A Perfect Princess Party ~ Deerfield Birthday Party Photographer

You only turn three once, so when it comes to your party, you better go big or go home, right? Little Ms. Madi chose to go princess! Madi's perfect princess party was this weekend at Wonder in Deerfield. Now before we go any farther, if you're a parent in the Chicagoland area and you haven't been to Wonder, stop what you're doing, bookmark this page so you can come back to it later, get in your car and go check out Wonder right now. No really. Go. I'll wait.
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Back? Totally awesome right? So you can just imagine what an amazing setting that would make for a pink and purple princess party! Madi's mom thought of everything from princess pretzels to princess dress up to a real princess! Admit it, you want to turn three again and have a princess party like Madi, don't you?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MADI!!!!

Update: I couldn't figure out why the link to the Wonder website wasn't working. A little googling just revealed that a mere three days after Madi's party Wonder closed its doors. Boo! So if you really got in your car and drove to Wonder on my advice, a hearty apology from me!

Baseball Birthday Bash ~ North Shore Birthday Photography

My little big guy turned four this weekend. I've yet to figure out how that happened. Last time I checked he was still a baby. But we celebrated his 4-year-oldness with a big boy baseball party. Max loves to play baseball and has been anxiously waiting for his fourth birthday so that he'll be old enough to play t-ball, so we thought a baseball birthday was the best way to celebrate his newly earned t-ball eligibility!

Earlier that morning I photographed the most adorable princess party for the most adorable three-year-old girl. I'll be back soon with a preview from that party! 

Resources & Links for Max's Baseball Party:
Printables were made by me using elements from a digital scrapbooking kit I bought a few years ago. Unfortunately, I can't find where I got it from, but here's something similar.
Red Buckets for centerpieces came from Hobby Lobby
Baseball balloons came from Balloon Warehouse and we used fat red permanent markers to decorate them.
Baseball Cookies from Lovin' Oven in Libertyville. We packaged them ourselves.

And the winner is.... ~ Lake County Baby Photographer

Baby Lucas! 

Congratulations to Lucas (and all his adoring fans)! I cannot wait to share the love with you and your adorable mom and dad!

Thank you to all the fantastic contestants this year. You all made this year's contest lots of fun! Be sure to check your inboxes later today for a special thank you from me!

And thank you to everyone who voted. Keep checking in with KSP for more adorable kiddos, or contact me to schedule your own family session in the Chicago area. For those of you in Florida, keep your eyes peeled for info on Central Florida mini-sessions this Fall!

And in case you haven't gotten enough of Lucas yet...here are a few more from his six-month session this fall:

What a cutie!

Share the Love 2012 ~ North Chicago Children's Photography

It's that time of year again! Time for me to give back a little of the awesome love I get from my clients throughout the year. Time for me SHARE THE LOVE!!!! Who's ready for some lovin'?!?!?

(Me! Me! Me!)

Wait before we get all lovey dovey, go check out the precious little ones with whom I SHARED THE LOVE last year. So cute, right? Okay, back to the contest....

Back for its second year, it's the

SHARE THE LOVE CONTEST

2012

This is your chance to win

- A FREE (uh yeah, FREE) custom portrait session
- One 16x20 wall print
- Two 8x10 desk prints
- A custom photo book using the photos from your session
- AND 10% off all additional prints from your session

That is a seriously sweet (or shall we say LOVELY) deal! So here's what you need to know:

HOW TO ENTER:

~Between now and February 5, 2012, e-mail a picture of a little (or big) one you love to kspShareTheLove@yahoo.com.

~ In your email, in two sentences or less, tell me how you’re going to “share the love” this Valentine’s Day.

HOW TO WIN:

~ Starting February 6, come back to the KSP blog to vote for your favorite entry (and of course, send all your family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc to vote, too!). Come back every day to vote again!

~ Voting will continue through February 13.

~ The winner will be announced February 14 (you know...on Valentine's Day)

Got it? Remember: send a picture and tell me how you're going to share the love. In return, you just might get a little KSP love shared right back!

Official Rules:

1. Entries will be accepted starting January 28 and through February 5th. Siblings may be entered in a single photo. Only one entry per person.

2. The person submitting an entry must be the parent or guardian of the child in the submitted photo.

3. Please do not enter photos taken by other professional photographers. KSP photos are okay, though.

4. Anyone may enter, but the session must take place in the Chicagoland area before June 1st, 2012 OR (new this year!!!) in Pinellas County, Florida the week of July 29, 2012.

5. Voting will take place February 6th through February 13th.

6. You may vote ONCE PER DAY. Multiple votes on the same day will disqualify the contestant (so no cheating!)

7. Winner will be announced here on the blog on February 14th, 2012.

9. The winner is the photo with the most votes.

10. Does not apply to sessions already booked. Must receive at least 5 entries for the contest to run.
11. Prize value: $300.

For questions or to enter, e-mail kspShareTheLove@yahoo.com

I cannot wait to see all those LOVELY faces so get your entry in today!

Project 24: Morning

Saturday mornings are one of my very favorite things in our house. Not just because they bring the (often unrealized) opportunity to sleep in, but because they also bring the opportunity to do something truly delightful: waller. It's true. Wallering in bed for as long as I possibly can is something that makes Katie a happy girl. Of course, wallering these days is often brought to me courtesy of the Disney Channel (while I'm at it, hey Disney Channel: can we get Octonauts on Saturday morning around 8:00 CST? That would help me out a lot!). So you can imagine the effort it took for me to get out of my nice warm bed on Saturday morning to capture a little wallering in progress.

Snow, Really ~ Chicago Suburban Photographer

Is yours a family that LOVES snow? Looks like Mother Nature finally has heard your call! Why not capture your family doing what they love this winter? Sledding, snow angels, snowball fights.

In other words, schedule a snow session this winter!

Who's up for a challenge?

It's the new year again. That time when we all make resolutions, knowing we only 75% intend to keep them. Let's not address the photography goals I made for myself last year. A month or so later I went and got myself pregnant and was suddenly too tired to do much of anything. (But I did make my website! And I did try to carry my camera with me more. And I did do some maternity, i.e. my own.)

The new year is also the time when a lot of photographers begin challenges. 365 challenges. 52 week challenges. More power to them, I say. Anyone who successfully completes a 365 (366 this year) challenge gets a major "You Rock" award from me. I know better than to start that type of challenge. I don't like to set myself up for failure. When Cooper was born my goal was to take a portrait a day for 30 days. I think I got to day 14, but I'm going to blame exhaustion for that one. Still, it would be nice to try to give my creative muscles a stretch in a completely "no-pressure, failure-proof, I-work-full-time-and-have-two-kids-and-am-writing-this-blogpost-on-the-train-because-I-have-a-killer-commute-but-I'm-not-complaining" kind of way.

So I saw the Project 24 challenge on the Florabella Facebook page the other day, and thought this might be the kind of challenge for me. Here's the challenge:

Sounds good, right? No deadlines, no rules. What could possibly go wrong? So here goes nothing. I'm jumping on the challenge bandwagon. Of course, I wouldn't mind some help. You know, the occasional comment, like: "Hey Katie. You haven't posted a challenge photo in a whole. Stop being such a slouch and get on it already." And I'd definitely welcome some company. You know, comments like: "Hey Katie. I'm doing the Project 24 challenge, too. Here's a link to my latest photo." Who's with me? You don't even have to post it to the Florabella page necessarily. Just do it for fun and post to your own blog or flickr or whatever. No really. Think about it.

In the mean time, here's my first attempt, No. 19-Light and Dark. And in the spirit of "truly anyone can play along," I'll tell you that this was taken with my iPhone camera on the train (did I mention about my commute?) and processed with photoshop express on my phone.

Happy New Year!

p.s. The book is called Let the Great World Spin, and it's by Colum McCann, and yes, I would definitely recommend it!