The trend lately here in Seattle is that it’s totally chilly and overcast in the morning, and then it switches gears about half way through the day (usually RIGHT as we are heading out!), and suddenly the clouds part, and it’s super sunny and HOT!!
When we left this morning, Maya said she wanted to be a vampire. haha 🙂 She wanted to wear all black and wear her wings from last year’s Halloween. She wore the wings to the gym, and seriously-SO CUTE!
We were going to visit one of my best friends and her newborn for lunch. They live in Kirkland about 5 minutes away from one of my favorite parks to shoot at. It’s about 30-40 minutes away from us (with no traffic) though, so I’ve never taken Maya there. I was super excited envisioning Maya running through all the tall grass and down all the wooden boardwalks with her wings flying on her back!
Of course as soon as we got to the park…the clouds parted and it got HOT!
I’d already lugged all my gear out, so we just sat in the shade of a big willow tree and snapped a few.
My girlfriend’s teenage daughter curled Maya’s hair while we caught up. I’ve never curled her hair before, but it looked SO PRETTY!!
On me… (no time for links, sorry!)
Getting her to come to me when there’s all the open space from low tide, is practically impossible! Although, I tried to take a bunch while I was holding her, but my remote trigger was acting up-GRRR! 
Our shoes didn’t stay on long 🙂 
And, she’s OFF! 
LOVE this next one!!
hahaha. 
I had to get in the water for this shot, and let me tell you. The water was COLD!!! 
I took these the day before I left on my girls weekend over a week ago…
For a sizing reference. I’m 5′ 8″, and I got a small. It’s actually almost too long! Nothing a little knot doesn’t fix!
Because…twinning is winning! haha. 
Maya wanted to “Make me look beautiful” by putting weeds in my hair 😉 
You can’t really see them, but…so sweet! 
I can’t even handle her sweet smile!!! LOVE HER!
The low tide was SO cool, but it was SO slippery out there on the rocks. We ventured out a little bit, and then came back.
I thought about messing with this image in Photoshop to enhance the beauty, but decided to leave it exactly the way I took it in my camera… 
Same with this one. I’m not much of a landscape photographer, but I couldn’t help but take a picture on this day. 
And, I’ve always wanted to capture Maya mid jump. Oddly…when I finally did, I realize it wasn’t exaaaaaactly how I pictured it in my mind 🙂 
There may or may not have been some wine before we took these… 😉 
Sadly, I left my tripod leaning up against a building in Portland when I was loading my car up, and left it there. WAHHHHH!!!! I had all these plans to get a bunch of pictures of us together.
On me…
Earlier we saw a purple sea star (that I took a video off, but spaced on taking a picture of!) and a live crab, but it quickly hid under a rock. Later we found a baby crab that was sadly not alive anymore…
We had a little “Pretty Woman” moment, where I pretended the crab bit her 🙂 
Seriously…that face!!! 
I literally want to eat her up!!
It’s hard to get Maya to come anywhere near me, because she just wants to run and play in the sand.
Yup…this view is only a few yards away from the above shots! Honestly, not even that! I could have pivoted from the above shot to get this!! 
She honestly face planted in the first 5 minutes!! 🙂 I’m SO glad I thrift all her clothes!!
EXCEPT for the fact that once she’s down there…she doesn’t want to get up ;{
So, I have to offer to play with her (which is really all I want in the first place!) 🙂 
And….back to playing in the sand.
Until I gave her permission to just jump and play! 
But….
So, I ordered another shutter release, but it’s on back order. SO…the last few shoots have been all with the self timer. I CANNOT WAIT for the new shutter release to get here!!
And…her chasing me to the spot 🙂 I love this little pocket of sunshine and all the shade around it…
Wanting up…
Once again, I hadn’t planned on throwing her, but she came running full force at me, and we caught it perfectly. Well, not perfectly because I chopped off half of her body. Love that I still got her face…in the shadow and all.
Bubble gun that we got from the dollar store. So cool, because it doesn’t require batteries. NOT so cool, because you have to push the trigger a kazillion times to get a lot of bubbles. That’s hard for her, so she usually gets one big bubble… 
This next shot is totally blurry, and I don’t care!! I tried “gunning” some bubbles for her, and then attempted to run back to catch her chasing them. Well, the wind was too strong, and… 
You can’t tell, but it was 75 degrees. We were both HOT! And I was totally sweaty from running back and forth between the camera, and then chasing her. SO…we made the executive decision to leave and go play at the indoor gymnastic free play. Always sad to leave… 
On me…
and the back of this top?? LOVE!
If there is one thing I consistently love (besides an interesting back on a top haha), it’s a red shoe! LOVE the pop of color that instantly makes any outfit 10 times cuter!! 
I decided to play around with the 
Ladybug! 
It’s been a long time since I’ve captured this, but it’s one of my favorite sights!!! Maya running in for a big bear hug (which usually knocks me over, haha) 🙂 
I still cannot believe I got so lucky to have such a sweet happy little nugget…
On me…
Oh, and note to self. You have to stay within the sweet spot when shooting with a Lensbaby 😉 What you can’t really see is that Maya is desperately reaching down to tickle me on the way down haha.
I feel like I should be knocking on wood, BUT… Maya has been more open to my clothing suggestions lately! For the last year, it has been twirly dresses and leggings on repeat! Which…is fine, but I LOVE her in jeans. And honestly, they are more durable for falls!
Again….interesting back? I’m IN!!!
Seriously, dying…
And…I think she inherited my laugh 😉
And dance moves hahaha.
It’s not always laughs and smiles. A lot of the time is tiger roars… 😉 
I decided to step out of my comfort zone and try a few lens that I rarely use. I have so many lens, and tend to only use the same one or two over and over. Such a waste of both money, and my creativity!!
Kinda love how Maya is totally out of focus running to me on the image below! I would NEVER attempt an action shot with a Lensbaby with a client, but…maybe….??? One of my biggest regrets is that I don’t take more images that I WANT to capture with clients. How are they supposed to know, if I don’t take them?!!
LOVE this next one! 
And then the 
I can’t even… I know I say that all the time, but I’m just SO not good with words! And yet, I end up capturing exactly what I want to say, so…maybe I’m better with imagery words? 
And, just to show you what happens when you get a liiiiiittle bit closer. You lose the sun flare and haze. I’m totally torn, because I love both!! Yet, they are absolutely different! 
Oddly enough, where we went isn’t a huge park. It’s right across the street from the beach, and not big at all!
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