It’s been a whirlwind of a couple months and here lately especially. A couple of weeks ago I was shooting some of the mommy and me mini sessions and I noticed Briley kept coming out on the porch to check on me. Later that evening she brought me a bottle of water and when I sent her back to her daddy up at the house she asked, “When is it my turn?” I was in a hurry so I sent her back to the house and told her I’d be up there shortly. When I got in that night I asked her what she meant. She said she wanted to know when it was her turn for pictures. Keep in mind, even though I get the comment all the time about how she must be a dream to photograph because she looks like she cooperates so well.. that is not the case. She is the token “photographers child.” She was over pictures long ago. I burnt her out on it. When she was 2.5 she suddenly started asking.. but this would be few and far between. When she asked.. I had to jump on it. As long as it was her idea… she was more than happy to cooperate with most anything. But this was they first time she had ever looked sad and it broke my heart.

It was still early in the week and I had a crazy schedule for the rest of the week so I promised her if she waited and she still wanted to.. we would take pictures that weekend… of just her. It would be HER TURN. That weekend we took a family trip, just the 3 of us to Dallas, specifically to go to the American Girl store.

Camera phone pics from our day out..

Then Sunday after church, I asked her again if she wanted a turn.. and she said yes! Sunday afternoon, after she woke up from her nap I went into her closet and grabbed a top, shorts, boots, one of my headbands, a carton of blackberries (she LOVES blackberries), and MY old stuffed animal from when I was a child (a fat little sheep) and we set off. That morning, knowing that we were going to take pictures that evening, I really had no idea what I was planning. No cute outfit in mind. No cute concept like I spend so much time working on for clients. I almost felt like there was really no point in taking them. There was no organization, rhyme or reason to these pictures. This was simply to appease a 3 year old who was feeling left out and needed some one-on-one time with mama. I don’t normally do Bluebonnet pictures.. but we took some pictures of her in the bluebonnets a couple of years ago and there was a GORGEOUS patch of them on the way to church.. so I decided we would just go there. A 3 year old frolicking in wild flowers.. that works. So off we went.. about 30 minutes from the house for pictures of my child. Keep in mind, I can’t tell you the last time, IF EVER, that I’ve driven off to a location for pictures of Briley. Pretty much ever session.. every picture of her has been taken in our yard, the studio, the pasture, etc. Of course in my mad rush to leave the house, I actually left way too early and the sun was still really high.. and was all wrong for what I had in mind. We ended up taking a few and got back in the truck to head home. Shortly after pulling back on the road I heard something and looked back and Briley had tears! I asked her what was wrong (thinking she was just tired) and she said she wasn’t ready to go home and that it was still her “turn”.. so back to the house we went.. for more pictures. I pulled out in the pasture.. dropped my camera bag on the ground and grabbed the bowl of blackberries… and just let her run and play. She talked about us doing this for a week after.. and some of my favorite pictures of her to date. But better than the pictures from that day was how excited she was to have her own designated time to be my little model.. and how much she loved it. :)

Camera phone pic I grabbed at the end of her “session.” :)

I did drop the ball a bit since I did these over 2 weeks ago.. but like I said, I’m buried right now, so I’m actually proud to be getting them on the blog at all. :\ Favorites from her little personal session. ;)