Longtime photographer online friend of mine Ashley Ward of Ashley Ward Photography came to visit me and hang out for a few shoots, so I took her around with me for a fairytale session. It was 98F out and we were ALL sweaty beasts, but little Miss Maya is always lovely and patient with me. See the behind the scenes post for this session here!

Ashley took these two:

Then these are the ones I got:

Kylie’s nominator, Kandace writes “I have an amazing little girl that I would like to nominate. Her name is Kylie Hill. Kylie is three years old and has been down a rough road from day one. She was born at 27 weeks and was in the NICU for 2 months and while she was there she was diagnosed with Poland syndrome which affects the muscular system. Kylie had to go through several months of intense therapy to help her move her arms. After winning this battle, at 19 months, Kylie was diagnosed with AML which is a type of leukemia. Kylie was in a children’s hospital for 6 months. Kylie is now in remission but will not be released as a leukemia patient until the age of 6. After reading about your contest, I believe strongly that Kylie is deserving of the title of the Second Annual Memorial Princess. Thank you for your time and consideration.”

Kylie’s mother, Brittany writes “Our Courageous Little Fighter – One Battle After Another
I am here to introduce you to my hero. This is my daughter Kylie Hill. She is an amazing little girl. Kylie has been a fighter all her life.
Kylie came to us April 24, 2008 weighing a whopping 2lbs 4.4 oz. She was 3 months premature. I didn’t see how she could survive. Prayers started immediately. She was in the hospital almost 2 months. I would go and hold her during the day. She finally became big enough where I could feed her. After 2 months, she was able to come home.
Kylie got home and was such a blessing. She was the sweetest baby in the world. She never crawled because of a weak muscle in her arm but she made up for it. Kylie would hop like a bunny. It was so cute watching her hop through the house. I often worried about her knees but it didn’t seem to bother her. I never knew a child could bring so much joy to my life. Kylie got sick one weekend with a cold. She didn’t act like herself. We took her to the emergency room where she was diagnosed with patch pneumonia. She was sent home not to get any better. We were back at the emergency room the next week. On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving 2009, as she turned 19 months old, she was diagnosed with AML leukemia. Our hearts were crushed. What was going to happen to our little angel? Not knowing much about leukemia, we were terrified. All I could remember about leukemia was it was a disease that usually led to death. How could God do this to our little angel?
The treatments started. Kylie was in the hospital for 6 months going through chemo. She was able to come home a week every three weeks or so. It was a long journey in the hospital. Trying to keep a small child with a lot of energy confined to a hospital room all day. She had to wear a mask if she left the room. That in itself was a job. She didn’t understand why she had to wear the mask.
I, being a young mother, knew I had to be strong. I learned all about blood counts and knew what numbers I needed to be listening for when labs returned. I could always look around and see someone not having the results we were getting. Luckily the hospital kept activities going to keep your mind off of what was really happening.
We had visits from clown doctors. Nellie, the rapper, came by for a visit with Christmas presents. Football players, baseball players and hockey players visited. It was an eye opener to see the community support for my daughter and my family. Kylie is now in remission.  She has more energy than we can keep up with. We do have a team in the Light the Night Walk for leukemia. We thank God for our little angel.  We also thank Children’s Healthcare and all other organizations for helping us make it through the experience of leukemia.
In life we have role models and people we look up to. For our family, it is a little 3 year old girl name Kylie Kenimer Hill. She is our fighter and hero.”

This little girl is SO adorable. She has the most amazing eyes and the longest eyelashes I’ve ever seen. I thought her mother might have been putting mascara on her or something, but it turns out that Kylie was born with really dark straight hair but it all fell out during the chemotherapy and came back in honey colored and curled at the ends! Her eyelashes fell out also, but came back dark. Plus, she’s missing her two front teeth. I asked about that and apparently being born so premature meant that Kylie couldn’t develop enamel on her teeth. When the chemotherapy was going on, brushing would introduce bacteria that Kylie’s body couldn’t fight off. Her poor baby teeth just gave up and fell out, but her permanent teeth will grown in just fine in a few years. It just means she looks even more adorable now! We were in two different outfits for this one because the owl fairy ears kept falling off her head and the fairy wings kept slapping her in the face, so we went with a burgundy princess second. She didn’t chatter or talk a lot for her photos, she sings. Humming to herself for over an hour. I loved it. ]]> http://www.fairyography.com/memorial-princess-2011-winner-meet-kylie/feed/ 7 http://www.fairyography.com/im-in-love/ http://www.fairyography.com/im-in-love/#comments Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:46:16 +0000 Heather Lickliter Larkin http://www.stylizedportraiture.com/blog/?p=451 NOTE: the images in this feed have been downsized or removed for copyright reasons. To see them in their unmodified state, please view the original post by clicking here.

I passed these girls with their parents in the Athens Target a month or so ago. I gathered my courage and flagged them down and rushingly explained that I’m a photographer and the girls were gorgeous and could I please photograph them? The girls listened so well and have gotten prettier since I saw them last if anything. Plus, they’re smart, and everyone knows being smart is better than being pretty. Taken at the Athens Botanical Gardens as usual.

As I was editing this session it occurred to me that it’s probably the last Fairytales session of the year. I do have a few warm dresses, but unless it snow it’ll be dead and brown outside, not vary pretty. I was quite disappointed that I probably won;t get to play dress-up again until March.

Anyway, this girl was such a sweetheart. Certainly a great way to end the season. She had a great deal of patience with me because I kept calling her and her mommy the wrong names. I fell in love with the look on her face in this first one. It was so surprising at the time because she didn’t look at me so much as THROUGH me.

This girl was so funny. She was a wonderful pretender. All on her own, she pretended to go to sleep, then proceeded to ‘wake up’ as a fairy in the ‘human world’. To get a few good laughs out of her I made a few (okay, a lot) of poot noises, so she decided that I had to be the wingless poot fairy.

These beautiful girls are twins! My first set, and they’re one of two pairs. They have two younger twin sisters as well. These two girls were tough! I’m thrilled with what I got, but I would have liked more with them together. I need more practice! I expected a little that they would like to do things together, but they were mostly doing their own things.

Met up with one of my repeat girls again. She’s gotten a lot taller and longer in the face. She looks very different from the last time we met. She still sounds the same though, and is just as sweet as the used to be. Last time she danced, this time she sang to herself.