Sometime last year, I was sitting around a campfire with my sister, my brother-in-law, my husband, and all four of our girls. We were telling ghost stories. The girls were telling silly stories about pop-tarts that attacked little girls and made them bonk their heads.  Then, my brother-in-law spun some remarkable tale about four sisters.  I can’t remember the details of the story, but I do remember the characters’ names were the Morley girls.  It was a combination of my last name and my sister’s last name and since then, when we’ve referred to all four girls together, we call them The Morleys. 

When my girls & I were visiting my sister in October (yeah, I’m a little behind on sneak peeks!), we squeezed in a Christmas portrait session for my nieces.  Of course my two little hooligans just had to be a part of it.  So we dressed them in coordinating outfits and had an absolute blast.

 

 

Now, my besides being an expert ghost story teller, my brother-in-law is an amazing photographer.  He has a fantastic eye for composition and he is one of the best people I know at scoping out locations for photo shoots.  On Saturday, he said he wanted to take me to the cemetery because he thought it would be a beautiful place for pictures.  And, as always, he was right.  The late afternoon light was just gorgeous and there were some amazing spots for pictures.  So, on Sunday afternoon we went back to do the girls’ session.  The only thing I regret is that in my enthusiasm I totally forgot to pull out my second camera and hand it to my brother-in-law to second shoot.  A total dingbat move on my part because had I done that, we would have had twice as many “keeper” shots.  I was like an awestruck kid though, and didn’t have my head on quite straight.  My brother-in-law still got some great shots, even with his little point and shoot camera.  He is living proof that a photographer’s eye is more important than his/her camera.  One day, I hope to con him into going into business with me! 

 

I just love these pictures so much…they make me happy!

 

 

 

The picture below took a whole lot of staging and all three adults to pull off.  I counted; my sister and brother-in-law threw the leaves at the girls and then I pressed the shutter.  Repeatedly.  It took several attempts before we got one that I was happy with.

 

And this one makes me laugh out loud!  We’ve always said the Morley Girls sounds like the name of some all-girl band.  I loved the way the architecture of this building looked.  So, we got the girls to pose somewhat like we thought an album cover would look like and then told them to give us their best sassy looks.  This is what we got:

 

 

And one final photo of my wonderful, precious nieces: