This spring I had a fantastic family come to me for an extended family photo session. We headed to the North Oaks Golf Club for portraits of all the whole family! All 13 of them! We had 4 boys under 5 and a couple of older kids, along with 7 adults. Extended family sessions are a lot of work for everyone involved but they are worthwhile once completed. I like to focus on the whole family but then try and break it down for individual families and kids. I don't do a lot of extended family sessions but I do tend to do at least one a year. I was excited to do one this spring, though. Usually extended family sessions occur in the fall but I'm really loving spring and summer sessions lately. The colors are muted a more pastel look which is my favorite.

Grandparents love extended family sessions too so if you are looking for a gift to give your parents, this is it. Because let's face it most parents have everything they need and want in terms of tangible objects. Gifting an experience, that results in prints to remind them of their beautiful family is the best gift you can give.

Apparently this family had been swimming the whole afternoon before their photo session so the boys were a bit tired. I usually recommend scheduling photo sessions with young children on days you have nothing going on. The photo session should be the one activity you do. Young children get tired easy and if you push them to keep going it ends up being a little harder on everyone. But even though they were tired they were still troopers and we still managed to capture some great portraits for the grandparents which was the goal anyway.

Let's take a peek at some of the images from this North Oaks extended family session shall we . . . .