Monsters, Heroes And Navigators! Oh My! {Peachtree City GA Family Photographer}

I drove down to Peachtree City for this family shoot.  

 You may remember mention of Mindy on this post.  She was my other contest winner with this response to my question about where does your family love to travel: Honestly I don’t know what our ideal way to enjoy downtime as a family. The last sixteen months have been a whirlwind. After two years of jumping through the required hoops and the seemingly never ending wait for an adoption match, my two children were placed with me for adoption. We finalized the adoption in May of 2012. Since forming our little family, we have had struggle after struggle….But, we are ready to start doing some more traveling. The kids love the outdoors, so I think a camping trip would be fun. As a surprise for their birthday, I am thinking about Disney. A year ago i couldn’t imagine a time when that would be possible. I love our little family and I can hardly remember what life was like before Mike and Maddie. Motherhood has been filled with love and laughter, pain and frustration, and joy and pride. I didn’t really know what I was getting into, but I am grateful everyday that I get to be their mom.  I started to tell you that I had SOOOOO.  MUCH.  FUN.  With these three.  But then I realized, I say that about every shoot.  But it’s true.  Perhaps it is because I get THE best peeps to work with in capturing and making memories.  Or perhaps it’s because I just love what I do that it couldn’t be anything BUT fun.  Either way, it was a couple of hours of awesomeness.

 I am in awe of Mindy.  For being single and choosing the path of adoption.  Of two children with personalities formed well before she ever started loving them and giving them hugs.  For creating a safe haven and home for them like no other.  Because she wanted to be a mom.  Wow.

 And these two kids.  They each had plenty of personality.  I loved it!  They were awesome.

 Yep, that’s Mike giving himself the bunny airs mid-jump.  Who does that?  This kid.

 The family dog came along to make his way into portraits.  You can see there was a little coercion going on so this mix of a German Shepherd/Dachshund would look my way.  Poor tang.  He just wanted to sniff the ground.

 I love that these two are such great friends.  Half the time, I was chasing along behind them trying my best to keep up.

 Maddie totally takes being a ballerina very seriously.  As she should.

 And Mike used his Spidey senses to navigate through the woods and back to safety, throwing webs at me along the way.

 If there was something to stand on, they stood on it.  And posed.  Total posers.

 Mike occasionally changed from superhero into a scary monster.  Kids’ imaginations are so awesome.  As are the missing teeth.  Those gaps won’t be there long and then all adult teeth will be in place.

 And this girl?  She can read.  Maddie read these signs to me.  A whole new world is about to open for her with books.  So empowering and such a cool step in growing up.

 I love that you can be silly with kids.  There aren’t sneers of disapproval for not acting your age.  They go with the flow and play along.  Almost like an improv skit, to see where an idea will lead.  These two wobbled and screamed, but they didn’t fall off the cliff.

 And in between the business of find our way back to our cars, saving civilization with webs, dancing and picking flowers, I got to see just how much these two love their mom.  With quiet hugs and big smiles.  Sweet kisses and a few tickles.  That glance into the life of someone else, the love within a family, that is what makes my day.

 In a day when headlines are filled with so many horrible things, thank you Mindy for being such an awesome mom.  For raising such beautiful and fun little souls.  For being my reminder that there is so much good in this world.