ABQ 1

Oh yeah, I have a blog! I've meant to post here several times, but there's always so much to do in my free time that the blog gets bumped to last place (well, maybe not *last*). But I recently got back from a trip to the Albuquerque area to visit my sister's family. Big news: I now have a new niece! She was born March 27th, and of course she's adorable because my sister has a habit of creating adorable daughters.


If you follow me on Instagram, you may be already burnt out on photos from my trip. I will post some duplicates here, but also several new ones. I have a ton, and I don't even know how to organize them, but I think I'll just start with some of my new niece, S, plus a few others of her sisters.

I have been doing more black and white lately, so bear with me.

Is she nervous? No, she just loves having her hands near her face whenever possible!

With her daddy's hand.

I kept one in color for you, and here's a funny face I caught. Babies! They're pretty cute.

I was so happy that I got to take pictures of all the sisters together, and individually, in their Easter dresses. Aren't they beauties? I do have some with E's face toward the camera, but I think it's adorable how she's gazing up at L, who is holding little S. Group photos are hard to do, which is why I generally avoid them, so I was very happy to get a few even though the pose is nothing special. It was hard enough just getting every girl outside at the same time and all in a good mood with hair fixed! But the older they get, the easier it is...of course the olders--L and K--are a breeze, but you never know how cooperative the youngers are going to be.

Now a few individuals, but many more to come. Here's L! We took most of the pictures out in the backyard, but she went with me down the street so I could get that purple tree in a few. I had never been to ABQ in the spring and wanted to capture some of the blossoms.

I took a whole set of K in her new bedroom. My sister's husband is very handy and they were able to convert part of the garage into a bedroom to accommodate their growing family. This is K's first time having her own bedroom, and I love it so much! The colors, lighting and peacefulness made it ideal for taking some indoor photos (many of little S were taken on K's bed). Also, it was my guest room while I stayed there, and she slept in her sister's room--wasn't that sweet?

Here's N looking darling. I can't wait to show you more.

And E. I have plenty of photos of E. She's 3, so she's right at that age where almost everything she does and says is adorable! I couldn't help having the camera out all the time. She was actually sick with Strep the entire time, but would go in and out of good moments when the medicine was working. She's so sweet!! You can kind of see in her eyes that she's not feeling well, though.

Another from K's bedroom--that window and the curtains made a nice dreamy backdrop.

N also got sick later on, but I got a lot of photos of her before that. She and E are great at playing together and goofing around for the camera. I loved spending time with them.

These girls were my first nieces and I have loved watching them grow up. They are at that age (14 and almost 16) where they aren't very excited to pose together for pictures, which makes this candid extra cute because clearly they can still stand to be in each other's presence. ;) I was so happy we got the chance to take a little drive without the younger girls, because of course the youngers tend to take more of my attention. The olders and I also got to stay up late watching TV and making jokes about it (I'm sort of a bad influence in being critical of everything I watch). I feel like I got a lot of good quality time in with my nieces, even though some of them were sick!

More to come! I may separate it by niece, or I could just do several posts with all of them. I am open to suggestions!