family pictures.

i've been a terrible blogger. long story.

so here are a few family pictures i've taken over the past few months to make up for my little hiatus.

it's fun taking pictures of people you know really well.

exhibit a.

i love when pretty families ask me to take their picture.

5 pretty families in one weekend. more where these came from.

what i don't love is that i have to go back to utah tomorrow where it is apparently going to be 13 degrees. no thank you.

ryan. melissa + boys

this is my brother's family.

ryan is in school to be a chiropractor. melissa is really good at making cute little boys [i'm sure she's good at making cute little girls too]. their 3 boys are some of my favorite little people in the world. i love them. it doesn't hurt that they look great in pictures.

i took these in april. i even posted them in april, but i decided that it didn't do these photos justice.

can't wait to see you guys in a week and a half.

the ripley family.

this is actually the first extended family session i've ever done.

i loved their dogs :)

the morley family.

this was easier than e-mailing a few of my favorites :)

tell me what you think, ann!

the perry family.

featuring the perfect family photo.

it was actually pretty exciting to have a photo session where every family member looked at the camera without me having to ask. i'm used to photographing little ones that need some help :)

ps. i discovered during this session that my mother is the best photo assistant in the world. and no, you can't have her.

rollins.

funny story.

a few weeks ago, i drove down to san diego to take some photos for my friend erin and her gorgeous little family.

we actually met via e-mail when erin ordered some paintings from me. but regardless, we're now friends :)

she had said a few times that she wished i lived closer so i could take family pictures for them. so i had an idea. i told her if she could get a few different families to set up photo sessions in her area, i would be more than happy to travel down there and even do her family's session for free in return for her setting everything up!

so we did it. and i was thrilled at how well everything turned out!

thanks for everything erin, it was fabulous to finally meet you! hope you love the photos - the rest will be on their way shortly. cross my heart :)

what i've been up to.

last wednesday: flew into oakland

thursday: drove 8 hours down to san diego

later thursday: 3 family photo sessions

friday: play at the beach

saturday: 2 more family sessions

later saturday: drove 8 hours back home

phew. the camera and i are both happy and exhausted.

i'll be posting more photos in the very near future. as well as sharing some details on getting a free photo session like erin's family here. i just felt the need to post a favorite from the weekend :)

xoxo.

jana

droubay.

i was so glad i got to squeeze in one more session before leaving to utah.

is this not one of the cutest families ever?

yeah. i could stand to have a few kids as adorable as these three :)

thanks for hanging out with me and my camera - hope you like them melanie!

xoxo.

jana

jana's life = crazy.

WARNING: this post may be slightly, or entirely, scattered.

first of all, let me just say that i have been having SO much fun with these paintings. i love that everyone is digging the colored backgrounds! my friend shauna (go check out her blog, she is seriously hilarious) totally did paintings like this first (she was actually a major source of my inspiration - shout out to shauna!)... anyway, she was telling me that most of her clients seem to shy away from using color, as hard as she tries to talk them into it, while i have yet to keep a painting black and white, even though i sometimes suggest it. interesting? i don't know... but i do think it's cool that you guys are so colorful.

speaking of all of my colorful painting buyers, thank you thank you thank you for being so patient with me while my life is crazy.

speaking of my like being crazy, i have an important announcement:

jana is moving back to utah thursday, april 16th!

which means....

#1. if you're thinking about ordering a painting from me, now would be a REALLY good time to get on it! once school and utah life is in full swing, chances are my life will be even crazier than it is now, and i might have to do something not so fun like raise my prices - you know how supply and demand works. SO, i've decided to be really cool and let you know that if you order a painting some time in April, the price will stay the same and you won't even have to worry about silly things like the laws of economics. cool?

#2. if you're in the bay area and want some sweet family pictures, or just pictures in general, PLEASE e-mail me! i've had a few people tell me already that they want some taken before i go and i want to try to accommodate as many photo sessions as i can! so seriously, e-mail me. and we will figure something out. [please don't freak out too bad if you just can't make it happen before the 16th. i'll be back here and there this summer. i promise.]

shameless self-publicity plug over.

while i have quite a range of emotions with the whole utah move, i would say the majority of my pie graph of emotions would be 'excitement' (i hope you're picturing my pie graph of emotions. or just picturing pie. i like pie). i'm so sad to be moving 800 miles from the fabulous family that i have loved living so close to for the past year, but, like i said, i am so so excited to be going back to school and doing the whole college scene again.

to celebrate setting the date for my big move, i quit my full-time job (which i kind of already mentioned), and my last day was friday - this was actually the first job that i've ever had to put in my two weeks for. tying up loose ends at work can be kind of crazy.

did i mention i've been sick for the past week or so with some kind of cold that will just not leave me alone?

so instead of spending the weekend painting up a storm, like i had planned... i drank a bottle of cough syrup [totally kidding. more like half of a bottle] and got a few lovely ladies ready for a junior prom [wish i had some pictures]. however, i did manage to take some pictures of one of my favorite families.

here are a few i loved.

they love kung fu remember?

i love that it was ryan's idea to take pictures of just the two of them, and i love that they don't even look old enough to have 3 crazy boys and that these could pass as engagement pictures, and i love that ryan would not stop making faces and had me laughing so hard.

i love that melissa has such fabulous ideas, so that even when i'm sick and uncreative we still get a few of these awesome shots.

want awesome pictures like this? see #2 above.

oh, it's 4:30 in the morning? weird, i didn't notice. no wonder i'm still sick!

xoxo.

jana

p.s. back to pie... seriously, no one even asked for my mom's pie recipe? maybe the half-eaten photo didn't do it justice. or maybe you just haven't tasted it so you have no idea what you're missing!