It’s so funny how the world works. In high school, Rowena was two years older than me (well duh, she still is. haha!), classmates/friends with someone who’d I’d grown up admiring and looking up to (Ate Tin-Tin), and I can remember having conversations with my own friends about how we wish we could be like the girls in their class. They were pretty, smart, really nice and just all around model women. Through something as random as cheerleading, my friends and I got the opportunity to spend time with these girls who we thought the world of and they were everything we imagined they were.

High school was a loooong time ago, but through mutual friends, not to mention through the magical world of Facebook, I’ve been able to keep in touch with those same girls. Heck, some of us even attended the same college.  So when Rowena contacted me and asked if I could shoot her daughter’s baptism, no way could I say no.

Rowena and her husband, Norman (who I had the pleasure of attending UCI with), have two lovely daughters, Mika and Leah. Mika is as charismatic and sweet as little girls come and Leah is, byfar, one of the happiest babies I’ve EVER met.

I could have shot a million photos of Leah on her baptism day. Filled with just sheer joy, the grace of God was truly in her before she took that dip in the baptismal fount. It literally made me happy to be alive each time she smiled. Completely and utterly infectious, my camera was putty in her tiny little hand.

Thanks so much for allowing me to be part of such a special day! Congratulations, Leah! Welcome (officially) to God’s family!