Winter Garden Portraits | Houston Portrait Photographer

So on Saturday the weather was warm but overcast and I decided I wanted to take my kids out for some serious outdoor time.  After realizing it had been quite a while since I had been to Mercer Botanical Gardens, I packed a picnic lunch and headed out with the kids.

We started our adventure at the Botanical Gardens side.  My son loves to read the maps and ask where we are on it and where will go we go.  My daughter just wants to follow him around.   And there are large swings scattered throughout the gardens that the kids enjoyed pushing each other on.

I have a large canvas of my son for his 3 year portraits wearing a certain velvet blazer and kept it so that I could take some pictures of my daughter in the same coat so I brought that along and a tutu for her to wear with it to girl it up!

There have been some really major changes to the botanical gardens over the last  year or so.  Hurricane Ike took out a number of their mature trees so the area that used to be like a forest is now much more open.  And now there is a new large water feature that is like a free standing waterfall! BEAUTIFUL! 

Frequently January is a VERY quiet month for photographers and mostly we are glad about that.  We need to recover from the holiday rush and get our business in order so we can start the new year out right.  And that is certainly what I've been up to.  But I did miss getting out to take some pictures and although my kids suffer from PCS (photographer's child syndrome) I was able to take a few casual pictures of them.

Even in January the botanical gardens look beautiful.  While maybe not as colorful as they will be in April, we were really able to take a look at some different areas of the park.  The moss growing on one of the rock walls was especially vivid!

 

At the end of this big rock wall is like a seat built into it.  Abby LOVED being up on that seat - she didn't want to leave.  I let her take off her cowboy boots so she could feel the cold rocks and moss on her little feet and that made her especially happy!

This shows that even in the winter, we can enjoy the outdoors in Houston and get some great pictures!