leo and the magic school bus

he hung out with me while i was working. of course couldn't keep working when i had this in the room. neither boy is a willing participant in photos these days.

edited with the new 80's photohut action from rachel devine. i am in love with these, have i mentioned? and they're soooooo customizable. and you know that because i used more letters than are needed in the word so and i so hate adding unnecessary letters to words. last two shots were misfires. that i ended up not being able to erase. i'm letting myself do that more. love imperfect images that i make. art isn't perfect. and my art is mine. last two shots edited with expired C41 and windowsill from spring cleaning.

back to work for me.

xo isabel

mother's day minis - success! | boston family photographer |

i'd like to go ahead and pat myself on the back for just a second. when everything wrapped up and the last session was done just before noon on sunday, my husband said to me "hey! you told 6 families you've never met to meet you at a playground and they all came, they all found us, and they all had their pictures taken. no one was late, no one got lost and no one fell in mud!" true the last statement was an unfortunate concern due to an entire night of delightful april "showers" between saturday and sunday. but, we powered through, and no one fell in any mud. i really loved doing this. the families were all so different. one with a newborn, one with a first born and one with her teens. it was fun to talk to all these people, either commiserating over a current shared stage, or reminiscing my boys' newborn days or even remembering back to when we had just jack. and really, i swear, social situations like these are not my strong suit, but i'm so glad i went for it, and i really look forward to doing these in the future. thanks to everyone who came out and shared their beautiful families with me!

i love this picture so much. i asked each set of parents to get together and for most they said they couldn't remember the last time they were photographed together. everyone was so sweet and giggly.

this last family was just beyond sweet. and this little girl was happy the entire time, showing off her walking skills all through the big forest. i also need to point out, her eyes. i know some photographers do the thing with the eyes. i will tell you that i wouldn't even know how to do the thing with the eyes, even if i wanted to. these eyes are legit, 100%, true blue.

so, all in all, i'd say it was a success. i can't wait for everyone to get their beautiful prints. and i am really excited about incorporating this into things at furie photography!

school vacation is kicking my ass and i feel a cold coming on. it's off to thursday night tv for me. xo isabel

the cousins came, they saw, they drooled, they fevered, they went.

so yea, remember the whole my husband is one of nine thing? what this means is that when all his kid having siblings get together in one spot, we have this many children running around (and this many germs...) :

i had my camera out the whole time, and was starting to shoot in RAW. it's taken me forever to get through these images. sometimes, i wish i shot film, because you would just get your pictures and that would be that. half of my lack of motivation came from how exhausted we all were every day after being around so many kids. and half of it was that i was so sad when they left that i didn't really want to look at all the fun we'd been having. then, in the mix, i started shooting RAW and really really prefer the post processing abilities that come with that, and going back and forth between JPEG editing and RAW editing was, well, a pain in the ass. but i knew if i didn't just get through them asap, i never would.

the great thing about this trip was i got to photograph my sister Tricia with her various nieces and nephews. since they live in DC she hasn't really gotten to spend time with the babies.

we spent a lot of time just hanging around inside. since, ya know, we live in new england and it's still freakin freezing...

we did go home occasionally. my little guy got his hair cut, finally. after all my whining, there is nothing quite like a clean cut little boy.

i spent a lot of time following Olivia around. sometimes, i put so much pressure on myself for every shot, every moment. that i forget to just take the moments for what they are. the lighting might not be perfect, maybe i was too busy cooing to get the focus right. i have to let that be ok when i'm just being with my family.

the expressions on this child are too much...

this is the bassinet my husband and all his siblings, and even some of the grandkids, slept in.

and we, the sisters, even got out one morning!

and on our last night, it was mild enough that we dragged all the kids to the playground.

my brother, my sister and i, walked the kids back. ate dinner. said goodbye. until next time...

xo isabel

this weekend i overdosed on family - and it felt good

this is part one blog post of my weekend. because i'm sure you're all just dying to know what i do with my free time. i use the term "free time" loosely, as all mothers and wives will attest. when we all returned from the CA trip, there was a strong calling to spend more time with each other. within days of landing my brother asked if we could find a sitter, so he and his wife (another one of my many fab sisters) could take us out on a double date to china town for dim sum. my sister in law, Alysia, brother(in law)'s wife, is half chinese and spent a large part of her childhood growing up in Hong Kong. to my surprise, brother Mike didn't even like chinese food until he met Alysia!

anyway. we happened to have a plethora of babysitters available this weekend and so we dumped the kids for 2 hours and headed to china town. when we sat down, husband and i made a pretty lame attempt at picking what we wanted, but quickly realized we had mostly no idea how dim sum worked. before we could even scratch our heads or begin to look confused, Mike and Alysia said that they were picking everything. this made me nervous, as i really don't do well with things such as random parts of rare seafood being added into a dish, or parts of a dish that resemble something along the lines of wet garbage. Mike has rarely led me astray in terms of food, so i handed over my menu and proclaimed my faith in him.

we over ordered, 10 dishes i believe. we reassured ourselves that this would provide a bounty of leftovers. well, maybe 45 minutes later and one weird dish, we had eaten pretty much every spec of food. the weird dish you ask? turnip cakes.

after we headed to a bakery for smoothies. which my five year old made sure to recommend to me. this is what happens when the people who surround your children are so cultured, and i freakin love it. yes, my five year old has gone to dim sum, more times than i have i believe.

i love my brother Mike in a crazy person way. it was a wild ride for a minute, but worth it. i love what he does for my boys, i love to see the way they love him. in fact love isn't even a big enough word for what he means to my boys. i love Alysia for loving him and i love him for loving her. because really she's just so awesome. and adds so much to our crazy family quilt. i wish i could describe the relationship he and my husband have, but no one would understand it unless they knew each person. but this is them, in the doorway of the chinese masonic lodge, because things like masons really blow their mind, and a chinese masonic lodge was too much for their brains to handle. they cuddled up with their smoothies. have i mentioned i love these people?!

i'm very behind on lots of little outings that i've been on in the past week. people seen and loads of love floating around. one post down...how many more to go?

xo isabel