rhonda stark photography: minneapolis children’s photographer

and thank goodness she does .. as i needed to get some practice using artificial lighting (OCF .. off camera flash) and today was the perfect day for it as it was totally dreary outside …

not sure on the processing here .. trying to go outside my 9 dots .. and ugh i need to fix my blog resizing action .. her fingers are NOT cutoff on the proof!

i am so glad i took these images last week … because this morning my daughter’s beloved hamster Sunny passed away

and here are a few more from her life with us .. her first day at our home ..

putting up with “dress up” ..

being pampered with some yogurt ..

and with her “mama” ..

so long Sunny .. you really were the best hamster .. you will be missed!

we finally got out to do my youngest daughter’s “official” 7-year session .. and let me tell you .. photographer’s kids have to be the hardest people to photograph
especially when she didn’t want to wear the outfit i preferred .. can you guess which she picked and which i picked?

if you guessed mine as the second you win! but regardless of the outfit .. i love it when i can capture her personality .. and all the different sides of it!

and i’ll leave you with this last one .. which cracks me up to no end .. can you see why i love this girl so much!

It’s hard to believe that my youngest is now 7! I love her in this striped shirt .. well actually I love her no matter what she wears I’m anxiously awaiting till it warms up so I can get her session done outside .. hopefully soon now that it’s above freezing here! But for now here she is enjoying a sucker and a book ..

at least i’m pretty sure that is what sunny, my oldest daughter’s hamster, is thinking when events like this occur:

or this …

or this …

but i know what she’s thinking here .. someone loves me!

and i couldn’t post without introducing my son’s hamster .. skittles ..

when we first got her she jumped at the slightest movement or noise and he initially named her jumpy .. she is getting better but she is still a bit skittish .. thus the renaming to skittles. and i have to admit the red eyes freaked me out a bit when he first picked her out .. but she’s growing on me .. especially when i see her praying

the girls and i headed out on wednesday afternoon to the pumpkin patch to pick some pumpkins and we decided to take e’s 10-year portraits while we were there. it was perfect .. weather was gorgeous and we found some pumpkins too!

so nice they had this chair there for us to use

ok .. i’m a bit biased but isn’t she just gorgeous? and yes her father already has the guns ready!

my new favorite of my two girls .. cracks me up

and i had to show this cute lil’ guy .. erin was all over him .. and unfortunately his brother was all over me giving me 3 long gashes on my hand!

my middle child turned 10 today .. and now she says she’s a tweenager! egads .. a soon to be teenager (her brother in january) and a tweenager .. am i really that old :{

anyway .. here’s a shot from the other day .. i was practicing with bounced flash .. hopefully if it warms up this week i’ll get going on her birthday portraits

and a drawing she did .. completely from her head .. not looking at anything .. she definitely has my mother’s artistic abilities

it’s a proud day when a boy kills his first rooster

at least that’s what him and his Dad says .. and as long as I don’t have to skin the darn thing I’m okay with it!

the kids and i headed over to apple jack’s to finally experience a corn maze and do some apple pickin’. turned out that about everyone else had the same idea!

the maze wasn’t very amazing .. i think we ended up taking some shortcuts thus reducing the amount of time running around getting lost .. which was fine with me. and then after the maze we headed out with some empty bags and came back with them full of apples and even some raspberries too! the next day we made a pie .. i should have taken some pictures of that it turned out really good .. but we had our neighbors over for dessert and it didn’t last long

Can you see T up there in the tree .. white shirt peeking out of the left side of the tree. He was loving it .. and even helped out some families who also wanted some!

This is so *them* .. E looking so sweet and then S trying to grab the spotlight! One of these days they’ll both realize I love them for who they each are