The Khan Family | Roseville Family Photographer

One of the greatest blessings of being a family photographer is the honor of capturing my friends’ families!   Lara is a sweet friend who I have known for a few years, we have done moms groups, and ministry together.  When you think of those people in your life who are genuine, sincere, always encouraging, and fun, she is definitely at the top of the list!   I was SO honored when Lara asked me to capture her FAMILY.  Winter is always a little hard with kids, and weather, but thankfully the day we met in February was the PERFECT time to capture her family! I LOVE LOVE to capture families “as they are” so even though I know Lara well, I asked her some questions about how their family interacts, what they love to do and who they were.  With those answers we planned a GREAT evening!  We saved the best part for last so be sure to check out how we ended our session, it was SUCH FUN!

The evening we met was SUCH a beautiful winter day!  The sun was out and we had plenty of time to play:-)  We roamed around Royer Park, which is one of my favorite parks in Roseville with it’s mature trees, green grass, a creek and interesting structures including a pedestrian bridge, you can’t ask for much more!  We started out with a walk down to the creek, I stepped back and let them lead, they are SO fun and easy going!  They LOVE to PLAY with their kids, and experience the world through their kids eyes, it really was so amazing, just capturing them as they went about their walk:-)  The really are a sweet family.

As we were walking we found this AWESOME corrugated metal shed!  I think I said, “Act like you love each other, get in close!”  And this is what I got! PERFECTION!

This spot down by the creek is fun, although I had to keep Aaron from leading the kids INTO the creek! 🙂

I asked Lara to describe her kids using 5 words.

Ella: caring, loud, cautious, drama, friendly

Avo: affectionate, playful, carefree, easy going, determined

I LOVE it!  You tell me do these pictures capture those descriptions?

Often times parents have SO many pictures of their kids, but they forget to capture themselves, especially some images of the two of them together, remembering that their family started with their LOVE.  It’s such joy to capture that, and know that whether it be their phone screen, on their desk, or hung on their wall, that this couple will have some pictures of the two of them that they love and remind them, they still matter, even if life seems to be all about the kids!

OK so here is my favorite part!  I asked Lara to describe their perfect family day.  What would they do? How would they get there, what would they eat, listen to, and what would be on their must bring list?  I was SO excited to get her answer!  Here are Lara’s words:

“If we could do and go anywhere it would be to take them to another country where they could enjoy and experience life differently. We love to walk everywhere we go, so we can explore together and stop whenever we see something. We love being outdoors.  Aaron would have his list of all the restaurants he researched and we would try to hit them all and we always try to find some kind of Asian food.  We would definitely listen to a Jack Johnson CD, especially “Banana Pancakes” song.  Each kid would have to bring their favorite animal they sleep with, Ella her giraffe and Avo his “Kanga”.  Avo would have his trains and cars to play with and Ella would have “Fancy Nancy” book and her dress up clothes and jewelry. We also always bring a box of Fruit Loops because we have made it a tradition that on vacation we eat fruit loops for breakfast.”

That’s right, we walked around explored the park, and then settled in for a picnic, complete with the kids animals AND fruit loops!  It was hard to capture because I was laughing so hard!  They had such a good time with it!

Don’t let this fool you, THIS happened right as we were loading the kids up with more Fruit Loops:-)  It’s the moment of calm before the kids surprise:-)

Now in my defense…the kids were supposed to throw the Fruit Loops UP into the air, but Ella, well she had other plans…And the look on her dad’s face as the cereal pelted him in the back of the head is PRICELESS! THIS is a keeper:-)

This is the first time I have formally done this for my clients, and I can tell you questions like these will show up again in my”get to know you” dates!  Lara, It was a JOY to capture your family, to watch you interact, and to capture a little bit of who your family is!  THANK YOU!

Do you need new family portraits to tell YOUR story on your walls, or in a book on your coffee table?  Are you looking at your kids and wondering, where the time goes, and how they got so big?  Do you want to celebrate who THEY are RIGHT now?  I would love to tell YOUR FAMILY’S story, and CAPTURE YOUR LIFE! This FALL I am taking limited SESSIONS this FALL, as we are building our house, SO send me an EMAIL soon, and we will grab a coffee and get to know each other!

Thanks for reading!

Anna