It’s just incredible how word of mouth works — one day you’re recommended to someone and the next you’re fast friends. I feel so fortunate to have met Regina of Sand Dance Designs.  This spring she contacted me about Bluebonnet sessions (see her session at the link to the left!) and a session to document her youngest daughter turning one and we clicked right away!   She is so sweet & fun & quite a talent in the sewing arena.  My kiddos and I were even able to visit her home studio this week — SO fun and impressive.

Her latest work of art is this fabulous jumpsuit. I could go on and on and ON about how much I love it (the colors, the mixed fabrics, the custom flower on the front, how she reinforces each and every area that might get some extra tugging). Plus, when we first tried the jumpsuit on, it needed a little adjustment and she’s SO into perfection that she took the whole thing apart to put some button elastic in. It made a world of difference.

She has some more incredible designs and dresses coming up, so keep your eyes peeled…we’re even thinking of doing a shoot with several kiddos in her creations. I just LOVE little concept shoots like that.

IF you want something fun like this, contact her. She’ll recommend, pull assortments of fabric, and really talk (and listen) to you to determine what your needs are. In fact, she knows my style SO well that she had a PILE (I mean, this pile actually tipped over when we were chatting) of patterns and fabrics for me to choose from — and I loved them all. If you want something custom for the holidays (or your holiday photo session!), think about it — I know I do.

Just SOME of her fabric choices are {here} My faves lately are: MMAlways coupled with the peace print called MMPeaceF. So many fun fabrics to pair — my fav though is to just let Regina do her thing.

Can’t wait to show you MORE!!!  And if any of you faithful readers missed my Facebook post, I am going to roll out holiday mini sessions for Dallas and Phoenix next week!  If you’d like to be on the first-to-know list, email me (maggiejmcd@msn.com) and I’ll email you BEFORE the details hit the blog. Sessions will go quickly!

Hope you have a lovely day!  We’re gearing up for a BIG birthday around here.    ~mm

If you had to guess how old these two sisters are…what would you say?

I was shocked to find out these two beauties are 12 and 14! They are SO super sweet, polite (everything was “yes m’am”) and stunning. It was an absolute pleasure to photograph them! Last week, I was asked by a lovely friend to photograph her extended family to capture all the cousins together with their Big Pops in town. It was speedy and fun — you see, when extended family sessions happen (I really don’t do many of them), we blast through like nobody’s business! Since that type of posing isn’t what fuels me, I typically quickly go through all the requested posed shots and then relish in the candids afterwards. Ahhhh…photographing candids of sweet extended family love and portraits of beautiful people is SO much F-U-N.

{Is this precious or what? I wish wish wish I had a pics of my kiddos like this with their grandparents and am making it a GOAL to do so…}

After finishing off our big family session, we had about 6 minutes to photograph the sisters. We got a TON — I just love teens and tweens!

Hope you have one WONDERFUL day.
~mm

{My little pirate!}

I had the pleasure of meeting Lisa and her cute, CUTE little son in March when we took pictures at the airport together. Since then, she’s been a wonderful support to me (thanks, girl!) and I’ve had fun watching her start her OWN business. She has recently started “A Taste of TLC” a yummy bakery business. Check out her website {here}! I’m so excited she wants some of my images on her website, so we’re starting out with some red velvet retro cupcakes. I had a pre-birthday roller skating session planned for Peach, so Lisa decided a retro look for cupcakes would be perfect — couldn’t agree more. She’s SUPER creative!

Also, check out this business on {Facebook} Lisa is always coming up with fun ways to get her fans involved — last week she challenged her “fans” to tell her what they were having for dinner and she’d recommend the perfect cupcake to have for dessert — I loved reading those!

Can’t wait to see what she comes up with for Peach’s birthday (and neither can Peach)!!!

Have a lovely day!
~mm

I had the pleasure of photographing an extended family of thirteen, YES…THIRTEEN this past weekend. Because I typically photograph families of five and smaller, this was definitely the type of session that took a lot more planning and organization. Almost all of the members live in town, but everyone was all together this weekend and their parents wanted to capture that. As a photographer, I completely understand and appreciate families that want to capture their whole group. MY mom loves to get us all behind the camera when my fam is together, and I have to admit, it IS awesome to look back at all those family photos and remember that time and place. The little ones change SO quickly, so it truly is important to capture your family when you can!

What a variety!

After photographing the large group, and some smaller groupings, I took each family for a little mini session to stay true to my more “candid” style of photography. It was a quick and fun way to capture those personalities that you just don’t see in a larger group shot.

SO so many more…
A big thank you to the V family for trusting me to photograph your extended family — and what well-behaved, fun kiddos.
Have a lovely day!
~mm

Just a couple more fun portraits from this lovely family session.  I just LOVE making storyboards, a collection of images that tell a story of our time together.  They’re typically mounted on styrene, a 2mm thick solid board that makes it easy to display on an easel or frame!  Clients go ga-ga for these and I don’t blame them (my house is peppered with these, too)!  Plus, it’s a great way to get several of your favorite portraits in one spot!

I chose to do the first storyboard in black and white because I think this little lady just has this look that is so dramatic and perfect with this type of conversion.   Every single black and white of her is just stunning — I can’t get enough!  The next storyboard has a vintage edit (usually my fav!) — a little brighter and more yellow than my typical color pop.  LOVE!

Okay, off to bed. Have an AWESOME shoot tomorrow AND on Sunday. Busy, busy! And In the next week or two, I will be releasing some holiday session dates to current clients! Stay tuned or send me a quick email if you’d like to be on the first-to-know list.

Have a great one! ~mm

Ahhhh…rain!  My kiddos LOVE to play in the rain.  A rainy day is like a million bucks floating through the sky over here.    The kiddos started out with umbrellas and then quickly made their way to completely soaked.  These pics are pretty much right in the middle of that. 

We got a new skirt from Regina at Sand Dance Designs a couple weeks ago and Peach wanted to wear her “cheerleader skirt” to twirl in the rain.  Love it.  The bold colors are just perfect and it gets a thumbs up on the jump and twirl scale from Peach (obviously it was quite a rigorous testing process).    Sand Dance Designs is on a bit of a summer break, but will return shortly.  Stay tuned because we’re getting some incredible, I mean AWESOME stuff from Regina.   She is SO talented, sweet, and really listens to what we love in clothes.  Then she takes her talent and creates by mixing fabrics, altering designs, and making little extra embellishments.  SO fun.

Hope you’re having one lovely day!  Kiddos are at Nature School this morning discovering new mushrooms and creatures outdoors…I’m trapped inside editing.  Editing some AWESOME sessions though, so I’m one happy gal.  Can’t wait to show you more!!!  ~mm

I met up with this little beauty…

…and her super sweet family yesterday morning.  We had fun walking, talking, swinging from mommy and daddy’s arms…

and, of course, reading from a favorite book, Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney and Anita Jeram.   It was adorable watching their family interact and little O anticipated each part of the story where the characters would stretch their arms reaaaaaally wide.  She did, too — so cute!

Thank you, K family, for allowing me to photograph your lovely family!  Hope you have a wonderful rest of your weekend.    ~mm

I KNEW they’d be on the lookout for potential locations, but when this fun couple surprised me with a *junkyard session* yesterday I was thrilled.  Like it was hard to breathe thrilled!!!  Most of you know I have this THING for junkyards.  I love the texture, variety, colors, but mostly the ability to be creative in such an inspiring place — it’s impossible not to be.  When you pair a junkyard with a gorgeous couple who are excited AND in love, you seriously can’t go wrong.  I found myself editing sneak peeks until the weeeeee hours of the morning (and 2am is EARLY for me — yup, it was later that that!).  What fun we had (amidst the Texas heat)!

Seriously, are they stunning or what???

I was SO thrilled when I was asked by my hair stylist, Savanah, [check out the Scott LeMaster Salon and Spa if you need an AMAZING, sweet and ultra-fun stylist]  if I would photograph her and her hubby.  Ummm…Of COURSE!  I just knew the session would be amazing!  Savanah and her hubby are creatives — when you have that many artists in one place, magic definitely starts to happen.   They both make jewelry [check out Savanah's Design -- her blog of stunning custom creations] and her husband is a wakeboarder/wakeskater (plus photographer) who is diving in to videography.  You can check out some of his sweeeet videos [here].

And just because I can’t stop…here are a couple more…

So so so many more to edit, too! Thanks, you two, for being SO awesome! I loved hearing your love story and can’t WAIT until next time…

Have one lovely day! ~mm

ANnnnnd…if you are a family waiting for your gallery….great news! You’ll have your links by Friday — I know I said two to three weeks, but it’s going to be earlier — yay! Working on the H and M family slideshows right now…

Thanks for stopping by — I’m off to get ready for a bridal shoot.

Hubs away ALLLLLL weekend = Me being ultra-entertaining
(hard work, I tell ya!!!)

The kiddos usually do a pretty good job of keeping themselves busy, but they’re used to daddy-o being around and doing cool stuff with them on the weekend. So, we tried. We even braved the EXTREME Texas heat/humidity and hit up a park yesterday. Apparently, we were the only brave souls because we were the only peeps there! Kinda made it nice for picture taking purposes, I must admit.

I decided to bring my camera because I don’t do a great job recording my kids when I’m busy (and I’m BUSY!), so it was time. They had a blast and I had SO much fun playing with them in between snaps. They tried poles, rings, swings, tightropes, played castle, pet store, and a bajillion other fun things.

:::Here are a couple more (the Grandparents will THANK me big time!!!):::

Annnnnnnd….one of me. I know, it’s huge. Peach took this pic — yay!

I guess it’s only fair that I make an appearance once in a while.

I hope you have a lovely week. I’ll be popping in with sneak peeks, in between sessions and client ordering appointments, so be on the lookout! I have some AMAZING sessions planned this week — a couple, a bridal session AND a fun family. So fun. ~mm