from all the Webbers!!
Hope you had a nice 4th, ~ Raina
Thank you Raina for see­king me out and allo­wing me to meet your won­der­ful family! I look for­ward to pho­to­graphing you all for years to come! :)

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Lochlin & Sophia 6 months old! 05.29.11 | Seacoast, NH Children’s Photography

AYKM with these babies? If it weren’t for the fact that I get to smooch all over them and get mad amounts of baby fixes, I might hear some anno­ying tic­king. Luc­kily, I set off that alarm 11 years ago. ;)

I’m surroun­ded by some ama­zingly gor­geous babies. Thank you parents!

Mr. Lochlin’s folks hos­ted a Memo­rial Day Wee­kend coo­kout and seeing as it was also the occa­sion of his 6 month birth­day I said I’d bring along my camera. For the most part, he was kind of being a teething.and.its.hot.out fussy pants and I used my baby whis­pe­ring skills to ‘con­vince’ him to take his nap. But towards the end of the eve­ning, his friend Sophia arri­ved so we woke him to let them ‘play’ in the baby pool.

Then I loo­ked up and saw the magic light s0 I ran inside and grab­bed a blan­ket to throw down in the grass. Loch­lin wasn’t too thri­lled about being woken from his nap and thrown in the pool to play and was still pretty dazed and con­fu­sed when I put him naked on a blan­ket in the grass and poin­ted my camera at him. But even his dubious­ness is adorable.

Sophia was still there, and I’d already got­ten her dress wet while she’d splashed in the pool and strip­ped her down to her dia­per so I grab­bed a few of her too. Appa­rently being 17 days older makes you much coo­ler and less cranky about being directly on the grass ;) She was having a ball!

This crew is bound to be in each other’s lives for a mul­ti­tude of years, so we thought we’d get some dyna­mic duo pho­tos. Loch­lin still wasn’t amu­sed with the sce­na­rio but he star­ted to get his groove on..

At one point he even star­ted to smile. But it was gone in a second so we told Sophia to give him a kiss and he liked the sound of that! Until, after sur­ve­ying the situa­tion clo­sely she deci­ded it would be much bet­ter to find out if those things on the side of his head were actually attached or not.

Lochlin’s ans­wer was a resoun­ding yes.

Bet­ween the crying and the onset of mos­quito hour our mini ses­sion was dee­med done. But what a pro­duc­tive 20 minu­tes it was :)

I’m so thri­lled to be able to watch this crew grow up with each other, to love each other, and to occa­sio­nally maul each other!

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Avery’s 2nd Birthday 05.04.11 | Seacoast NH Party Photography

Happy Fri­day ever­yone! I’m offi­cially blog­ging this post within a month of the event hap­pe­ning — I have esca­ped the throws of delin­quent blog­gerhood. You may all place bets on how long that will last. ;)

Life has been strange and somewhat out of con­trol at times but all with good results and April and Eas­ter were over in a heart­beat. First up in May was my niece’s 2nd birth­day party and although May see­med somewhat drenched, she was right­fully gif­ted a crisp sunny day for her birth­day festivities!

Happy Birth­day Avery Shan­non Pea­nut Wil­son <3

one.day one.year

Now how old are you Avery?!

Two! Mama asked for this pic­ture — that’s her at 2 on the right — a little bit more of a ham for the camera than her daugh­ter but there’s just so much cute­ness to be had!

Avery invi­ted all of her friends to her birth­day party — par­ti­cu­larly the ones who were babies. And she held them and held them — she looks sort of uncom­for­ta­ble being that Jack­son at 6 months nearly squashes her pea­nut frame — so we took him away.. but that wasn’t the right ans­wer. It’s your party honey, you can cry if you want to!

A gar­den party — com­plete with frogs & bees! Lemon cup­ca­kes in petal wrap­pers with oreo cen­ters to look like sun­flo­wers and head­bands, masks and goody bags for ever­yone! Silly daddy’s wea­ring a pink flo­wer on his head!

Two is the age where you learn it’s impor­tant to share your things. … let me slob­ber all over this and then ask if you’d like some…

Mr. Loch­lin was there in his Eas­ter best — I guess white pants before Memo­rial Day are ok when you’re that cute.

And my boy — the pied piper with the heart of gold. He can’t get enough of all the little kids. He’s so good with them <3

Time for cake! She blew it out before we got to sing, so we re-​lit it and star­ted sin­ging. She didn’t really think we were very good, jud­ging by the look on her face, but all was well again when she got to gnaw on a gummy worm :)

Then the dilemma of what to eat first — ice cream, oreo or cup­cake! And the oreo takes the cake! (haha, I’m so funny ;) )

No mat­ter, it’s ALL delicious!

The big brothers ban­ded together in an effort to eat as much of the cake and ice cream as possible..

Then it was time for presents!

The boys were less than amu­sed that they could not climb in and open all the gifts for her, or even play with them first, but they did a very good job being 4(ish) and listening!

It was a beau­ti­ful day for a gar­den party — I can’t believe miss a-​v is 2!

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LeBlanc Family 04.29.11 | Hampton, NH Children’s Photography

These kids hold a very spe­cial place in my heart. Even if Ethan deci­des by the end of every shoot that he hates ‘that lady’. Caleb is a ham, straight up. I remem­ber the first time I pho­to­graphed him for his 2nd birth­day and he didn’t really think came­ras were all that fun — but now — he stri­kes a pose.

Mary is in a class by her­self. Com­ple­tely con­tent to just wan­der the beach and eat the sand. Not a care in the world but fully aware of the love around her, par­ti­cu­larly from her big sis­ter, Han­nah. Every time I see Han­nah I’m struck by how mature she is. How she hand­les her­self and her family. She is someone to know. Someone to learn from.

These four kids wouldn’t be who they are with out their parents — a force to be rec­ko­ned with. Some­ti­mes you meet peo­ple who you know could con­quer the world and you won­der if they’re wea­ring superhero cos­tu­mes beneath their street clothes, ready to duck into a phone booth, ready their alter ego and leap tall buil­dings in a sin­gle bound (please excuse me if i’ve mixed my mar­vel metaphors…) but I hope you at least get the point.

It was so great to catch up with this family again briefly before their end of vaca­tion pic­nic. Super-​hero dad is nea­ring the end of yet another deploy­ment and I sin­ce­rely hope we can get together at the end of sum­mer for some more family pho­tos of the com­plete set!

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Reese turns 1! 03.12.11 | Derry, NH Children’s Photography

It’s been an ama­zing year trac­king Reese’s growth. Just a few weeks after her first birth­day I hea­ded back to her house to play. She was still nap­ping so I got a chance to catch up with her moms and eat an ama­zing salad — Baba is one mean salad maker!!

Once the sleepy hea­ded prin­cess made her debut they gave her some lunch and we star­ted off great. Then I took her favo­rite giant neon stuf­fed frog away and she got mad. Sorry honey, he’s just not as pho­to­ge­nic as you are!

But we made up when I let her love with the big pink bear…

Then we down­si­zed to lamby .. Reese is very popu­lar with all her stuffy friends and they all nee­ded some equal lovin’ .. she’s so full of per­so­na­lity and adorableness!

But — Bunny nee­ded her time to shine also (and OMG the froot loops shirt!)

I poke fun, but I love LOVE that she has her ‘friends’ in some many of these pho­tos. In her com­fort zone and inte­rac­ting with them. When my son was 3, we went to the mall for his pho­tos and he was ever reluc­tant to let go of his bear & blan­ket. We ended up swadd­ling the bear with the blan­ket and prop­ping him up against him to get a few shots (or you know .. in mall photo booth talk .. all the shots) — and they’re cute, he’s cute, and I’ll never for­get the tan­trum that cau­sed the bear to co-​star in the pho­tos. But I WISH that we could have just had pho­tos of him enjo­ying his favo­rite things, and not just impo­sing them in the shot.

This is who Reese is right now. These are the things she rela­tes to, and the moments her mum & baba will remem­ber about her. This is what she’ll be able to learn about when she grows up and won­ders what she was like when she was little.

This is real life. And I love to record it for you.

In an effort to encou­rage Reese to be toy free, Baba thought she would rea­son with her that SHE nee­ded to chew on it ;)

And it wor­ked! Beau­ti­ful ladies!

Then it was time to get down to busi­ness. These stuf­fies nee­ded some schoolin’

This whole set up with the dress and chairs and table remind me of a 1950’s photo sit­ting — I LOVE it!

Who am I kid­ding — I love them all — and I love this family!

Lamby (and Reese!) through the year — 23 days, 6 months, 9 months & one year!

my job is awe­some! really, really, awe­some <3

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