Category Archives: Family

Family, Photography, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Pose Ideas for Husband and Wife Pictures

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Well January was kinda crazy. I was trying to get my life back together after the holidays. We went on vacation in October and November. Then Christmas came along and my birthday. I also spent all January trying to recover from being sick and my data disaster. Now it’s already mid February…  Crazy! Good news! My computer is cleaned. The laundry is finally caught up and my apartment looks decent. I feel like I can actually sit down and write a nice blog post cause my kids are taking naps. So here we go!

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My old roommate Catherine came into town and she wanted an updated family picture.

Catherine and Dalton said they didn’t want another picture in front of fall colors nor did they want her pictures to look like engagement pictures.  So this is what we came up with:

Theme: Urban

Location: 341 S. Main Street, Salt Lake City, Utah – Alleyway Between Maxwell’s and Array Salon

Time: We did dusk/twilight but it didn’t really matter too much because this area is in between tall buildings that block the sun.

I wanted to point out how good they were at posing!!! They came up with a lot of creative husband and wife / couple poses.

So, I want to write a little more about Catherine. She was one of the seven girls I ended up rooming with during my first year of college. She is amazing! She has so many talents especially in writing and journalism. My favorite thing about Catherine is that she makes everyone feel genuinely loved.

Every guy loved Catherine and wanted to date her. She ended up waiting for Dalton while he was on his 2 year LDS mission. They got married in the Bountiful Utah Temple in December of 2011.

Catherine and Dalton have been married for a little over two years and it’s obvious that they are really happy.

So what’s their secret? Why are they so happy? How are they making their marriage work?

I asked her specifically about how has their decision of being married in a LDS temple has helped their marriage.

This is what Catherine said:

“Because we were married in the temple, we are able to connect every choice we make in our lives to our overall purpose and ultimate destiny. Our journey together is real. When we face trials and uncertainties in life, we can always find joy in knowing there is a purpose and a plan for us. The temple made us an eternal team, and we are always reminded of that when we go back to the temple. This encourages us to focus all of our attention on being the best supporter we can of our teammate’s goals and dreams.”

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Child #1: Micah, Child #2: Quentin, Family, Family Life, Landscape, Photography

Family Pictures: Emigration Canyon, Utah

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I had a vision of having our family pictures taken on the top of a snowy mountain so we drove up Emigration Canyon in Salt Lake City, Utah to take these pictures. I think they turned out OK for being impromptu! 🙂

Why is it called Emigration Canyon? Wikipedia says:

Emigration Canyon was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961. It is significant in Utah history as the original route used by pioneers entering Utah. It was part of the Hastings Cutoff route used by the Donner Party in 1846, and where the Mormon pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. As Brigham Young looked over the canyon, he declared, “This is the right place. Drive on.” These words have become famous in Utah history. The event is commemorated with This Is The Place Heritage Park at the mouth of the canyon. Throughout Emigration Canyon, there are several historic markers designating camps, trail markers and milestone where the Mormon Pioneers passed while on their way to the Salt Lake Valley. One example of these milestones is called Lost Creek Camp.

We used my brother’s Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM Ultra Wide Angle Zoom Lens for Canon SLR Cameras.

Wide angle lens are great for landscape shots.

We took these with a tripod so that’s why my kids don’t always look at the camera. I’m going to create a device one day that will capture my kids attention while my camera is self timer on a tripod… lol!

Enjoy!

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Children, Family, Photography, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Eternal Families

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I recently took pictures of this family. They have three cute little girls. We believe in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in families and that we can belong to an eternal family. “The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity. Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.” –The Family Proclamation to the World

Of course in our imperfect world, we face hard things. “Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation. Extended families should lend support when needed.” God does not expect us to go through these hard things by ourselves, this why we have The Church. This is why church has home teaching and visiting teaching. Everything we do in our church is to help each other to be happy even during the toughest parts of life. We invite everyone to come to our church meetings to learn more about eternal families! We invite you even if you don’t have a family of your own and we want you to meet your ward family.

Children, Creative Ideas, Family, Parenting, Photography, Toddlers

Family Pictures Wearing Handmade Clothes

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My neighbor and friend, Heather has a sewing blog and I took her family pictures while they wore clothes that she made herself. How cool is that? Isn’t it such a unique idea? Here‘s the link to her post about making her clothes for the photo shoot. Also, don’t you think the cool big leaves they brought really added to the picture?

On a side note, I’ve taken pictures of a lot of little kids. Little kids are definitely my favorite to take pictures of. Here are some tips for taking family pictures with little kids.

First, use the first 10 minutes wisely because that is probably all the time you’ll have to get your little kids to pose for the picture. My best pictures always come from the beginning of the photo shoot such as the picture posted on the top.  Also, before the shoot, make sure your camera is set to continuous shooting mode so you can snap pictures fast.

Second, go the direction the kid is looking at instead of making them turn to you.

Third, poses while holding the child is best if they won’t stand still for you.

Fourth, after the child/children get restless, just capture the moment as you and the parents play with the children. Bring something that will capture their attention like a whistle or toy. Tell the parents it’s ok if their kid doesn’t want to pose. Little kids gets really upset when they are forced to do something they don’t want to and that doesn’t make a happy family picture.

Fifth, don’t drag out the photo shoot. Once the kid is done the photo shoot is over! 🙂

What are your tips while photographing little children?

Child #2: Quentin, Family, Family Life, Ireland, Photography, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Travel

Ireland Miracle #2

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Now that we’ve had some time to ponder about our time in Ireland. I’m going to do a series of stories about miracles that happened on our adventure in Ireland. We feel like our trip to Ireland was one big miracle made up of a bunch of small miracles. The first miracle I blogged about happened within hours of our arrival in Ireland. You can read it here.

This post is about one of the final miracles that happened in Ireland and I’ll fill in the rest later. I felt like it was a miracle to have little Quentin in Ireland. He has been our favorite and best souvenir. You can see his newborn pictures here.

We initially didn’t plan on having the baby in Ireland. We thought we would just fly home during my last month of pregnancy…. but Irish airlines wouldn’t let pregnant women fly internationally after 28 weeks. That was a problem. Dallin wasn’t finish with his research assignment in Ireland when I was 28 weeks pregnant so we decided to stay. We changed our airplane tickets to July 25 which is one month after the guess “birthday” of the new baby. We thought since my first baby was 2 weeks early that it wouldn’t be a problem to fly home on July 25. Well, things didn’t go as plan and the baby didn’t arrive until July 4th which is 9 days after my “due date”.

At first we didn’t realize how much paper work and processing time it was going to take to get the baby home to the USA:

  • First we needed to get an Irish birth certificate (processing time 4 to 6 weeks)
  • Then we needed to schedule an interview with the US embassy (booking 4 weeks in advance)
  • We needed to take the Irish birth certificate to the US embassy interview to get a US birth certificate abroad and a US passport (processing time 6 weeks)
  • Lastly, we had to wait for the passport to come in the mail

The total estimated time to get the baby’s passport was 10 weeks after birthday which would’ve put us to Sept 12th! We didn’t want to pay more money to change our flights and we really wanted to get back to Utah. So we prayed and I got a priesthood blessing. My husband and I both felt at peace that the Lord’s timing is always right.

We acted on faith after the baby finally arrived. We miraculous got an US embassy interview for July 11 (14 days before our flight date) but we still needed an Irish birth certificate. So we called and requested an emergency Irish birth certificate. The hospital faxed our information over to the government offices instead of waiting for the information to process in the system. We managed to get a copy of the baby’s Irish birth certificate on July 8th. We went to the interview and told the people at the US embassy that we want to fly on July 25 so they marked our application as “urgent” but they didn’t guarantee that it would happen by then. Our faith was indeed tested while we waited for the passport to arrive in the mail. I checked the mail everyday hoping that the passport have come.

I was in distress because we needed to change our flights at least 24 hours in advance! Well to make the story short, the passport arrived within 48 hours of our flight and we flew home on July 25th when our baby was shy of 3 weeks old.

Yep we made it home with a toddler and a newborn infant alive. How in the world did I just give birth and get on a plane to move our family across the ocean? I have no idea except that I felt the grace of God helping us every step of the way.

Well that’s it for now. We have many more miracles to post about!

Family, Family Life, Landscape, Photography, Utah

Donut Falls

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We hiked to donut falls. It’s a really easy hike if you start at the Donut Falls Trail Head. It’s only .75 miles until you get to the waterfall. Then you have to climb the waterfall to to see the donut. I highly recommend the hike for little kids. We went with a 7, 5, 3, 2, 1, 0 year old kids and we seem to all make it to at least the waterfall. Then we left most of the smaller kids with grandma and grandpa so we can make it up to see the donut. Don’t forget to bring the donuts!

This is the the waterfall you have to climb to see the donut:

 

Child #1: Micah, Family, Family Life, Ireland, Photography, Travel

Murphy’s Farmhouse

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We thought it’d be fun to stay on a farm one weekend. Little Micah loved it! Micah would wake up at 6 am and we would hear:

Cow: Moo

Micah: Moo

Duck: Quack Quack

Micah: Quack Quack Quack Quack!!

We loved seeing the cows to go get milked everyday. It was a very peaceful stay away from the big city!

Child #1: Micah, Family, Family Life, Ireland, Photography, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Travel

Dingle Peninsula

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We drove around the Dingle Peninsula. It was super pretty. I thought Dingle was prettier than the Ring of Kerry although they were both a very nice drive. When we went to Dingle, we went to a tiny branch for church called Tralee. It was the smalled branch I have ever been to! There were hardly enough people there to run the branch. Nevertheless, the rented building was remodeled and I felt like I was at the temple. It was a neat experience for us to go to a small branch and see how the church is growing.