And the Results of the First Cutest Kids Contest are in

What a week of voting! Many of the votes contained personal messages why their entrant was the cutest. My favorites would mention they were the cutest in the world, right after their own kiddos! In the end Brennan captured the most votes. She actually did not receive a vote until Monday afternoon, but once her parent's network was notified she received votes from DFW, Texas and even areas across the US. So here is a big congratulations to you Brennan. I want to thank all the loyal voters for each of the cutest kids. It was an exciting first contest and I promise their will be more to come.

Cutest Kid Contest

Yes, everyone has a cutest kid contest, however, this is my first. If you are not loyal to one of the parents, I honestly cannot see how you can choose one over the other 3, however, you must! Each person can vote once per day. The contest will run 7 days beginning today and end at Midnight Saturday the 26th. The winner gets a nice prize, so vote for your favorite often, just remember - once a day. Click on Gracie, Matt, Brennen, or Sam to cast your email vote.

Gracie

Matt

Sam

Brennen

Too Close For Comfort

Thursday I opened my web browser to find the lastest headline "Fire Destroys McKinney Grain Elevator". This sent a shiver of fear through my body. There are [were] two grain elevators in Mckinney: the one that is directly across the street from my studio building and the one that attaches to my studio building on the back side. Either would be way too close for comfort. After a quick phone call and watching the newsstation's video I found out it was the one across the street. The historical grain elevator, built in the mid 1800s was destroyed, but my building was safe.

Too close for Comfort.



Click on the image above to read details and watch the video.

Four Generations

This one is special. JoAnn contacted me shortly before Christmas to have a family portrait made. Most familes have 3-5 in their portrait, however, JoAnn had 14. This portrait included 4 generations of their family. I did not find out until recently this was the first time that all of the family was able to be together to capture this moment. I know that their children's children will one day consider this as valuable as JoAnn does when they understand the special time in their life that it represents.
I am very honored to have been chosen to create this heirloom portrait for their family.

All of the family

When Dean called to schedule a family portrait for his kids I asked how many total children. When he asked if each pet counted as one of the family I knew we would have fun. Three kids and two dogs sounds like a handful but they were so well mannered [both human and canine] that the session was a breeze and we captured some great images. Check out two of my favorites below.

Rebecca and Matt

Along with the holidays, December brought a whirlwind of family portraits and one of my favorites was with Rebecca and Matt. Rebecca wanted to create a formal family heirloom portrait with her son and herself. I love doing this because not only can they enjoy the portrait now, but it also allows future generations of their family to connect with the past. In addition, they also brought some of their more casual western clothes and we had a fun time working with those, also. They had so many great portraits I really had a hard time narrowing it down to a few to show here.