April is a great month.  For the most part, the weather is perfect, everything is in bloom, and the bluebonnets are sprouting all over the state of Texas.  April this year has been a bit unpredictable, but yesterday was the perfect day for our annual family pictures.  To continue our tradition, we went back to the same place we go every year-Fort Worth Botanical Gardens.  It was absolutely beautiful there this year and did not dissapoint.  On the way home, we stopped at a field full of bluebonnets off the highway in Mansfield, Texas. We decided that we will now make sure to go back there every year to that field, adding to our tradition!  It was the prettiest field I have ever seen with bluebonnets that seemed to go on for miles.  

I started taking these pictures when my husband and I first started dating 6 years ago.  It started with me just taking daddy daughter pics of him and his daughter Amaya.  I envisioned taking a certain picture of Will and Amaya in the same spot and in the same pose every year.  I thought it would be cool to watch her grow from the 4 year old she was when I took the first picture years ago, to way down the road when she is a grown woman, still looking up to her dad as the most important man in the world.

After the first year, it was clear to all of us that we were becoming a family and that these pictures were something special that we were going to make sure to do together every year.  I set my camera up for Will and Amaya to take pictures so that I could be involved in a few, and they did such a great job!  I was so impressed with Amaya, holding a camera that was probably close to weighing what she did.  She handled it like a pro, holding that camera with her tiny 5 year old hands. Now she is 9 and is stronger and is starting to understand the basics of my camera and loves being behind the camera.  Maybe I have created the next photographer in the family! 

This years pictures were a bit different for me.  I am usually confident and excited to take pictures of my family and also be in some of the pictures myself.  This year, I am pregnant with my first baby. I’ll be honest-I had a hard time getting ready for this yesterday.  Being at the start of my second trimester, I wasn’t feeling the most confident with the already sudden changes with my body, but I did my best to embrace the natural changes that are occurring.  I am so overjoyed that I am carrying a baby and in 6 more months, we will be meeting the new addition to our family that will change our lives completely!  It is still so surreal to me and I can’t wait for that moment til we meet!  I love that we will be able to look back at these pictures years from now and know that I was pregnant in them.  It truly is such a blessing and I can’t wait until October to become a mom!