I met this sweet boy last week for his newborn session. He was such a good baby, slept for me the entire time! Definitely a laid back personality!! Such a dream! Enjoy your sneak peek, “W” family! Your baby is precious!!

I also wanted to rave about my favorite new Etsy seller, CapsofGrace! I absolutely love the quality, colors and hat styles of this Etsy store! Check them out! Their crocheted hats are so well made and they come in all sizes from newborn to preteen! CapsofGrace is also having a free hat giveaway going on right now too! No purchase necessary to enter! Here is more info:

** Announcing the CapsofGrace Spring GIVEAWAY! For all orders placed between now and Mar. 21, we will enter you in a drawing for the “hat of your choice”! You’ll get one entry for each item or set purchased. Another way to enter, send us a link to your post about us and our products, on a blog, facebook, twitter or other social network, and we’ll enter you in the drawing again for each separate post! No limit to number of entries and no purchase required. Contact: [capsofgrace@yahoo.com] Winner to be announced March 22nd…so stay tuned! **

And one with daddy. I love this one!

Well, the votes have been counted (what an exhausting job!) and the official winners have been placed in the secret envelopes marked “1st”, “2nd”, and “3rd” place! (not really - but you can imagine it, right?) Thank you to everyone who voted for our beautiful nominees! And now for the good part!

{drum roll}

Our FIRST place winner and winner of the “Ella Bella 2009 Portrait of the Year” title with by far the MOST votes goes to #18! Congratulations! This family has won a 16×20 gallery wrapped canvas from their 2009 session!

Our SECOND place winner, with the next biggest vote count goes to #20! They will receive a gorgeous 11×14 mounted print with linen finish!

Our THIRD place winner, with the third highest vote count goes to #15! They will receive a beautiful 8×10 mounted print with an easel for display.

To all my Nominees!
I have a special surprise for all of our nominees too (including our winners) - each family nominated will receive a $50 Ella Bella Photography gift certificate credit that can be applied to your next session booked between March - August 2010! The gift certificate is not transferrable, so it may only be used by the families who were nominated for the 2009 Ella Bella Photography Portrait of the Year contest!

Congratulations to everyone!!!

Announcing Ella Bella Photography’s 2009 Portrait of the Year Awards!

It’s that time!! We picked out 20 of our favorite portraits from all of 2009 (narrowing down 100’s of photos to only 20 is so hard to do!) - there are so many more that we wanted to choose but alas, only the 20 portraits made the cut!) If you made the nominations list - Congratulations!

Now for the best part!! The 1st place prize winner will receive a 16×20 gallery wrapped canvas of a portrait of their choosing from their 2009 session. The 2nd place winner will receive a 11×14 mounted print with linen finish from their 2009 session. The 3rd place winner will receive a 8×10 mounted print from their 2009 session with a desk easel frame!

To Vote: All you have to do is leave a comment below with the number of your favorite image. We will do the contest until Sunday, February 7th at midnight and the winner will be announced on Wednesday, Feb 10th on this blog! The portrait with the most votes wins 1st place! 2nd place goes to the portait with the second most votes and so on! 3 prizes total - 1st, 2nd, 3rd place!

Spread the word! You can have as many of your friends and family vote, only one vote per person!! (Extra votes by the same person (tracked by IP address) will not count and may disqualify you so please don’t cheat!)

Now get voting!!

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Itching for your baby fix? Coming at ya times 2 today!! These sweet peas are identically adorable in every way… Enjoy!

It’s that time! (Better late than never!) I’m ready to announce the winner of my first blog contest! Thank you to everyone who took the time to enter the contest by leaving a comment after posting about my photography biz on their Facebook, Twitter or Blog pages. Without further ado, the big winner of a free newborn photo session (value $150) is Kristi! Kristi, please contact me via email so we can work out the details of your session! Also, congratulations to Vanessa (who referred Kristi to my contest) for winning a free photo session (value $150) for referring Kristi to my blog for the contest! Vanessa, please email me to get on my calendar for your winning photo session!

And since I simply cannot post without sharing a photo - here is the very last photo I edited before writing this post! More sneak peeks of these identical twin girlies coming tomorrow!

{{ Blog Contest Winners will be announced on Tuesday! Sorry for the extra wait!! (Good things are worth waiting for, right? More on this later today!! }

This newborn baby boy is so sweet… and cuddly… and adorable… and pees a lot! He soaked all of us girls at his newborn session. Sister, check. (kudos to big sister who handled it so well!) Mommy, check. Photographer, check! Daddy, nope, not a drop! Us girlies were feeling singled out! hehe. It was all worth it when you look at his sneak peek. Aaahh, I love back wrinkles! Enjoy your sneak peek, “S” family!

Meet the adorable “A” brothers, 4 years old, 2 years old and 3 weeks old! Their original photo session date had to be rescheduled twice due to rain and cold weather, but the 3rd times a charm! We had a fun time exploring Mayfield park, chasing peacocks, watching fish in the ponds and their dad even took the boys on a “bear hunt” while I got some cute portraits of their new baby brother. Within 10 minutes of leaving the park, it started pouring rain! We got out of there in the nick of time! Enjoy your sneak peek, “A” family! You are blessed!!

I fell in love with these identical twin newborn boys this week - they were absolute angels and slept through their entire session! Just a joy to work with!! Enjoy your sneak peak, “B” family - you are blessed!!

I love newborns. Especially this one. So sleepy and bendy and beautiful - a newborn photographer’s dream! Can I say beautiful about a newborn baby boy?

He has two handsome older brothers who are so super cute! I thought I had little boys pretty well figured out and could talk the lingo (since I have 2 little boys of my own!) but I soon realized that I have a lot to learn about Bakugan and Star Wars and all the things they are into once they outgrow Elmo, Dinosaurs and Diego… (or have an older brother to show them what’s really cool!)

Despite the slightly cooler weather on this day, I was able to capture these sweet outdoor portraits. Love those lips!! Enjoy your sneak peek, “D” family!!

First off, I must apologize to this gorgeous family for taking so long to get their sneak peeks up! Sooooo sorry! I’ll include a couple extra sneak peeks for being so patient! Isn’t this family gorgeous??

Mom is especially beautiful and sweet miss “C” looks so much like her mommy…

Before you start thinking I’m on a b&w kick, here is a color one for you.

Okay, I am on a b&w kick tonight! (it’s 1:44am!)

Miss “C” has an older 3.5 year old brother who is seriously the *biggest* UT fan I’ve ever met! (He has this rad UT guys playset (think army men but in football outfits) complete with a football stadium playmat with real goal posts. During the session, big brother was eating his lunch and watching UT football game reruns (1993) on their kitchen TV! (Now you believe me he’s a hardcore fan?) Well… it may run in their genes - look what baby sister did all on her own during the session… Hookem!

It’s the details that I love so much! Such a sweet beautiful baby girl. One last sneak for her proud parents. Enjoy!!