Cassie

She has the honor of being my first senior for 2009! It was fun to get back into the swing of senior pictures. I love all the variety and different styles the kids have. It is so fun to take pictures that reflect their individual personality. I have lots of new props I am looking forward to using this year....the stoplight being one of them.

Matching Grandpa

We took this little boys picture and aged the look of the photo to match a picture that was taken of his grandpa. He is wearing the same shirt.

Engagement Pictures

These are from last weekend. We had a really fun weekend and the weather was great! This couple are friends of my son in Minnesota and they came and spent the weekend with us and got their engagement pictures taken! I am looking forward to taking their wedding pictures in September.

Wedding

Just a couple shots from a wedding a couple weeks ago. It was a fun, more casual one with camo and orange for wedding colors!

Garden Bounty

I love having fresh garden produce! I could just live on veggies anyway so having them fresh is the best part of summer.

Sunset

I loved the "cloudy" sunset tonight. A shower had passed through and we were still getting some sprinkles as the sun was setting. It turned the sky pink in the north and north east and resulted in this "pink" rainbow.

Itty Bitty Baby Bunnies

I was out taking some sunset pictures when I heard a lot of squeaking. Our rat terrier was eating whatever was squeaking and she was across the fence and it was too dark to see what she had. There was more squeaking as she ate another one. I got around to where I could go thru a gate to get to where she was and in the meantime a third little squeaker got chewed up! She had found a nest of tiny bunnies, probably only hours old. I started pulling the bunnies out of their toasty little fur filled nest and there were 7 more bunnies for a total of 10!! They are babies so of course they are adorable but they will become nasty garden destroying rabbits.....well, the cats won't eat as much cat food tonight........

Masks

Had fun taking pictures of this guy....whole different style for me!! Loved the challenge. Hope he likes the pictures!

I Love Summer!

Summer is the best time of year and it goes by so quickly!! I love the sun, heat, even the humidity!! Unfortunatly, summer is also a very busy time....never understood the lazy days of summer thing! There is sooo much to do in the garden, flowers and yard. I guess if I didn't plant such a big garden, it would help! As you can see from the garden picture, I have reduced the size quite a bit (That's what the area is that looks different from the rest). But, I love the fresh garden produce and it is so nice to have home canned or frozen veggies in the freezer in the winter. I like to do those things too but I hate it when I get behind. Summer is also a very busy time for me as a photographer. It makes that days fly by at warp speed!

Time to head outside and hoe out some weeds and pick lettuce, sugar pod peas, and the last of the radishes. I have senior pictures to take this afternoon.....hope the rain holds off. Oh, and yes, the yard needs to be mowed again!

Wedding

These pictures are from a wedding a couple of weeks ago. It was a beautiful wedding and a wonderful couple. I had a great time doing their pictures!

Brooklyn Flag Days

Brooklyn is known as the "Community of Flags" so they have the Flag Festival in the summer. Dad had his 550 Oliver in the parade pulling a trailer with the corn crib and barn he built from scratch that are replicas of the ones that were on the farm. Guess I should have taken a picture of the town's flag display but I didn't think about that!

Two of my boys play slow pitch and they played in the flag festival tournament, along with their cousin. I always like to take pictures as they bat....trying to get that really cool shot of the ball and bat meeting! Came close with one of these! My lens really isn't fast enough for that action stopping shot but I still like to try!

Flood in Chelsea

I took these pictures looking into Chelsea on Thursday. Also went down a couple gravel roads towards the river, but couldn't get close to the river or bridges before water was over the road. The bridge was over a small creek on a gravel road a mile or so from Chelsea that was flooding and adding to the water rushing into the Iowa River.

Cutie Pie

These pics are from a session with this 6 month old. What a sweetie!

I have been busy with pictures....so busy I haven't been taking time to post! I need to get some wedding pictures posted for you all to see too.

Rain, Rain, Rain. We need some sunny weather but it doesn't look like we will get it just yet. I am complaining about a little bit of water coming in a couple places in the basement causing a minumim of problems....we had to soak it up with some towels and started running fans on it...and there is a lot of dampness in general. We also had to buy a new dehumidifier as ours had quit working. However, these problems are totally insignificant in comparison to all that some people are going thru with flooding! Once again I am thankful to live on a hill far away from any major rivers!!! Sounds like more rain and storms tonight and tomorrow. We just aren't getting any breaks.

Other rain pictures

The plum tree in our front yard was a casualty of the wind. It was leaning badly anyway, having been damaged by the ice storms the last couple of years. So....guess we won't get any plums for jam this year!

I had to go into Brooklyn this morning and the creeks were still flooding. The water had been over the gravel road in numerous places, bringing with it piles of cornstalk rubbish.

And we are to get more rain today and every day this week..........Sure glad we aren't close to a river!

Wet & Wild Weather

We woke up to the wind blowing hard and then the rain started in....according to our rain gauge we had a little over 2 inches in 30 minutes. But, it was raining and blowing so hard it probably missed the rain gauge!!

These pictures are from our back yard, going down to the pond....today, we had a small river! It was not very bright outside and I had to use too slow of a shutter speed to get a good crisp picture, plus it was still blowing and raining although the heaviest had passed. So please excuse the quality!

The shed that you see in the background that is in the process of being built will be a "garden shed" for mower, tiller, etc. but it will have a porch on the front that will be a cute setting for some pictures.