Our first real family vacation in years, and our first trip as a family of six! (We take up two whole rows on the airplane, as my brother-in-law marveled to my sister… hah) We got incredibly lucky with the timing - right between covid surges, but there was still a mask mandate for air travel, and the weather was absolutely perfect.
We all needed a change of scenery and some rest and fun, and we soaked it up. I just got a new camera body, so I got a chance to play with that - I still have some kinks to work out before I use it for a session, but I think it’s going to be well worth the effort.
Our final summer challenge was to take our children fishing and photograph that. We’ve tried fishing a few times as a family, and it…. doesn’t go great. It works a lot better if we can split up the big kids and the little kids (I have some amazing video on my phone of Evan absolutely melting down because he caught a fish).
But… for this challenge, I bagged the fishing altogether and took the girls to a creek for crawdad catching. Then we all played a little in a nearby field of wild carrot. I so love watching them grow into each new age. Sometimes it’s easy to focus on photographing little ones since it seems like they change so fast, but then I see these photos of the big two and realize how lightening-quick they’re growing too.
This week I’m featuring the two little kiddos at a new playscape that opened up this past summer. It’s a really lovely, kid-friendly natural playground. There’s a ton to explore, and Evan and Annelise love it, even if they spend 90% of the time at the sandbox.
All these photos of green and flowers and shorts are making me so ready for spring and summer again!
Well it’s the dead of winter with six inches of snow on the ground, so it seems like a wonderful time to revisit some of my favorite images from last summer! I participated in the Run Wild My Child summer photography challenge, in coordination with Hello Storyteller, to prompt myself to photograph my own kiddos a little more this year. I don’t think I finished up the final week, but I’m so thankful for their prompts, ideas, and inspiration!
Our first challenge involved fire, so I grabbed the big girls, some neighbors with a firepit, and s’mores ingredients. These kiddos have been such rockstars throughout the pandemic, it was delightful to photograph them just goofing around and having a blast for an evening.
It’s a bit late, but I can’t not post the photos from Annelise’s one year photo shoot. I just did a quick one in my kitchen, thanks to some furniture rearranging. It always feels like a lot of effort at the time, but I’m incredibly glad we did it so I have these of her forever. Even one month later she looks so different!
The cake is from Chef Ty at Alchemy Bakery in St. Louis.
Here, with all my emotions as my last baby isn’t a baby anymore, is our darling Annelise Mairin:
Goodness a lot has happened since my last blog post. That four month old I photographed turned one a month ago! The biggest change has of course been the global pandemic. It hit right when she turned six months, and the world turned upside down.
As a result, I lost childcare. With suddenly homeschooling a 9 year old and an 8 year old, and essentially also running a daycare toddler room and infant room, I’ve had to largely shutter the business. I hope to keep it on life support and revive it again some day, but for now, I had to make that hard decision that so many parents everywhere have had to make.
It’s been a really hard year. We are so fortunate to have one steady income, a roof, plenty of food, and family and good friends, but it’s still been hard, really hard.
We’ve started taking short cabin-in-the-woods trips to break things up. It seems to be something that appeals to the wide range of kid ages we have, and it’s relatively safe. I dusted off my camera for our last trip, and was truly stunned by the beauty of mid-Missouri. The Black River has the clearest water I’ve ever seen in my life, and the rock formations at Elephant Rocks and Johnson’s Shut Ins were spectacular. I feel naive saying this, but I just had no idea how lovely some parts of this state are. The VRBO we used had this absolutely stunning creek in the back too, which we played in every day. It was all just lovely.
Here are some of my favorite images from the weekend.
Love this little bug. She’s four months, which means she’s not napping (so I take lots of photos of her), but she’s pretty and sweet and loves her mama. We did a whole bunch of set ups for these four month shots, but the ones from this one were by far my favorite.
This year has been a year of being underwater. All is well, we are lucky and grateful and just fine but also just drowning in children. Most of my personal photography has consisted of snapshots on my phone, but I did manage to pull out my big camera for one of the last big events of the year - Christmas. It was pretty much chaos from start to finish, but I think everyone enjoyed themselves. :)
I’m not subtle about it - summer is my favorite season and the best ever. I love the warm and the green and the smell of cut grass with sunscreen and chlorine. I love backyard patios and walking in the grass barefoot. I love how easy and slow things are without school mornings, and I love having the girls home even if they’re ready for school to start by the time August rolls around.
We had a rare afternoon with just Robert and the girls, and we pulled out the water balloons I had bought back in March with the hopes of just such a day. The girls are growing up so fast my heart hurts, so it’s a delight to see them run around like the little kids they still are.
Our family made it down to Florida for a much-needed and much-appreciated vacation a couple weeks ago. We had a great time, despite some travel-related meltdowns, the baby sleeping in the closet and figuring out how to turn on the lights in the middle of the night, and the slight difficulty of keeping a toddler alive and sane in a vacation place with minimal toys. The kids’ happy place was definitely the beach, and who doesn’t love a dip in the pool afterwards? I pulled out my camera for the last day and I’m so thankful I got some of these memories!
Usually, I don’t pick up my camera on Christmas morning. The lighting is always so mixed, I only ever see the backs of my children’s heads, but most of all, I want to soak in the moments instead of crouch around my family behind a camera.
But, I’ve been organizing my old photos (walking the walk!), and the few image I have of Christmas are so precious. It’s a magical morning for the children, and I love seeing our family all cocooned in one place, focusing on just being together for a few hours.
No one lasts super long so we don’t drag it out, but we start early! I love seeing the progression in these photos of the light as the sun comes up.
First gift - a Firebolt. The girls are DEEP into Harry Potter this year.
This guy just knows a good gift when he sees one.
Negotiations, always negotiations.
More Harry Potter. Lana did ask for “real” wands, with magic. A few hours after all this, she sighed and said, “Well, maybe next year.”
Is Julia basically an adult here???
Scrappy loved the toy she got and she loved many of the things Evan got too.
And my little honey had absolutely no idea what was going on but he was game for it all.
Here he is staring at his elephant while I am staring at his eyelashes.
And now the real fun begins!
My little baby bug is ten months! This first year is just flying by - it must be a third child thing because I remember it feeling way longer with the girls!
He’s a great crawler with zero interest in walking. His first tooth JUST cut through (finally!). He loves music, and he’ll stop and sway if he hears anything resembling it. He also loves his family and playing with his big sisters. He’s so cheerful and social that he’s just a delight to have around. We love you Evan!
