This blog has been well over a year and a half in the making. I’m not exactly sure why it has taken me so long to “launch” this new service, but I think it has to do with how important it feels to both Dan and I. Ironically, I have so much vested in this, that I wanted this blog post to be PERFECT. I want to express to you, the reader, just how IMPORTANT we feel that this could be to you and to your family… and, I want to write it up perfectly. But… the whole point of it (as you will see) is that nothing is perfect, and as humans we are all really, really imperfect. So. Here we go, a very flawed blog about something beautifully imperfect: our lives.

Life can be hard. Parenthood can be really hard. Typically, my days are spent cleaning up poop, tears, macaroni and cheese, and dealing with bouts of frustration (theirs and mine), chaos, and sometimes sheer exhaustion, but there is also laughter, fun, and so much unconditional love (well, the 9 year old’s love can be conditional, but he’s always quick to rebound).  Life with children is far from glamorous, but it is so utterly beautiful. The thing is… when we are in the thick of it, can’t it be SO hard to see that beauty?  On really bad days I go to bed wondering how I am going to recover and do it all again the next day?  But, if I take a look at the big picture and honestly assess what my life looks like, instead of  what I think it should be, I recognize it is good and worthy.

Now I am sure you are asking yourself, “What the heck does all this have to do with photography?”. Well, 20 months ago when I first started to think about these things, Maisie had just turned a year old. It was summer and I knew our life was in flux… summer would end, our routines would change and my children would keep growing up. I wanted desperately to preserve those moments before they were gone. I told Dan I wanted to document a day of our life in its ordinary, everyday form.  We spent the day photographing the entire day, from start to finish. And something amazing happened… I saw things through different eyes and with a new appreciation for these little things.  And then we realized that as important as we believe posed portraits are (I have them all over our house!), our precious memories are not in them. We want to document those precious, everyday moments for our own family….and for yours too.

So, let me ask you – What do you want to remember? What do you want your children to remember? What do you want future generations to know? How will you honor those memories and pass them along? When you think about the most cherished photos you have from your own upbringing, are they the posed portraits… or the random snapshot of an everyday moment from your life and the people who filled it?

In Part Two of this blog series, I will share some of the images from that “Day in the Life” from nearly 2 years ago… the tears, the snuggles, the loud moments and the quiet ones.

And in Part Three, I will explain how we would like to help you to preserve those extraordinary everyday moments of life as well!