I’ve tried blogging these photos probably six times now. The problem is this stupid text box. It’s too big and not big enough, all at the same time. So I will try and keep it simple.

I’ve been good friends with Amy for a long time — probably around 12 years now.

Her birthday is the day before mine. We both spent years scooping ice cream at our local homemade ice cream store.

She’s one of my closest friends, which means we hang out a few times a year and regularly comment on each other’s lives on facebook and occasionally spend a few hours catching up on mostly mundane things via text message. She’s one of those friends you can not be in touch with for six months and then bump into at Target and spend over an hour catching up with, talking a mile a minute until our patient husbands start pulling out their phones out of boredom. She’s beautiful, smart, hysterical, and devoted to her family.

Tyler is a nature/wildlife photographer. He switched from Canon to Nikon awhile back, and let me use his new D800 at this shoot. He helped us out at Emma & Geoff’s wedding ceremony last fall and put his awesome telephoto lenses to work from across the Kanawha River.

Haddie is a HAM- she was actually the flowergirl at a wedding we shot last year, and she’s so stinkin cute and sassy I can’t stand it.

And Molly is so mellow. She barely made a peep the whole time we were talking around shooting. Amy and I are super animated (meaning, we talk FAST and LOUD when we’re together), yet sweet little Molly was as happy as could be that afternoon.

So, that’s the extended introduction. Sorry for all the text– we just really, really love this family and couldn’t share these photos without telling you more about how much they mean to us.

We love you guys!!!

I know I just posted a slideshow the other day, but we still had a wedding to shoot and I had a few more folders of photos to comb through. Also, I myself am typically not a slideshow person. So I wanted to present a set of photos in the good ol’ fashioned way here on the blog.

I am so proud of the relationships we built with our couples this year and the photos we took of them. I am so proud to know them. We get to spend our weekends documenting the best days of people’s lives. Sharing that with Bobby has been an incredible experience this year. Bobby was my 2nd shooter for almost every wedding in 2010, but in 2011 he really stepped it up and cranked out some remarkable photos. And he has alleviated so much of the stress I used to experience when I was running this business all by myself.

In previous years I split up my Year in Review posts into engagement photos and portraits… but this year, I decided to put all of our favorite images into one jammin’ post. These aren’t in chronological order, they’re just our favorite photos, and only a fraction of them.

2011 was such a great year.

Black Eagle Child – She Has Funny Hats by blackeaglechild

 

I have to say, though.. that probably my very favorite photo of the entire year….. was this one. Of me on my wedding day, about to marry Bobby. Taken by Ken Kienow. I look at my wedding album all the time, and I love the photos we’ve displayed in our home. There are no words for how much his photos mean to us. To have my own set of photos from the happiest day of my life…. it’s the most wonderful thing. (You can see more photos from our wedding on Ken’s blog and on Wedding Chicks.)