Jessica Lemmons Photography Blog, Longview Washington (Wa.) photographer.

Merry Christmas!

jessical — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 04:37:49 +0000

My Christmas this year was, by far, one of the best ever. For those of you that know me you know my faith in God is a huge part of who I am, in fact I would go so far as to say it is the very core of who I am. God gave me a lesson this year on faith. It wasn’t an easy one, or necessarily a fun one, but God walked me through it and held my hand the whole time. I’m not going to go into all the details, but I will summarize by saying – the week before Christmas we were hit with a few small tragedies and God totally came through for me and my kids in huge AMAZING ways. Someday I want to share the full story as it’s really an incredible testimony of God’s love and faithfulness, but in the meantime I will suffice to say that I think God loves drama. Yep. I’m pretty sure of it. I think that a lot of times God waits till we are at the end of our rope….or dangling from a cliff…..or even about to smash into the rocks at the bottom of the ravine we fell into….that moment when we cry out to Him in desperation….and that’s when He swoops in and rescues us. God is God of His Word. (I know I’m preaching at ya’ll….but it’s such a part of who I am that it just kinda oozes out! I can’t help it!)

ANYways. Two quick photos ( I could overwhelm you with hundreds of course, but I won’t!)

My little guy still wearing his Christmas pajamas (taken the same day as the shot’s of him below) and doing what he did best on Christmas…..eating the wrappings….in this case a bow.

And last – what my mom and I spent most of Christmas doing – keeping the baby away from from the fireplace. Yes, he’s all boy and the pyromaniac in him has already surfaced. You can see my mom’s scolding hand in the top right of the photo. Haha….amazingly he never actually managed to get close enough to touch it, though he tried so very hard. No burns! Yay!

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Tristen | 8 months | Baby photography Longview WA.

jessical — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 05:13:50 +0000

My little one is already 8 months old. He’s sprouted 4 teeth (2 of them being his top canineswhich makes for quite the funny smile!) he’s crawling everywhere, into everything and almost walking. He is full of miscief, loves to climb, gives the best baby-sloppy kisses (usually followed by a bite!). He adores his big brother and sister and follows them everywhere. He is the center of our world in this little family. My older two can’t get enough of him and I can’t count the number of times I’ve caught them sneaking out of their beds and into his crib for some late night peek-a-boo and snuggles. This year is going by so fast. I’m so blessed to have the job I have because 1. It gives me the ability to capture this precious time in a beautiful way, and 2. I get to work out of my home for the majority of the time, so I get to fully enjoy him…..even though I’m generally exhausted from pulling late nighters after the kids are in bed. It’s absolutely worth the $$$ I spend on coffee to be able to cherish this time with him. I’m so proud to be this little guys mom, he melts my heart, and makes it all worthwhile! Merry Christmas!!

Baby B | Baby photography Longview Wa.

jessical — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 05:08:24 +0000

My sweet friend Autumn brought her little guy into my studio for his one year photos a few days before Chirstmas. I know I say this everytime I do a one-year session but I feel like I JUST photographed him as a newborn yesterday. He has grown up so fast! Him and my little guy are buddies, and everytime our families get together they have fun “playing” together – which at this age primarily consists of climbing over one another, sloppy kisses, and a little friendly hair-pulling. (My little one being the main culprit on that last part!) Merry Christmas!

Mini Sessions Round 2 | Family and children’s photographer

jessical — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 22:59:05 +0000

A few favorites from my second round of mini-sessions at Tam O’ Shanter Park in Kelso.

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Mini-Sessions Round 1 | Family and children’s photographer Longview Wa.

jessical — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 22:15:27 +0000

Back in November I ran a facebook special that went over so well I had to do it twice! This is the first round of mini-sessions from way back then, of course I had to wait until now to post them as all of these families used photos from their sessions for the Christmas cards and I didn’t want to spoil the surprise for anyone.

“R” and “A” | Family photography Longview Wa.

jessical — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 03:42:34 +0000

Another set from my Christmas mini’s. This handsome guy and beautiful mom were so stinkin cute together! Thanks guys for having me as your photographer!

The “B” family | Mini-session | Family photography Longview wa.

jessical — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 03:32:04 +0000

Mini-sessions this year were a huge success! I’ve got a full blog post coming up on these soon, but in the meantime here’s one of the families I wanted to feature.

I love outtakes! :-)

Love Inc. | Love in the name of Christ

jessical — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 21:59:31 +0000

I was first introduced to Love Inc in 2010 through my home church (Father’s House in Longview). Love Inc’s mission statement is this: “Our mission is to mobilize the Church to transform lives and communities In the Name of Christ.” To describe in more detail – Love inc is a group of people that work together to organize the body of Christ (all Bible believing churchs across the denominational board) to care for the poor and needy in our communties and show the light of Christ to them through practical acts of caring. I’ve had the privilige of being asked to work with them on several occasions now – one being the Highlands clean up project, another being an after school program for kids, and this one that I’m going to blog about was the Broadway School painting project. The Broadway school is our local special education preschool center that desperately needed a new paint job. It was huge project that spanned several weeks and dozens of volunteers. When it was all finished the school went from being a bit of local eyesore to a beautiful new-looking building.

Love Inc volunteers completely amaze me with their giving hearts and willingness to go above and beyond to bless our community here. On a side note – they’ve actually blessed me on more than one occasion – being a single mom with 3 kids sometimes there are “things” that I’m not capable of doing myself. When I moved last year (twice) they helped me here and there one time even going so far as to drive to Castle rock to pick up a piano that I was given and deliver it themselves to my front door. Blessed my socks off – I never could have picked up that piano on my own, and I didn’t even ask, they heard about it through a friend and showed up at my door with a delivery truck. For those of you that know me – I’ve played the piano since I was 4 years old, but since I’ve been a “moved-out-of-my-parents-home-adult” I haven’t owned one. It’s a small thing to some, but HUGE to me to finally own a piano of my own AND not have to worry about getting it through my door. Love inc is AMAZING.

So – when Larry Russell called me and asked if I could volunteer some time to photograph the Broadway School project I was super-excited. Giving back is something I love. And sadly not something I get to do nearly enough of in my current life-season. THIS was something I could do and I jumped at the opportunity.

I started out photographing the prep – scraping off chipped paint, taping, priming, caulking (there were a lot of holes and gaps that needed fixing).

Then they moved on to the actual painting.

And the very last thing – painting the flagpole.

Thank you Love Inc volunteers for all that you do in our community. You are an incredible group of people and know that the love of Christ shows through all you do!

If your interested in volunteering with Love Inc of Cowlitz County, check out their facebook page here – Cowlitz County Love Inc

Cannon Beach

jessical — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 21:56:11 +0000

My friend and I decided to take a trip down to Cannon Beach with all of our kids (well most of them that is). We figured we’d make an appearance on the beach and let the kids fly kites or something like that until they were frozen and then pack up and hit some candy shops. We dressed warm (it was November after all) grabbed our kites, kids, blankets, sweatshirts, coats and wagon and headed out on the beach. Once we got on the beach we realized that A. There was no wind so kites were out. B. It was REALLY warm so sweatshirts were unnecessary. And C. The water looked really inviting to those kids. So we all un-bundled ourselves and started playing. I’ve never been to the Oregon Coast and had it 1. Not be windy, or 2.Be warm. It was both. At first it started out with “let’s just let the kids get their feet wet” and next thing we knew all of the older ones were soaking wet, laughing and having a great time. Now I thought that once they were wet they would get cold, but no…it was really that warm. They got out of the water, played in the sand for a good long time, got BACK in the water, played in the sand some more and then repeated it until the sand in their pants started to rub their legs raw at which point we finally decided it was time to pack on up and get those kiddos some dry (and un-sandy) clothes. I think we were on the beach a good 3 or 4 hours which is also probably the longest amount of time I’ve ever spent on the Oregon coast as it’s always windy and cold out there…..this day was the first exception I’d ever seen and I loved it.

Olivia giving me her “Can I please get in the water????” look.

Tristen (being a typical 7-month old) had to taste the sand.

From that point forward it was a losing battle between me and sand.

Such a cute little sand monster! (and I think I went through a case of wipes on him)

The older boys all covered in sand from hours of road and sand castle building.

The 5-year-olds : No we didn’t let them get that far out without one of us close by – my friend is just out of the shot. ;-)

All-in-all the beach was a huge success. Dirty exhausted kids. Worn out parents. And some super fun memories with photos to boot!

Clinton and Kari | October 1st 2011 | Wedding photographer Chehalis Wa.

jessical — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 20:56:54 +0000

Clinton and Kari were married at their home church – a small but beautiful Lutheran chapel in Chehalis. You might remember Clinton and Kari from their e-session here. My second shooter Ruth and I had an amazing time with these two (and Ruth rocked as my second btw and some of the photos below are from her). We shot most of their photos just outside of their church – you’d never know we were in a parking lot now would ya? ;-) and then finished up the rest of their day with a super-fun reception at the beautiful Hotel Washington in downtown Chehalis. Thank you so much Clinton and Kari for having me as your photographer and Congratulations!!!!!!!