Graduation is Coming! ~ Las Colinas Texas Portrait Photographer

My husband left last Sunday for a week to go to Guadalajara, Mexico and treat athletes at the Pan American Games. What an exciting experience. He had such a great time and learned so much from the doctors that were down there. Needless to say, we missed him quite a bit here at home. It was especially hard because his phone wouldn't work and we only got to talk to him once (for a total of 3 minutes). Aside from our coveted phone call we relied on 1 to 2 line emails sent as he was heading out the door for the day or after a long day working at the sporting venues.

One night as I was missing him I decided to edit a few of the graduation pictures that I took for him the day before he left for Mexico. When I say I took them for him, it sounds like I did him a favor and took some graduation pictures for him. It was more like he was a REALLY good sport and put up with me dressing him up and dragging him out in the middle of him trying to pack so that I could take some pictures of him.

Matt is graduating in 8 weeks and I can't believe that we're to the point that we're taking graduation pictures! These last 3 years have FLOWN by. I'm so proud of Matt and all his hard work and everything that he's accomplished and sacrificed to get to this point.

Here are a few pictures of my very handsome husband :)

Holiday Mini Sessions ~ Coppell Texas Child & Family Photographer

Holiday Mini Sessions are back and better than ever! These are perfect for an updated picture for your Christmas card and I have LOTS of Holiday cards to choose from this year. I'm so excited for them all. I'll be posting some next week. So check back :)

This year there are two package options to choose from so there's something for everyone. Check out the details below, choose your date and your package and call or email me to schedule your appointment today.

If a mini session isn't what you're looking for I would love to discuss a full session with you. I've revamped my sessions and I'm so excited to now offer Session Premiers to my clients! The Session Premiers are amazing. One to two weeks after your session I'll come to your home with the dessert of your choice and together we'll view a custom slideshow of images from your session. I'm very excited to offer this new feature for my clients!

I'm moving at the beginning of December so make sure you schedule your session soon so you can get your images and order before I leave. Call of email me for session availability.

It's That Time of Year Again! ~ Dallas Fort Worth Child and Family Photographer

Yep, that's right! It's time to start thinking about family pictures once again :) I know it's hard to think about scheduling family pictures when it doesn't feel like fall will EVER get here (seriously, can't we please at least dip down into the 90's sometime soon?) but if you're anything like me the holidays always come WAY too fast and then I'm scrambling to get my Christmas cards out in addition to all the other stuff I have to do.

So book now and save yourself from the headache of last minute family pictures and Christmas cards. I promise you'll thank me when December comes and you don't have to worry about family pictures or Christmas cards because you had your session early!

As an added incentive, if you book a full session during the month of September, you'll receive a set of 15 custom designed folded press printed gift tags with your Christmas card order!

Welcome Home ~ Dallas Fort Worth Portrait Photographer

Ten hours from now we get to welcome my baby brother home! He's been living in New Zealand for 2 years serving a mission for our church.

I'm so excited to see him and for him to meet my youngest. This will be the first time in 3 1/2 years that my whole family has been together! So crazy & exciting :) I tried to be on top of things and schedule a lot of blog posts, but that just didn't happen ;) So I may be posting a bit less for the next couple weeks. Just know that I'm still here and I'm enjoying a lot of family time.

Just For You ~ Irving Texas Portrait Photographer

My friend Kalli was nice enough to help me out last month and be a model for one of my workshop assignments. It was HEAVEN not having to use my 3 year old as my model. I almost didn't know what to do when I didn't have to ask her to look in my camera every 20 seconds!

I firmly believe that every woman should have pictures taken of themselves. Everyone deserves to get dressed up and feel beautiful once in a while. I know that I get caught up in all the mommy stuff and sometimes feel like "Elise" gets lost in the shuffle or I forget that there's more to me than just being the mommy.

Looking at these makes me wish my mom had pictures like this taken when I was younger. Yes I'd probably laugh at them a little, I mean it was the 80's :) But they would be priceless to me.

So whatever your excuse is for not getting pictures taken, let go of it. Go get dressed up and feel beautiful even just for an evening. Do something for yourself. I promise it will be worth it. And you'll always have those pictures to remind you that you are more than your job, or your kids.

Happy 4th! ~ Coppell Texas Child and Family Photographer

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July! We all know how long weekends confuse me to no end :) But I'll be back on Thursday with a session I did last month.

Things I Love Texas Edition ~ Dallas Fort Worth Newborn & Family Photographer

Lately I've been noticing a lot more all the things I love about Texas. Even though my husband's graduation is still 7 months away, I just can't help thinking about how fast it's going to come. We're not 100% sure where we will end up after that, but most likely it will not be in Texas. I don't know if I've really mentioned it on this blog before, but I LOVE Texas. I couldn't have even imagined when we moved here how quickly I would fall in love with everything, but I did. Hook, line and sinker. I'm not going to lie, there are things about Texas I don't love, like the hot humid summers, the fire ants, & all the bugs. But for the most part I have really enjoyed our time here. Now with the prospect of leaving on the horizon I find myself noticing and appreciating all the little things that I love about Texas a lot more.

Here are just a few...

• Texas thunder storms - AMAZING...what more can I say?

• Wild flowers - I love how they just bloom on the side of freeways and random roads. They make my drive so happy and scenic.

• The Big sky - Don't get me wrong, I love the mountains but the sky here just seems so massive.

• Sunsets - It seems like every sunset here is just breathtaking.

• Gorgeous light - I think Texas has some of the most beautiful golden light I have even seen.

Happy ~ Dallas Fort Worth Child and Family Photographer

Here's another of my bluebonnet sessions. I had such a great time with this family! They are just so happy. And aren't they just gorgeous? I get some amazing families.

I loved that they had Grandma join us at the end. She almost didn't make it! The location that we were shooting at was little out of the way and hard to find and she ended up getting there just a few minutes before the sun was gone. Luckily there was a few minutes of light left and it was absolutely breathtaking. She was giving this session to her daughter as a birthday gift. What a great idea! I really don't know any gift that is as personal or lasts longer than capturing these special moments in a family's life.

My Brothers ~ Irving Texas Portrait Photographer

I'm pretty sure that I tormented them to no end when we were younger. In fact I seem to remember specifically dressing them up in dresses, sitting them on the couch and taking pictures. I mean what are little brothers good for if not to use as live dolls? Right? But they caught on really quick, and they weren't too old before they could dish out a fair amount of torment in return.

I'm certain we drove our mom crazy. But even if we thought we didn't like each other when we were younger I'm glad that things change and that they never held any of the mean sister things that I did to them against me.

Here are a few pictures I snapped while two of my brothers were here visiting a few months ago. My youngest brother is in New Zealand on a two year mission for our church. He will be getting back in July! I can't wait to see him!!


This one's engaged and is going to be getting married in July, a few days after my youngest brother gets home. I'm so excited for him and that I get an adorable new sister in law :)

And this one is loving the bachelor's life in southern Utah at Dixie State College.

Would you ever guess that they're twins?

Bucket ~ Grapevine Child and Family Photographer

Beckett. It's a big name for a little guy, but he's grown into it quite well. I think it can be a confusing name for little kids to understand sometimes. My three year old called him bucket for the first few days of his life and even now that he knows his name I hear Becky, Becko and Beckitty a lot.

A friend and I took my little guy out a couple weeks ago to take some pictures. She had a cute bucket that she wanted to use as a prop for a baby and needed a model and I had a knit hat that I had been waiting to use. I, of course, am completely biased because I think he is the cutest little chunk in the world. But I think we got some pretty adorable images.

The funniest thing, that my friend told me a few days later, is that when she pulled her images up on her computer her little girl looked at them and said "Oh I get it! Bucket in a bucket!" So funny! But not quite :)

I Love My Family! ~ Dallas Texas Family Photographer

I come from a pretty large family. I'm the oldest of six kids. We kind of have a Brady Bunch thing going on, because my mom had three girls and then three boys. Growing up we didn't all get along, and I wasn't really sure how I felt about having so many siblings. But luckily as we grew older we actually started to like doing things together. Now one of my favorite things is to be together with my whole family. It doesn't happen very often since we are spread across the country now and we've added a few spouses and a couple kids so it can get a little crazy when we're all together but that's what makes it fun.

My sister and brother in law came to visit us for Thanksgiving. We had the BEST time with them here and my boys were in absolute heaven having so much attention from some of their favorite people. My two brothers came for Thanksgiving too, so needless to say my boys had a LOT of extra attention. And, fun for me, they went through serious attention withdrawals after everyone left. But it's definitely worth having them all here to visit even if I have to deal with the attention withdrawals for a couple weeks afterwards.

Heather and Cam are so much fun and we're always wishing that we lived closer to them so that we could see each other more often.

The Year in Review

I haven't posted in a while because I've been on a blogcation. We went to Utah for a couple weeks for a wedding and for Christmas. We saw lots of friends, spent time with family, ate way too many treats and left before the temperatures got down to the single digits :)

I have a lot to post from my end of the year sessions and a few things I did while I was in Utah, but first I wanted to post some of my favorite images from 2010.











































There's my year in review. It's been a pretty great year, but I can already tell that this year is going to be even better!