This adorable family of four soaked in the sunshine during their June family session!

When your client steps out of their car with two of the cutest little girls ever in knee high socks and matching mary jane flats, it’s hard not be a little too excited to get the session going! Enter the Dunfee family!

Beau and Courtney along with their daughter’s Ruby and Winnie joined me at St. Patrick’s Park in South Bend this past week for a summer family session. We had a warm evening with gorgeous sunlight and the promise of ice cream after. No wonder these littles did so well!

Beau and I met through the South Bend/Mishawaka Leadership program (shout out to Class of 44) the year his oldest daughter, Ruby, was born. He was also a high school classmate of my husband, Kyle. And Kyle and I have been working with a member of Beau’s realty team as we recently sold our house and look for our next home. So plenty of little connections there! But it was so nice to meet his wife and little ones!

Courtney is a gorgeous mama with an eye for style, and she made my job easy with off camera tickles and calming breaks whenever needed for her baby girls. It truly is a gift when a mama can gracefully enjoy sessions with young children and be in the moment, enjoying the laughter and silly poses. I could tell Courtney had motherhood written all over her heart and soul, and it shined through every minute of this shoot.

Before the Dunfee family had joined me, I took a quick lap around my favorite area in the park to map out a plan. Knowing it was a later evening start with little ones, and not wanting to lose too much sunlight, I wanted to be sure to grab the spots that looked the best that night and have a plan in place to flow through. This (along with them being a stinkin’ cute family) made our time together relaxing and fun knowing we would be getting great shots as we kept moving through the park!

Between flower picking, dandelion hunting, and air tosses, Beau was a stand out dad! I wish you could hear Ruby squeal with anticipation when I asked Beau to go ahead and lift her high into the air. Well, the instruction was to give her a little toss up, but Ruby was so full of nervous giggles that she couldn’t let go of her dad!

And does your heart just absolutely melt in these pictures of dad giving his little girl flowers?

The real boss of the shoot, though, was little Winnie. This girl was on one and had me cracking up! We wanted to be sure to get some great images of these sisters, and Winnie wanted to be sure to make us work for them. She’s got some feist in her soul, and I am here for it! Ruby is such a great big sister and handled every tackle with grace and a smile. Even when she was being pinned to the ground by Winnie, she would find the camera and smile! Plus Ruby was always ready to make baby sister laugh whenever I asked for her assist!

Thank you Dunfee Family for being the cutest and making your session so much fun. Normally I wouldn’t include so many outtakes in a gallery, but I definitely included them all just because they made me laugh and felt like such an accurate depiction of life with toddlers: fun and wild!

Per usual, I had my trusty pig with me during this session. After receiving their gallery I had to laugh at Courtney’s text of “It can’t be easy to balance a pig on your head while taking perfect photos.” I promised her it’s all I practice from sun up to sundown. And it’s worth it!

But she also gave me one of the greatest compliments a client can in letting me know that she got teary-eyed looking at her family’s gallery. It really is such an honor and a blessing to serve families in this way, and delivering galleries of precious moments and memories will never get old to me. Life with this age of children can be a non-stop cycle of “I just need a minute” and “I don’t want to miss a minute.” My love of family portraits is in giving families frozen moments of life, well lived and well loved.

You’re a fantastic family, Dunfees, and I hope I have the pleasure of capturing more of your joy and laughter in the future!