lAURA & MATTHEW

For the past four years we have spent each spring break in the beautiful state of New Mexico. Franciscan University of Steubenville sends out around 300 missionaries each year on spring break mission trips all over the world! We have been so blessed to be the advisors for New Mexico Mission for 4 years now. The mission team serves in Gallup, NM and we work with the local Catholic schools, the Missionaries of Charity and the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Spring is here in Ohio ! I can feel it. I can see it. It’s truly my absolute favorite season. Nature awakens and comes alives. The world becomes green again and the flowers begin to bloom. I had the pleasure of photographing sweet Ava this weekend.

Wow, February FLEW by! It’s definitely the shortest month and it felt like it too! Today I’m continuing with our Schaefer Family Adventures series. If I had describe this month in a phrase it would be “going viral”.

Grace is two months old and I’ve finally sat down to write out her birth story. It wasn’t how or where I planned to give birth but I’m so thankful for the beautiful and precious outcome!

One of the best parts of being both a wedding and family photographer is getting to photograph our Fire and Gold couples’ families as they grow! Dalton and Jimmy Joe’s wedding photos went viral this past month after I posted images of Dalton wearing Ellie down the aisle. During all the craze about the Babywearing Bride, Dalton gave birth to her second child, a son. Sweet little Briar James.

So I’ve decided to do a monthly family series on the blog called “Schaefer Family Adventures”. It will highlight things we do each month as well as photos I’ve taken that month.

We celebrated Grace’s baptism when she was 3 weeks old. Friends and family came into town, even though the weather was calling for a CRAZY snow storm. Luckily it wasn’t as bad as they were predicting and everyone made it safely to Ohio.

On a chilly December morning, right before Christmas, I met Katie and Jorge for their sunrise engagement session. They had just driven up the day before from Georgia to celebrate Christmas with Katie’s family. They were such troopers for getting up so early to brave the cold morning air, but it was all worth it!

I think it’s safe to say that I laughed through the majority of this shoot. The Herrmann family is SO MUCH FUN and they had a great idea to take photos together for their mom for Christmas!

Teresa and I met in college. We were RA’s together throughout our time at Franciscan University. I hadn’t seen her since graduation so I was so excited when she reached out to me about shooting her wedding this summer! She and John drove up from DC for their engagement shoot.