Good Stuff for Kids - Creative DIY Photo Valentines

What do you do for Valentine's day for your kids? I have to admit, I can just never drum up any excitement over buying my kids cards at the grocery store. They want to make cards themselves! And of course they want to give out candy (they are not the Valentine's pencil-giving types). Every year I try to combine creativity and candy. We've done many different Valentines crafts over the years - lots of them found in Family Fun magazine, which I highly recommend for both creative Valentines and Halloween costumes. :) Their online presence is not nearly as good as their magazine, but they do still have some fun ideas to look through.

These DIY photo valentines cards have been some of my kids' favorites in the past few years. I used professional photos, but anyone could do this!

All you have to do is take a picture of your child standing in front of some sort of neutral background, with their arms held out.

  
My kids like to pretend to hold a giant lollipop, or if they know they want to tape chocolate candy to their cards, they plan their hands for that. One year my little girl knew months in advance that she wanted to hand out Costco peanut butter cups with her Valentines. Specifically. Yum! (There were no leftovers so I don't have a picture of that!)


I used some digital scrapbooking one year. But you wouldn't have to - these are also great when very basic.
 

Looking back I don't remember how we attached the candy on this one, but both my girls dearly loved this silly fluffy phone, so they were thrilled to use it.



I had forgotten about this one, and now I think it's my favorite! It was perfect for my daughter the year we used it. She got to pick her own messages - I'm sure she was selective about who got what. I remember doing that as a kid too, just in case.



My son is no longer very interested in Valentines - I don't really think he's too old, but he's shy and he goes to a school where it is not a big deal. So I'm thinking this is probably his last valentine :(. Unless I can come up with something extra creative and exciting!

I have a lot of ideas collected on Pinterest - maybe there is an idea there that is perfect for you! Maybe there is even one that my son would do this year. :)

If you like the photography you see, you may be interested in signing up for my newsletter! I send it out something like quarterly, and I use it to announce things like Valentine's day mini-sessions.

Subscribe to my mailing list

* indicates required

Email Address *

First Name

Last Name

Winter family portraits - outside with a mountain view

What do you do when it's winter time in Albuquerque, but you want family portraits taken outdoors? The high desert is not exactly beautiful when it's brown and dry. (I admit to some prejudice here. I am not a winter person.) This is a question that I get asked all the time.

This lovely family and I spent a little time together in a field, with a mountain view, on a beautiful Saturday earlier this month. Actually this was attempt #2 - the first weekend it was just too cold for a baby to be happy outdoors. Obviously outdoor photography in the winter is weather dependent, but we're pretty lucky in Albuquerque to have some really nice afternoons from time to time.

Anyway, they love the mountain view, and that is good any time of year. I love how their session worked!






Their baby really loves his Mama (I know how that goes, I had 3 babies that felt the same. A few years later and Dad is a lot more fun.) I love getting to see that in their photos.


I had some fun trying to lure him away from his parents to get this shot.




Pictures like these are what I wish I had more of with my own children. Since I'm the photographer, there aren't many pictures of me loving my babies.







And even though (you may have noticed) I am not a winter person, I love the yellows of dry fields.



And when I thought we were done (really that either means the light is going or the baby is done with photography), he and his dad started playing this hilarious game. Happy baby giggles can make your session go 10 minutes longer - I can't resist them!

I have some other ideas for outdoor portrait locations - here is one (you have to scroll down) taken at a local park. Another place I go often in the winter is here - it doesn't matter so much what season it is. Downtown in an urban setting is good any time of year. Or, how about embracing the snow, like we did in this session? Or for lots of other session locations, see this blog page here.

If you are thinking of having family portraits done, and you love the outdoors (even in the winter), I'd love to talk with you about a family session! I have more information here, or you can email or give me a call!

Good stuff for kids - Bosque del Apache

I have a fun post for you today. If you live in the Albuquerque area, one place that you really should visit is the Bosque del Apache wildlife refuge. And you should really visit it between November and February, because that is when thousands of migrating birds winter there each year. They have some great photography and lots of interesting information on their website, so if you are interested for sure check it out.

It is a few miles south of Socorro, NM, so it's about a 90 minute drive from the middle of Albuquerque where we live. We have been there before, but it's been quite a few years, so I was really excited to go again (with my long lens! Photography heaven). Now, when you talk to someone who knows about this refuge, they will tell you that you need to go at sunrise. Since it is a 90 minute drive, we have young(ish) kids, and it's really cold here at sunrise in the winter, that is something that my family has never even really tried to do. This year I realized that it would also be nearly as incredible at sunset, and this is my first bit of advice for families with young kids. You do not need to go at sunrise for an amazing time - sunset is at a pleasant 5:00pm right now, and it was perfect.

We arrived at least a couple of hours before sunset. We went first to the visitor's center, which is really nice and has lots of fun things for kids to do and learn about. One of the better visitor's centers for children that I've seen from the NPS. You can rent binoculars if you forgot to bring yours (AGAIN). And your kids can get a pamphlet to fill out to become a JUNIOR RANGER. Yes, a real Junior Ranger, complete with a badge.

 
I would have taken a picture of my daughter with her badge, but she lost it too quickly for that (don't remind her, she will be sad if you do). But it was extremely rewarding for her to do some observations, record her answers, and get the special badge when she was done. I think the NPS does a good job with this program (pat on back). My son was too obstinate to do it and my older daughter didn't realize that she wasn't TOO old - nevertheless, a success. My kids are interested in conservation and biology any time (badge or no badge).

The park itself is kind of a driving tour place. There are place to stop off and go on hikes, shorter and longer. We hiked on a boardwalk that was very pretty, with nearly no birds at all except this little one.

 

The main touring loop is breathtakingly beautiful. It's really a driving kind of place, but we had a little time while we were waiting for my daughter to go back to the visitor's center and get her badge, so some of us took a short hike. We just knew we'd seen a blue heron a little ways back. So we walked back and sure enough, saw this gorgeous big blue heron - which immediately flew away before I could take a picture. Oh well. (Here is where the heron isn't.)


As the sun began to get low, the birds took to the air.


My kids got to climb up on top of the car when we stopped, so much fun.


There are something like 17,000 sandhill cranes at the refuge in the winter. They have the most interesting call (actually they have more than one call, but there is one especially distinctive one). You might hear it in the bosque around Albuquerque as well. You can hear a nice recording of it here.


And the snow geese are absolutely beautiful. There are more than one kind of white goose wintering at the refuge, but these are mainly snow geese. They migrate from as far as Siberia and northern Alaska and Yukon Territories. All the way to our little neck of the woods (my kids were very impressed at this distance).




As the sun set, more and more birds flew. It was breathtaking.







And on our way home we stopped at the Flight Deck boardwalk, for one last bit of heaven. (Kid perspective - "hey Mom, these binoculars work for free!") A really great day trip, and you don't need to leave at 5:00am for a very impressive show.


This is kind of an afterthought, because I really just wanted to talk about the Bosque del Apache. But since we didn't need to be there early, we decided to take a side trip to the VLA (Very Large Array). We've been wanting to visit there forever and never quite managed to do it. It's about an hour from Socorro, so we decided to go there first.

There is also a nice visitor's center, a movie that we liked, and you can go on a short but informative walking tour. We learned a lot about radio telescopes (well, my husband probably already knew that stuff, but the kids and I didn't). You can go right up to one of the dishes - it's ginormous.


From a photography and kid perspective, I think the coolness of the VLA depends a bit on the orientation they have the dishes in. There are 4 arrangements, ranging from very close together to a maximum distance of 22 miles across the Y orientation. We got to see configuration B, which is kind of spread out but not as far as it goes. I believe they change the configuration every 6 months. So, to me, it would have been a little cooler if the dishes had been closer together. But we still enjoyed it a lot.


The visitor's center there is open almost every day, so you can visit any weekend. But they also offer guided tours on the first Saturday of the month. More information on their website.


I love finding good things to do outside in nature with my kids - in winter! And, if you decide to visit also, my last hint is: find your binoculars ahead of time! :)

Family portrait fundraiser - our December family project

My family and I are so grateful to our wonderful friends and clients who participated in our fundraiser for the Philippines last month. We did 20 family sessions in one day - we worked hard, learned a lot, and through your generosity we were able to donate $2500 towards disaster relief. This definitely exceeded our expectations. In fact we were very amused because on the way home after cleaning up my kids estimated that we'd earned in the neighborhood of $45 (yikes, that's too much work to earn $45), with our youngest estimating $12. I guess $12 is a lot for a kid who spends every dollar as fast as it's earned. Anyway, it felt really good to write that check, and I especially appreciate the opportunity to show our children one way to give back.

I didn't want to spoil anyone's holiday card surprise, so I didn't post these earlier, but now that the holidays are over I'm going to post some favorites from the day of photography. Here are one or two from each session:





















































We started it all off with a family portrait of our own, Awkward Family Portrait - style. My husband liked it so well that I eventually used it for our own Christmas cards, how classy is that? We had a few other families that played along too.


Awkward pose?


This is much more cute than awkward - they were going to stand back to back, but one brother couldn't resist showing me how he's almost as tall as his older brother.


I like the Awkward portraits where one person is falling right out of the picture - this kind of goes that way.


Can you just see this on the mantel? Perfect.


So - thank you very much to all who participated! If anyone actually reads to the end of this post :), and is interested in family portraits, I have now recovered from all these and I'm ready to go again. Just give me a call or email and we can talk!