Monthly Archives: June 2015

WHEW ya’ll… Happy Monady!  I have to say I’m actually glad it’s here!  This weekend was a crazy crazy busy one for us!  The kind where you think back and you wonder gosh we are all so exhausted but what actually did we all do?!

Did we do anything… did we do anything special or out of the ordinary to make us all this tired!?

We did nothing out of the ordinary and in fact we just played and swam like we usually do every weekend!  Tuck came home from traveling and his first week with his new job!  Linc was especially excited to see him on Friday since we waited all week!  Tuck comes in and out but he hasn’t been gone any consecutive days since he did that long deployment so I think Linc worried about whether it was going to be for the same amount of time again!

Luckily.. he was home to pick him up from school on Friday!

I ran around like a mad women and it was a great busy, the kind I’m so thankful for because spending time with children and family and photography truly fills my soul!  On the flip side though, the days have been filled to the brim and the nights have been even longer!

I’ve been craving a single night off… just one where we can grill out or sit out in the back yard and put our feet up!  A night even where we can bike ride to our favorite little restaurant with Linc in tow and then after he takes his bath and goes to bed, Tuck and I can prop our feet up and watch a really great movie!

BUT… there are too many things too do, the heat has been too hot to bear to eat outside (after we’ve already been outside all day long swimming) and I can’t sit still for a movie without falling asleep anyway!!

We also invited a new monster into our house… and by monster I mean it’s a real mean monster that I wish would leave!

We’ve been experiencing night terrors!  If you’ve ever experienced a night terror before with your little… PLEASE any suggestions are welcomed!

Here’s what I learned last night:

  • When I was working at the hospital, the little ones would often have Emergence Delerium when they woke from anesthesia.  It was sad and awful at the same time and often, the parents wouldn’t be able to handle it because there was just no helping their child!  At the time, I could understand how upset this made parents and I would be called in to help.  I had “magic” as some parents would call it and I would just patiently wait and whisper gently until it all wore off and the little ones realized where they were and WHO was with them!  THIS is how night terrors are in our house… except this mommy doesn’t have any magic!  When you become a parent there is NOTHING more that you want to do than help your children!  You would go to the ends of the earth and MORE for them… and that’s sometimes the whole crutch of the issue.  I was able to soothe patients in the hospital because they weren’t mine and I wasn’t soo deeply invested!  Last night, my mommy heart broke (and so did my CCLS heart) because I just had to wait until it passed.  I had no magic and I had no secrets… I just had to sit and breathe and watch this play out!  I’m ready to have that magic back now please!
  • Even when you try to stay STRONG as a parent.. NO you will not come into our bed to sleep EVER… because it’s just no good.. you will break!  Linc is a persistant kiddo and if you give him the tiniest little inch, he will RUN with that!!!  Last night… he came into our bed and he stayed! Tonight should be interesting!
  • Two boys in a kind size bed = smelly, snorey, hogging, kicking, punching and a LOT of waking up for this momma!  PLUS… I didn’t need the blankets last night and I’m always cold but with these two gents it was like having a furnace inside the bed!
  • There is nothing to do but laugh when you little one wakes up in the morning and says to you… WAIT where’s MY bed?!

 

So if you see me today… in public.. I’m looking a little rough! I also feel a little rough too but it’s all good!  I like to use the word Mombie… I’ve got my coca-cola and my plans are to spend this day indoors editing my heart away!!

Linc feels great this morning and he’s a happy little camper which is more than I could ask for!

I think I’ll suffer a little as long as he’s happy and in a good mood… just ask Tuck if he feels the same!  I think he might have taken a few head butts last night!

 

 

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  • June 15, 2015 - 10:10 pm

    Darlene - my sister in law gave my nephew a special “magic monsters ring” that worked for them. I also have heard of “Special” spray for the room! Good luck, isn’t it amazing how they wake up in the morning like nothing has happened?ReplyCancel

There isn’t anything more beautiful than the sun rising over the ocean on a warm breezy and peaceful morning… except when you can enjoy it with THIS family!!!

To say I am honored to know them is an understatement!  To say that I adore my time with them is just silly because it goes far beyond and greater than that!

I’ve known Berkley for as long as I can remember.  Her older brother and I have been in the same classes since elementary school and so we all grew up together!  We’ve pretty  much been IN each other’s business for soo long now that it’s fun and funny at the same time!  We were able to reconnect through this wonderful world of photography and images and family portraits and I can’t honestly thank my lucky start enough!

Berkley’s family is undeniably the definition of awesome!  Her WHOLE family!  The family she was born into, the family she has created for herself and the family she has cultivated in her friendships!

When I think about the Lifetime Experience and when I speak from my heart about wanting to BE this lifetime photographer… Berkley always comes to my mind!  She probably always will for so many reasons:  to many to list and too many to explain!

All these though are why when we sit down and come together for a family session, I find myself just lost in it!

Our yearly portrait session this year happened to be a matter of we need to do this now so when can it happen fast so Alex could travel and go and be amazing!  So she could spread her wings a bit and learn and intern and show the world who she is and make her mark!  This girl folks, not only is she stunningly beautiful but she is SMART (all caps kind of smart) and she is going to change the world with that and she’s already doing it as I type right now!  I have no doubt about it.  So this session you see here turned into a beautifully early sunrise session!

A session where it may have chosen them initially, but it was completely meant to be!

It was a beautiful and even though early it was still a lazy kind of morning once everyone arrived and we claimed our little piece of sunrise beach!  There were some interesting people we met along our way but that just added to our fun and playfulness of the morning!

In true nature of how this family rolls all the time, we just played and laughed and relaxed!  It was a morning filled with fun!  A morning filled with lots of laughter and sandy frosting kisses!

A morning that is so perfect for where this family is in this season…

Here are a few of my favorites from our morning on the beach together!

Ohhh girlfriend… these curls kill me!!!

Girlfriend right after my own heart….

And my most favorite…

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Monday is HERE…. and I kind of feel like it should already be Wednesday!  My days are all mixed up and sorted around!  I feel like I’m in a Bond movie except I’m inside the drink that’s been shaken, not stirred!

Anyone who was with me yesterday, will laugh and understand that joke!  Everyone else it’s ok if you don’t laugh or even understand why that’s even a joke!

FIRST:  I just want to say a GIANT thank you for all your support, encouragement, shares and comments on The Motherhood Journals!!  I am truly overwhelmed and in awe by the stories you have shared with me and all the love and how many of you want to share and be a part of this!  These Journals were created FOR YOU and it is because of you that we will truly be able to create a community for each other and really be able to lift one another up!!!  THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

This weekend was CRAZZZZ-YYYY!  In the best ways possible!  Today I’m exhausted and I can barely  move!  I feel like my bones and my muscles are about 120 years old and I’m walking like it which makes for some interesting conversations with my neighbors!

This weekend was chock full of events and I barely saw my family but it’s weekend’s like these that make me appreciate them all the more!  The boys had an entire weekend to themselves and they played hard!  Linc was spoiled with outdoor time, ice cream dates with daddy, and grocery shopping that included no structure and lots of random junk food in the carts!  They had squirt gun fights and tub times filled with too much water and over the top splashing!  I love it when they can have time like this just to themselves because Linc and I always have so much time one on one and it’s so dear to my heart!  I want Tuck to have those same precious moments, moments that are just his that he shares with his son… no girls allowed kind of moments that both of them can remember years from now when time has seemed to pass by all too quickly!

So while the boys were at play, I was spending my time with an incredible family welcoming in a beautiful new bright spirit and little girl!

I will never ever get over how amazing, wonderful, beautiful, blessed, honored, thankful and a million other words I could say but will never do justice to every emotion in my heart about how truly and seriously grateful I am to be allowed to wake up each morning and participate in these moments with these families of mine!

Ashley and Joe have trusted me and have allowed me the pleasure and honor of being a part of this entire journey with them from the second they found out they were pregnant all the way through the anticipation of being induced and the arrival of their sweet little girl and Wavelry’s baby sister!

This friends is exactly what it means when I say I WANT to be your lifetime photographer!  How amazing is it that I get to be there for the first few moments when you find out your pregnant, when you decide to share it with your family and friends, as your experiencing pregnancy and getting to know your little one as you wait for them, and then when you meet them for the first time!!!

Let me just say ya’ll… I cried!  I cried so many times from Thursday until her birth on Saturday morning!  That’s all I’m going to say because I don’t want to spoil the actual blog post that I will be honored to write soon!

But ya’ll truly, I just don’t have words!

So… I came home Saturday evening a changed momma!  I just did!  Then I crashed hard on Saturday night early and woke up early again Sunday to attend an advanced training for Body Flow instructors.  What was I thinking?  10 hours of AIM Body Flow after not much sleep and an already exhausted body… I’m hard core ya’ll!  Once again though, it rocked my world and I came home Sunday evening a changed person!

So lessons learned friends…

  • Every time I shoot a birth, I come home wanting more babies!  When I’m behind my camera in that room, what I see is all the love that brought you to the laboring!  I see the hands gripping each other soo tight!  I see the unconditional love and determination from the mom’s willing to do ANYTHING for their children before even having laid eyes on them.
  • I see women who are selfless and giving saying already before having laid eyes on their baby, touched their baby, kissed their son or daughter, loving them before themselves and over themselves!
  • I realized this weekend that I am so much more than a situational crier!  haha I am a think about it, feel it, look at me and I cry.  I guess that’s called a drop of the hat crier!  If I had a super power or possessed any kind of magic I think I would be an empath!  (yes please forgive me I like magic and I’m a total nerd!)
  • Going to that Body Flow training changed me as a person and I was only there for 10 hours… what is going to happen if I go to a full weekend event?!
  • The power of listening, like actual listening, in today’s world has a profound effect!  We need as a culture to learn to quiet ourselves a little more and be present and listen.  That means being fully present when someone is talking!  We do this by focusing on THEM… not planning what we are going to say next to them, not thinking about how THEY are perceiving US, not thinking about ANYTHING else except what they are saying!  It’s actually extremely hard to do sometimes but we need to practice it more often to help further the human connection!  Try it out today!
  • REAL eye contact is rare but it’s amazing when you receive it along with meaningful listening!
  • Finding balance in our lives is all about finding a good pace and then allowing ourselves to move in and out of that pace!  I notice I’m out of balance when my car is a wreck… so this morning instead of rushing in and getting to work and crossing things off my to do list;  I cleaned my car!  I feel much better about everything around me!  Now I can tackle my to do list… and yes I’m a bit odd and awkward!  But at least I have a clean car and de-cluttered mind!

Lot’s of really fun things coming up this week:  A super fun sun rise session filled with bubbles and donuts and sandy toes!

There’s also a little bit of this coming your way too…

Happy Monday!

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