“Hurry up, they’re about to pull into the driveway!”

When Taya asked me if I would be willing to help her with a special Christmas surprise for her boyfriend’s mom, Barb, I was excited to be a part of the holiday joy! Like many families, it had been difficult for their whole family to come together safely for quite some time between Covid precautions and busy schedules. When they finally were able to block out a day on the calendar to celebrate Christmas together, Barb’s immediate response was “We have to take a bunch of pictures together!” Well I was happy to do the clicking for Barb so she could just enjoy her family!

The moment Barb realized there was a special surprise waiting for her to arrive.

(It’s me! I’m the special surprise!)

After some good laughs and explanation as to why a stranger was snapping pictures of her, we jumped into portrait mode! As I shared in previous posts, I like to start with everybody jumping into the first photos. Group efforts always tend to make everyone a little less nervous about the camera clicks. With Barb in the center, we slowly added in everyone else and captured some beautiful smiles and great laughs.

Next on the list is kicking out all the other adults so Barb can be surrounded by her very favorite people, the grandkids. She has quite the motley crew with some special additions! This blended family is beautifully bonded, and this session happens to even include their foreign exchange student and a granddaughter’s boyfriend. Had they not told me that not everyone was “blood” in this group, I honestly would have never known. Their personalities seem to be the perfect mesh all around.

How cute are those kids?! I’ll share some of their individual photos below.

My favorite things about this session were

1) How funny this crew was. They seriously had such fun and sweet personalities.

2) The surprise factor was a fun additional element!

3) We found the perfect setting for images by just crossing the street to an empty lot for family photos, and the edge of the backyard for close ups. Sometimes you don’t see how lucky you are to have the view you do until you see it on the back of a camera! These are a few cell phone shots of the locations we used.

We take a wide open location, and we fill it with love and laughter.

Now for those close ups of those beautiful grandkids!

We worked our way from youngest to oldest, with each kid tapping the next to come running for their glamour shot! It was pretty cold by this point so we kept things moving. I’ll have to admit with every shot I took of these grandkids, I became super jealous of just how good looking they all are, and all with that fun, cool, carefree spirit.

I want to be them when I grow up.

Thank you to the whole Chapman crew for letting me be part of a fun surprise, and share in your holiday celebration. This was my last shoot of 2020, and it filled my heart to wrap up my first official year as the owner of Sheri Lynn Photography doing exactly what I love to do: capturing the joy, love, and laughter of beautiful families.