👪 The George Family’s Epic Portrait Session + 5 Essential Tips For New Parents | Atlanta + Dallas Lifestyle Photographer

Good evening, lovelies!

I hope you are making this week a great one! I’m super excited to share another awesome client session with you!

Next on the blog today is the ever-so beautiful George family: Anissa, Gerond, and their super adorable baby girl, Gabby! Plus, Anissa and Gerond share their essential tips on becoming new parents!

Their family portrait session was beyond amazing! It was EPIC! I admire this couple so much. You’ll find out why shortly. 😉

👪 ABOUT THE GEORGE FAMILY

Anissa and Gerond are so much in love! The happily married couple met on September 2, 2005 (Gerond said this exact date to me with so much honor! Aww!) at their friends’ wedding in Connecticut. It was the wedding of Anissa’s friend from high school and Gerond’s friend from college - 10 years ago.

And get this! For 3 years, Anissa and Gerond stayed in contact and maintained a long distance relationship. Both were in graduate school and working full-time jobs during this time. Distance and busy schedules would typically cause a relationship to fail. However, Anissa and Gerond made their relationship work. UNBELIEVABLE! They have now been married for 7 years and continue to grow together. This is definitely an amazing couple to watch and learn from!

Born and raised in Connecticut, Anissa is an absolute sweetheart. I quickly noticed that she is a wonderful mother, devoted wife, and has such a warm and clever personality. I could easily sit and talk with her all day! It was so endearing to capture the caring way she interacted with her hubby and baby girl.

In her free time, Anissa loves to read books and enjoys watching her favorite TV shows. She is a huge fan of Shonda Rhimes, screenwriter, director and producer of hit TV series Scandal, Grey’s Anatomy, and Private Practice. Shows like these definitely keep viewers coming back to watch more episodes!

Gerond is from Oklahoma City, attended Oklahoma State University, and proudly represents his alma mater by stating that he “bleeds orange”. Lol! He’s so full of life, witty, and such a fun person to be around. After meeting him, I realized that he takes so much pride in being a wonderful husband and father. He also brightens up the room as soon as he enters it. He describes himself as an “outgoing nerd”. Being a great father, devoted husband, the life of the party AND intelligent!? That’s a winning combination right there!

Gerond is also a beer connoisseur and loves to play golf in his spare time. He has been crafting his own beer for the past 4 or 5 years and will perhaps turn his unique trade into a business in the future. Gerond also enjoys traveling for work and likes to BBQ. He and Anissa both love good food (The Dallas area is certainly an excellent place for that!). He also proudly shared that he loves taking care of his baby girl, Gabby. Too adorbs!

OMG, baby Gabby! 😍 At the time of this session, she was one week shy of 8 months old. This darling little angel had so much personality! I adored her as soon as I saw her for the first time. Her eyes were so bright and filled with happiness. She was not shy with me at all by grabbing my attention with her smiles and adorable facial expressions.

So, what is baby Gabby like? Here’s what Anissa and Gerond shared about their precious little girl:

“She’s always smiling. She likes bubbles, loves to play in water, and loves reading time. Her favorite toy is her little teapot. Oh yeah, she loves tea time.

She’s a little chatterbox now [Gabby is now 18 months old]! She is running, kissing, screaming, jumping, and playing dress up. And she loves bananas. Sometimes, she gets cranky if she doesn’t have a banana for breakfast!

Her favorite book is Hippos Go Berserk! by Sandra Boynton. She loves for us to read this book to her at bedtime. We [Anissa and Gerond] can recite this book from memory now!“

How awesome is that! With such great parents, it’s no wonder that everything about Gabby gave me so much life!

👪 ON BECOMING PARENTS

The couple’s thoughts on becoming parents are definitely worth taking note of. They said, “It has been exciting, fun, and hard as new parents! Gabby is a really great kid though. We’re so blessed to have a happy and awesome baby girl. She has taught us how to be great parents. You can go to all the classes you want but you really learn how to be a parent when you actually have a kid of your own.”

A typical day for the George family includes dropping off Gabby at daycare, going to work, coming home, eating dinner, having bath time, and saying goodnight at bedtime. Then they repeat this routine all over again the next day. This family has their day-to-day routine down to a science!

Anissa shared that their family schedule varies on the weekends. “We have a similar routine on weekends except we integrate fun activities,” she said. “There was a lot of splash time this summer. And there was a lot of chalk writing going on with Gabby - on the driveway, back patio, fence…everywhere!”

How I adore this amazing couple! But wait, there’s more!

👪 5 ESSENTIAL TIPS FOR NEW PARENTS

Are you a new parent or thinking of having your 1st baby? Anissa and Gerond had these great, essential parenting tips to share:

1) Be flexible. “You’ll think you can plan for everything but you can’t,” the couple said.

2) Don’t be too hard on yourself. “Kids will throw a wrench in your plan every single time, “ the couple shared. “It will happen! So you must be flexible and not beat yourself up for things to work.”

Through their experiences as new parents, the couple now knows the following tips but wish someone would have taught or warned them beforehand.

3) Your kid is unique. “Every kid is different,” said Anissa. “What works for our friends’ kids does not work for us and vice versa.”

4) Figure out what works. “Classes will teach you one thing but it may not work for your kid,” shared Anissa. “Take classes, learn the information, but then you have to figure out what works for your kid.”

5) Fathers, beware of combing your little girls’ hair and get prepared to do so. Gerond had this to share that will help all the fathers out there with baby girls. He stated, “I wish parenting classes would have taught me how to do little girls’ hair! It was ok when Gabby’s hair was very short, but now it’s growing longer. It’s so frustrating!” [Fathers of baby girls, consider yourself warned! 😉]

Awesome advice from awesome parents!

👪 THE EPIC PORTRAITS

I absolutely love my wonderful clients and am so grateful for them! And I can’t believe baby Gabby is 18 months old now (Wow! Where did the time go!?!?). Babies and toddlers are very active, have extremely short attention spans, and a lot of work to photograph, but capturing those special moments are P-R-I-C-E-L-E-S-S! I can’t wait until the George family’s next session soon!

Here are my remaining favorites from their epic session:

I hope you enjoyed today’s post. More pretty pictures and exciting news & updates are coming soon! Stay close for new posts!

Interested in booking your very own session with KSimon Photography? EMAIL ME today and tell a friend! And be sure to check out the all new referral program so you don’t miss out on receiving awesome freebies. 😃

Until next time,

Kimberly

📷 Atlanta + Dallas Fashion, Lifestyle, & Business Portrait Studio and Outdoor Photographer ️