Celebrating One Year With Ashi!

 

It’s already been one year since our little buddy Ashenafi joined us from Ethiopia! His mama Erin asked Asher and I to join her, Christian and Ashi  for a little celebration of his special  anniversary with some yummy treats at Mallard Ice Cream. Of course we obliged…you’ll never catch us turning down an invite for Mallard’s cool creamy goodness! Never mind the fact that we both absolutely adore Ashi and would never miss an opportunity to celebrate his presence in our lives : )

  

  

  

I just looked through the first photos I took of Ashi last April and I cannot believe how much he has grown since he arrived! I get such a kick out of hearing his developing language skills and his emerging personality. He’s quite entertaining : )

Big brother Christian shows us his mad cone-eating skills

   Biggest brother Asher gets some love from Ashi : )

 

Asher had instructed me to keep him out of the pictures (hence the faux scowl) but I’m glad I didn’t oblige him because I love this picture of him and his monkey-on-the-back little bro : )

 

  

So close this time!

LOTS of love for Mama from her boys!

Congratulations on one year together… what a happy little family : )

Family Fun!

Summer is a time for families to gather and every summer I am called upon at least a few times by different families to capture their time together for them. Ever since the shoot we did with her own family last summer, my friend Angie has been talking about doing a shoot with her husband Steve’s family. Just a couple weeks ago, Steve’s brother Mike was in town from Florida and I joined  the whole gang at the family’s beach house on Camano Island!  Of course the group photo of everyone together was the first order of business and once we got that out of the way, we focused on photos of the individual families and of course, lots and lots of candid documentation!  Here’s a selection of some of my favorites…

This photo cracks me up. Apparently Gus was not going to be shown up by Maya’s impressive skills and showed off a few of his own!

View Full Album

Ty, Gizmo & Gus were part of the fun, so of course they had their pictures taken too!

Despite the bright sunlight making all of us a little squinty-eyed, we had a fun time playing down at the beach on this gorgeous summer day.

I can always count on Dayton to have a stick in his hand. In this shot he’s showing me how his snake stick hisses : )

This final series of brothers Dayton & Cooper also cracks me up. Apparently Dayton didn’t hear me ask for their best silly faces. I was laughing so hard at the crazy face Coop gave me that eventually Dayton caught on : )