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Christmas is so much more fun now that I can spoil my nephew Seth. Last year on Christmas he was only 5 months old, so he kind of just sat there while we opened his hefty present pile for him. This year, after practicing at his first birthday in July, he’s going to be an old pro at opening presents! I’m excited to see him enjoy Christmas a little bit more now that he’s a little bigger. He’s still not old enough to quite understand what’s going on so I’m looking forward to next year when he learns about Santa and reindeers and stockings and everything else and can really get excited himself for Christmas.

Much like his newborn photos and his first birthday photos, Seth’s Christmas photos this year were roughly a 3 day affair. We not only had a lot of outfits and backdrops to get through, but it’s also a much different kind of session taking newborn photos as opposed to 17 month old photos. Seth is almost constantly on the move and climbing and running and screaming and laughing and just generally being a crazy person :D It seemed like the only way to get him to smile and look at the camera was for my mother and me to sing the Winnie the Pooh theme song for him. Thankfully I remembered the words!

It was amazing to see the difference from last year’s Christmas photos. He couldn’t sit up by himself then so my brother in law had to hold him up on my vintage sled and then I had to edit him out of the photo later. This year Seth was literally dancing on the same sled, just holding his Gigi’s hand for safety. It was a much quicker Photoshop job this year!
​Here they are!
When we were done in the studio, we went downstairs to take a very special photo with Seth’s great grandma. She’s our Mema so we call her Seth’s Great Mema. My mother realized that the two of them, the youngest and oldest in our family, were going to be 1 and 92 this year just like in the Christmas Song. I knew we had to take a nice photo of them together to commemorate it.
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And so I’m offering this simple phrase to kids from 1 to 92. Although it’s been said, many times, many ways, Merry Christmas to you!

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The last time Lily was in the studio, it was a very different looking scene in there. It was fully decked out in fall decor to celebrate her first birthday in October (hay, hay everywhere, as far as the eye could see!) This time the studio was 100% Christmas. This day was my last in-studio Christmas session of the year, so I was determined to use all the props in there one more time before I had to pack them all away! 

First we started with her adorable red flower pattern dress and little red cardigan. Lily was so happy and clapping the whole time, and she really loved to look at the Christmas books I had put out in the studio. I loved how she looked against the sequin backdrop I put up. I feel like it makes her beautiful blue eyes stand out perfectly. We switched to the brown burlap backdrop when she changed into her cute little Santa suit. This girl was the only toddler this whole season who was ok with wearing a Santa hat! Every other kid ripped it off crying, but Lily was happy to wear it as she played with the props and books. She did such a great job! 

Here are some of my favorite photos from our session!

Email me at laurapeaphotography@gmail.com or call (631)256-7476 to book a session!

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Meet the Petrellis! Just kidding, they're my friends and they've been all over the blog for years haha. We had a lot of photos to get to this holiday season, so when planning our photo session, mom Diana and I decided we'd do two days in a row to make sure we got everything we needed. The first day we met in Stony Brook for a family session with dad Michael. The next day, Diana and her mom Janet (it's always good to bring a helper!) came with the boys into the studio to get some Christmas photos of just the twins. It's the best of both worlds! 

The boys had a lot of fun playing with the props in the studio, and I made sure to save the best for last. Earlier this year, our friend Dina was cleaning house and getting rid of some stuff and she offered me an adorable little red metal fire truck for the studio. I knew this would look great in Christmas photos, and I knew Vincent and Louis would love it. They have a real fascination with anything automotive, like their dad. Remember when we took some of their newborn photos on dad's car and even...in his tires? The day before at our family session, Vincent and Louis made sure to point out every car that went by! Because I knew it would be a big draw and that it would probably distract them if it was in the room the whole time, I stowed the fire truck outside the studio until right at the end of the session. The boys loved taking turns riding on it and it was really adorable!

Here are some of my favorite photos from our double session!

Book your session with me! Email me at laurapeaphotography@gmail.com or call me (631)256-7476.

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Dominic came into the studio with his big smiles and stylin’ outfits earlier this month and he absolutely rocked his Christmas photo session! You might remember Dominic’s awesome first birthday shoot at Fink’s Farm back in September, (where I think I had as much fun as he did hanging out at the petting zoo), but this was his first time back in the studio since his newborn photos last year! Dominic was teeny tiny for his first Christmas, so this year he’s big enough to really enjoy himself, especially now that he’s walking!

We started with his fancy red sweater, then his cozy blue sweater, then we ended the session with some comfy Rudolph pajamas. We even tried to get a Santa hat on him, but if you scroll through the slideshow below, I think you'll see how well that turned out :D Of all the toddlers I had in the studio this Christmas season, only one tolerated the Santa hat, the rest were outrageously offended by it! Oh well, a cranky crying face is always just a *teensy* bit funny to me. 
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Here are some of my favorite photos of Dominic's Christmas session!

Book a session by emailing me at laurapeaphotography@gmail.com or you can call me at (631)256-7476!

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The Camerons and Ryans are some of my oldest clients! My mom Lorraine, a veritable Laura Pea Photography business card dispenser, connected me with both of them, and it turns out there are a lot of connections between the families too! My mom's best friend since the first grade is Emily. Her daughter Erin and son-in-law Tom are my clients. The other client is Robyn. She knows my mom because her husband Patrick worked for my mom at the library years ago! It turns out Erin and Robyn are friends and their daughters go to dance classes together, so all the kids are friends too! Erin's mom Emily was also Robyn's first grade teacher! Like I always say about Long Island: it's a big island, but a small world. 

Since they always come to me for Christmas photos, this year they suggested that we do the sessions together! This was my first time doing a simultaneous two family session and I wasn't sure what to expect. What I forgot is that since I've been photographing both families since the kids were in diapers, they're all essentially pros by now. They gave me beautiful smiles and there was no need for silly jokes to get them to have fun. They were effortlessly adorable and they had a blast being able to hang out with their friends while we took photos! 

Here are my favorite photos from the session!

Book your session with me! Email me at laurapeaphotography@gmail.com or call me at (631)256-7476.

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Fall is my favorite season and Halloween is my favorite holiday, so I pretty much smile the entire month of October. Seeing the leaves change, going to fall festivals, decorating the porch with a ton of autumn decor, and planning out costumes is just so much fun for me. My fall porch is something I take a lot of pride in, so last year I took photos of Seth, Gracey and Ash out there.

This year, I had a fall set up in the studio for a few sessions, and if you follow my Instagram, you’ll probably have seen my stories about how incredibly messy the bales of hay were! I took some photos of Seth up there, and then we moved out to the porch, taking those messy hay bales with us! Gracey joined us at the end too!
Here are my favorites from that day!
Then a few days later, I took Gracey up in the studio for her close up in her Halloween costume! Again, if you follow my Instagram (or if you know just how crazy I am), it won’t be a surprise to you that I bought a little something to match her while we go trick or treating with Seth and for handing out Halloween candy!
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Here is Seth in his actual Halloween costume as an Ewok from Star Wars. It was so hilarious watching him walk around with the oversized belly, he looked like a big teddy bear. It was so sweet. I love this little boy so much. 
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Are you tired of posts entitled "Seth's First ________"? Then this isn't the blog for you :D
Aunt Laura will never get tired of pulling her photogenic little nephew into the studio at every opportunity. Especially during his first year, I just can't help but document every little moment I can. Let's be honest, even after he's one, I'm probably not going to stop. Apologies in advance.

I realized recently that of all the pets I've photographed, I've never had the occasion to take photos of a rabbit for a client, so I had to improvise and make Seth my little bunny rabbit this year. 9 months is a really fun age to photograph because at this point, Seth can sit up really well and he loves to hold things, so he'll pretty much take any prop that I hand him. The only thing that was difficult to deal with was the fact that he recently started to crawl, so keeping him still was a little bit of an issue! When he got to the point where he was really raring to go, I popped him into a little wooden crate and that did the trick!

I'm so excited to see Seth enjoy his first Easter. I know for a fact he's going to be getting at least 3 Easter baskets, which I know is overkill, but our family is just too obsessed with him. We had a couple of years of tough times before he came along and even after, so this beautiful smiling baby is the apple of everyone's eye. I just can't help but be happy when I see this boy smile.

Here's our bunny boy.
picture of baby boy's first easter photo session easter bunny costume smiling at the camera with a twine easter egg
picture of baby boy's first easter photo session in an easter bunny costume looking at a rabbit prop
picture of baby boy's first easter photo session in an easter bunny costume smiling at the camera holding a twine easter egg
 picture of baby boy's first easter photo session in an easter bunny costume knocking over twine easter eggs in a basket
picture of baby boy's first easter photo session in an easter bunny costume smiling at the camera with a rabbit prop
picture of baby boy's first easter photo session in an easter bunny costume putting carrot shaped lights in his mouth
picture of baby boy's first easter photo session in an easter bunny costume holding carrot shaped lights
picture of baby boy's first easter photo session in an easter bunny costume holding carrots prop
picture of baby boy's first easter photo session in an easter bunny costume posing with rabbit stuffed animal
picture of baby boy's first easter photo session in an easter bunny costume crawling with stuffed baby chick
picture of baby boy's first easter photo session in an easter bunny costume smiling at the camera sitting in a wooden crate
picture of baby boy's first easter photo session in an easter bunny costume sitting in a wooden crate playing with a rabbit prop
picture of baby boy's first easter photo session in an easter bunny costume smiling at the camera sitting in a wooden crate with a rabbit stuffed animal
picture of baby boy's first easter photo session in an easter bunny costume sitting in a wooden crate with a stuffed baby chick
picture of baby boy's first easter photo session in an easter bunny costume sitting in a wooden crate chewing on carrot shaped lights

Happy Easter, everyone!

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It’s been a little bit of a crazy time over here at Laura Pea Photography! I try to dedicate a blog post to most sessions I do, but this V-Day season got away from me. If you follow along on my Instagram (@laurapeaphotography), you’ll have seen all these photos but I decided to do a roundup post of the sessions I did for Valentine’s Day this year for those that follow my blog!

First up is my nephew Seth! This is his first Valentine’s Day and I was so excited to get him in the studio to use some of the props I’ve been accumulating over the years! He’s so used to the click of my camera and the flash of my lights, so he did an amazing job!
Next is Juliette and Owen! I photographed them at two of the pet portrait programs I did at the Islip Public Library and then I was honored to photograph Juliette’s 1st birthday photos! They came back for her 18 month photos to surprise their dad whose birthday is the day before Valentine’s Day. They had so much fun playing around with the props I have in the studio! I love how these came out! Jules has such a brilliant smile and Owen is such a great older brother, who was so happy to pose with his little sister.
Next are my little girl Gracey’s photos! I always take photos of her when I’m figuring out my setups for sessions. She’s always happy to model for me, especially because she knows there are freeze-dried beef liver treats in it for her!
Finally is my cousin Peyton’s Valentine’s Day photos! Peyton’s mom Lori is the reason why I have this very cute little play kitchen. She saw it for sale online and told me about it. I agreed it would be a very cute addition to the studio and picked it up. Peyton was very happy to play with it in exchange for a few beautiful smiles toward the camera!
I hope everyone had a great Valentine’s Day!

Book a session with me by emailing laurapeaphotography@gmail.com
​or calling (631)256-7476!

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Everyone in my family is all abuzz, because it’s my nephew Seth’s First Christmas! Even though he’s only 5 months old and he has NO idea what’s going on, that hasn’t stopped anyone from buying him veritable mountains of presents.

The amount of Christmas outfits we’ve put him in this month is also staggering. If you saw his newborn photo blog posts (Part One, Part Two, and Part Three :D), you know it took me three days to be satisfied with the amount of photos I’d taken. The same thing happened with his Christmas photos! I did a bunch the first day, but the next day and the next day I was still sneaking him upstairs to the studio to do a couple more! I haven’t even taken all the Christmas photos I want to take of him, either! I’m planning on some really cute ones to take on Christmas Day when we open up his plethora of presents!

Here are Seth’s 1st Christmas Photos!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

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You might have seen Zeus’ outdoor session at the park last week. Well, this guy’s cuteness can’t be contained to just one post! After our fun session at Blydenburgh Park, Zeus’ mom Katrina brought him in for some studio shots to celebrate his birthday! Katrina got Zeus a beautifully decorated birthday cookie. He waited so patiently for us to take a few photos before he tore into it, but then he made quick work of devouring it. He’s such a gentleman that he made sure to lick up all the crumbs off the floor. Thanks, Zeus!
​Here are his birthday photos!
After his birthday photos, we brought in the holiday props to take some Christmas shots! Zeus is so well-trained and sweet that he let us put a bunch of funny headbands on him and didn’t make a peep or try to shake them off once!
We finished up with some special photos with Zeus’ favorite toy. This is the first toy Zeus’ mom Katrina bought him and he treats it really well. She told me he never chews too hard on his Duck and he sleeps with it at night. This reminded me of our family dog when I was younger, Whiskey. He had this fuzzy toy “Baby” that he cherished his whole life and used to carry around tenderly. It was so cute to see Zeus cuddling with his special toy, especially because he was wearing the most adorable pajamas!
HAPPY 5th BIRTHDAY, ZEUS!

Does your fur baby have a birthday coming up? Celebrate it with photos! Email me at laurapeaphotography@gmail.com
or call (631)256-7476 to schedule a session!

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Laura Paesano
Long Island, NY

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