family and peace

Last Friday, we walked around the Sundial bridge about an hour before sunset. Instead of putting Sophie in her stroller, we let her walk with us. It took us a while, but we had fun, basking in the mild winter weather and warm sun, showing Sophie how to throw stones into the beautiful Sacramento river and loving the far-off views of the mountains that surround Redding. It's on days like that that I really enjoy living here. The feeling of family, peace, the arrival of the weekend bringing more family time, and the beauty of the nature around us, as well as the amazing Sundial bridge, just warmed my heart really.

Some of the beauty around the Sundial Bridge (not actually taken last week, but before Christmas!):

Well, Obviously Autumn is Over...

These last few months have been the busiest I've been in this photography business and I feel like I've been editing, editing, editing... It's been crazy!! As soon as I finish editing from one shoot, I have another whole set of photos to edit from another. While scrolling through some pictures just now, I found these pictures that I really like from our autumn here in Redding. Obviously, our autumn has been over for sometime now, which just shows how behind I am on my personal editing.

These pictures, to me, are quintessentially autumn in Redding (well, except this last autumn was very dry, which is pretty rare here). We had 63F weather almost every day, hence the lack of coats and hats in these pictures (and Sophie is barefoot in one photo!). Our beautiful trees in our front yard dumped their leaves in almost one day, I think it had frosted that night, and we spent lots of time outside, enjoying the weather, letting Sophie explore and get lots better at walking (she started walking mid-September).

Despite our move into a more rural area of town (not really my cup of tea), I'm really beginning to appreciate our quiet street and large yard, so Sophie can explore and run around. All the neighbours drive slow and I don't have to worry about constantly watching for cars racing around the corner. As we head quickly into spring (winter was also oddly dry and short, all our bulbs are sprouting - we're back in 60s weather again, and I hear we're hitting 68F tomorrow), I thought I'd look back real quick on this lovely autumn we've just enjoyed (or, fall, for all y'all Americans out there).

Introducing Alexander David Braaten

I had the wonderful privilege of being a part of our housemate's birth last week, and boy, was it the process. Her waters broke at 12:00am on Wednesday January 25th and baby Xander was finally born on Saturday January 28th at 5:57pm. It was quite the journey for Tabitha (more on that in another post) and she did so well!

Here is a sneak peek of the journey these guys went on to bring baby Xander (7lb, 4oz and 21") into the world. Here he is at just a few minutes old: