Pictures of You

I hope you've noticed the much-improved profile photo on the left.  Clever Girl is very happy about the change.  It is very seldom that I get my photo taken.  I'm always the one behind the camera.  The girls typically refuse to take the photos that I request...much too awkward, apparently.  We have never had professional family portraits taken, either.  Mr. not a fan.

So we made a date with my sister-in-law, Katrina.  She does amazing work with her iPhone and she has a DSLR, so that right there makes her a professional, in my book.

While most of the time I felt like a donkey braying with my eyes squinted shut, she assured me that they were turning out great!  She had us wander a cute nature path and do some funny poses and kept us laughing the whole time.  

I am blown away by Katrina's work!  It didn't surprise me, she is amazing.  It is a treasure for me to have excellent photos of my daughter WITH me.  I cherish the phase of life we're in and I feel like these capture the things I love about now: that she's taller than me, that we have similar taste in clothes, that we love shoes, that she sometimes hugs me, that she laughs, that we have a similar profile, that she's a teen-ager, that I'm a mother, that she's a beautiful almost-woman, that she loves Chuck Taylors, that she's beginning a monumental stage of her life, that she has an artistic eye, and that I get to spend my life with her, love her & be her mother.  I love you, Clever Girl.

Katrina, thank you a million times a million.  These make me so happy.  Love ya, sis!  Oh yes, and my next request is our family portrait.  Surely you can get your brother to smile?!