Family Pictures at Maymont

It has become a tradition in our family to take pictures just before the weather turns cold!  We love to take our family pictures outside, and with the leaves turning colors, and the weather about to change... it seemed like the right time to schedule them again!
We loved our family photographer so much (PROPS TO AMY HARRISON!!!), but unfortunately, she and her husband moved to Tennessee.  With our move to Richmond, that made for hard planning and added expenses to a photo shoot.  So, sadly we decided that we weren't going to be able to use Amy this time.  We scoured the Richmond area for photographers, and didn't find anyone that we could afford to hire.  Not to mention that we didn't know any of them or any of their work... which is always a "hold your breath" kind of thing!!
After a few depressing days of thinking that we wouldn't have any family pictures for 2011, I thought about asking someone if they wanted to do a photo exchange.  Derik's god sister and her husband live about 5 minutes from us, and I remembered that they had a great camera... so I decided to see if a photo exchange would be something they were interested in doing!  They were in, and boy are we glad they said yes!!
We followed Megan & Steve to Maymont park.  It was our first time visiting Maymont, and it will not be our last!  It was gorgeous, and Abbie enjoyed being outside VERY much!!  Steve led us to the Japenese Gardens which is a ideal location for pictures!  We were far from the only people with this idea!  There were people everywhere with photographers!!
We found several different locations and Steve snapped away!!  Abbie is absolutely in love with Megan, so Megan helped to make Abbie smile in as many pictures as possible!  We all know that the attention span of a 2 year old is close to that of the most ADD person on the planet, but Megan did a great job at keeping Abbie focused and happy!!
After taking the pictures, I found a program on my iPad that I could edit pictures with, and I started working on them!  I am so excited with the final product!!  Steve got some really great shots, and with the light edits... the definitely look professional!
A BIG thank you to Megan & Steve for doing this for us!!  We truly grateful!  Here are some of the pictures from the shoot... I just love them so much!

 - Jessica