Oh my goodness! What a year it has been seeing our little sweetie pie niece grow!! Bringing her into this world was NOT an easy start for my sister as you may remember when I attended the birth, but now we look at her and are so thankful for this precious blessing. Our family adores every minute we spend with her.

Yesterday we did a quick birthday shoot, and I wanted to get a favorite up today before we are off celebrating today. Many more to follow soon. :)

If you’ve been around this blog at all, then you surely have “met” Uncle Jason. He’s mine and Brett’s brother (yes, I claim him) and very special to our kids. Jason has lived in California their whole lives, so the times when he visits are typically fun-filled packed days. He also loves on them while here to make up for the days he’s been gone. The older they got, the more his visits picked up in frequency, to where either he was traveling here or we traveled to meet 3-4 times a year. Yes, we became spoiled.

Flash forward to last spring. Brett and I knew it was coming. J came to town to say a temporary farewell. He had been hired to work the 2014 Olympic Games and was leaving for Russia….in just a few days! Of course we were all so thrilled for this wonderful opportunity, but we knew we’d miss seeing him like we had grown used to doing. So, we made sure to enjoy our time with him…

Jason created this special habit of doing a mini-session with the nieces and nephews each year, whenever I’m not too exhausted to shoot it. ;)   I haven’t blogged them all over the years, but here are a couple:

2010

2012

And then, poor J, I typically make him wait quite a while to actually see the session because it gets put waaaaay back on the burner behind my work. (Haaaa, sorry bro.) Of course we had to capture a session last spring before he left. And of course he is seeing most of these today for the first time.  ;) But in honor of missing him, craving spring, and the fact that TODAY IS HIS BIRTHDAY, I decided to get these blogged.

Brett was working, and the kids were antsy on this particular day last May, so I made a scavenger hunt for OTR in downtown Cincinnati:

Then they got a little more photo serious….

Thank you for being such a wonderful uncle and brother. We love you. Happy birthday, J! :)