Taking pictures with my iPhone has become one of my favorite creative outlets when I’m trudging around with the kid in tow. My girl is slowly starting to appreciate the fun of having her picture taken again. I pretend like it’s not the best thing ever, but oh my goodness it really, really is!

“You want your picture taken again?” in my best exasperated voice. “Well ok, but just one (or TEN) more.”

Apps for Photo Tinkering → Mill Colour, Camera Bag + Diptic

There was heavy cloud cover on the day of this baby’s portrait shoot too. I love how her infectious smile made it feel like a bright sunny day. Now only to find a way to put it in a bottle. Hmm.

Being a little disenchanted with the zoo this time around, when he casually mentioned walking over to the beach I was all about making that happen ASAP. With no beach towels, no change of clothes and sunscreen yet to be applied we headed over. It was her first trip to a beach this year and I’m pretty confident there is another one in our very near future.

I setup a little backdrop and tripod in our living room while she was out with daddy. When she came home and saw my mess her eyes lit up. She had lots of questions about the tripod.

“What is that?”
“Why is it standing like that?”
“It’s sturdy?”
“Can I try it?”

The answer is pretty much always yes when it comes to her to taking pictures. What? You want to partake in momma’s favorite hobby? Why, yes! You can play with close to 10 lbs of Nikon goodness. Insurance? ✔

With an animal obsessed 3.5 year old (don’t worry we fixed her seatbelt) and multiple zoos nearby, we’ve seen our share of caged up generally dissatisfied animals. But I’m no one to judge the zoos, I’m just saying that’s what I see and when I see unhappy my camera sees unhappy. No thanks to that! On this trip to Lincoln Park Zoo, I made an attempt to capture things a little different. I like these two:

We don’t spend too many evenings together. I usually go straight to work after we eat. Tonight it was just the two of us, so when I cleaned up dinner I set her up with her paints. The second I finished I picked up my camera to take pictures of her creating.

She asked a lot of questions about the photographs I was taking of her. She wanted to take pictures too. I handed her my iPhone and we headed to the backyard to take pictures together. When we came inside she said, “Mommy? When I get bigger? Can I always do the stuff that you do so we can be together?”

And, she stole my heart one more time.