Yearly Archives: 2015

Happy Tuesday Friends, even though it feels like a Monday right!

I hope everyone had a very wonderful, and very long weekend!  I hope you got some rest, caught up on some family time or time with those you loved and re-feuled your heart for the weeks ahead!

That’s exactly what we did over here!  That’s also why it’s Tuesday NIGHT that I’m posting instead of Tuesday MORNING!

Some times you just have to live and enjoy life.. and so that’s what this post is all about!  Yes… it’s a weekend re-cap, because let me be completely honest here:  this blog post is the one blog post during the week where I feel like I get to just CHAT with ya’ll!  It’s like a legit conversation that each of us could be having one on one with each other at a starbucks in the morning, or at a deli for lunch (for me I would love to go out to sushi with you!) or tonight rather because it is the evening.. maybe over a coke (because we know I love it) and some hummus and tzatiki!   I do have some fresh that my neighbor growing up dropped off to my momma and me last night!

It’s a chance that I get to really connect with you on a super basic level.. Hi, I’m Brooke and here is my life and this is what we did this weekend!  I’m not necessarily a photographer in these posts!  I’m just me:  a mom, a wife, a lover of Christ!  Ha that rhymed!  I’m the same clutzy awkward girl I’ve always been who is a slight homebody and enjoys soaking up the days with my family doing anything and everything we can do as long as it’s together!

I’m also the girl that loves a good LONG story and a good, long winded chat!

So while I love these posts for that reason alone and I want to do that with you tonight;  I also really gained a lot from this weekend and I want to share that with you too!

so.. let’s just Do This Thing (said in the voice of Linguine from Ratatouille)

What DID we do this weekend… a whole lot of swimming in our pool!  Yep.. we swam, we ate outside, we swam some more!  We loaded ourselves with sunscreen so we looked like little zombies and we just played!

We also..

  • Took Linc to see the Grave Digger before a super fun birthday party on Saturday!  Little bit of mom facts for ya on this one!  Don’t ever SAY you are going to the grave digger and digger’s dungeon if you don’t plan to stay longer than 10 minutes!  We were running late (of course)  and our party started at 1.  I actually wanted to get there kind of on time and the Digger was farther than I originally thought.  I made my boys promise (duh mom mistake number one) to only spend like 15 minutes at the Digger.  EPIC FAIL MOMMY!  MELT DOWN CITY!  I seriously think someone might have called social services on us because it may have looked like we stole Linc and he was not our child!  He was sooo upset that it was like a straight jacket melt down moment in the car on the 15 minute drive back to the party!  I had to sit in the back to make sure he wasn’t houdining out of his car seat!  We couldn’t even understand him… something about listening and the digger and tires!  WOAH!
  • Linc’s friend Brody’s birthday party.. EPIC AWESOMENESS!  Mommy moment here too:  bounce houses cure all tantrums!  As soon as we pulled up to the neighborhood you could see the bounce house and all of a sudden the tears and grumpiness lifted as Linc went.. meeeehhhhh BOUNCE HOUSE?!  Emphasis happy inflection in his voice on the last two words!  It was a choose your own super hero identity party and it was awesome!  Linc’s been running around the house since then in his spidey cape and mask saving the world, and Tipper (who sometimes I guess might even be the villian!)
  • I actually got to read some of my book!  That is a mommy win!  I”m reading “If you find this letter” and it’s AMAZING!  I have a passion for writing and if you are like me, you need to RUN to your bookstore, or kindle and get this book immediately!  I am inspired to start writing hand written notes again and spread love and encouraging words to everyone I met!  You will be too…

Here’s where my learning moments came in this weekend…

There are so many opportunities that we are given to just appreciate all we have through the wonderful and the challenging!  As women especially there are so many opportunities we have to lift one another up and encourage and support one another with just one simple kind word!

Sometimes that is all it takes for ANY of us:  to know that we matter, that we exist and are seen (as Hannah puts it in this book of hers).

We all want to feel connected, that’s just human nature!

What happened to going out of our way and thinking of others before our selves?!  That type of mind set and culture is a way of an older day and we need (and I say need boldly for a purpose) to bring that back friends!

This world we live in today is a crazy one!  It is filled with so much chatter and so many places where we can’t always escape that chatter!

Let’s get together and start making sure that when we are speaking to those we love, those around us and sometimes those we even just pass by… that we can be that chatter or that voice for just a second of the day to speak something positive, bright or happy!

Do a good deed for someone just because you can!  Speak a kind word to someone because you can and it feels good!

Do it because YES we ARE all connected…

There is something greater than us friends!

I want to be that helping hand always out in offer!  I realized there is a part of me in this photography world that goes back and forth with some things and it is because I have this deep love for people!  That is to be celebrated… and I want to bring that to MORE people!

I want to leave love letters like Hannah did… but maybe I will do in the way of a photograph!~

So you know what.. here it goes.. if you have made it this far in this post!  If you have stuck with me this long!  THIS is my promise to you… just like in her book “If you find this letter”

I promise that if you need a love letter… if you need encouragement… I will write you a letter!  Not only that.. I will tangibly give you something to hold on to like I held during the days of deployment!

I will send you an image.. a bright image within a love letter!

Something to remind you that we are all here together!  That we are all connected that we all need the same things!  We all need love and support and encouragement!  We all need light and laughter!  More importantly, we all just need to know that there are others like us out here in this world!

Will you join me?  Do you need a letter?

Send an e mail Brooketuckerphoto@gmail.com

 

  • May 28, 2015 - 10:51 am

    April Williams - So great. So true. I get and give handwritten notes frequently and looove it. I am glad I happen to have friends where that is not a total lost form of communication 🙂ReplyCancel

Hey Hey Hey (said in the voice of Mr. Albert… I hate calling him fat albert, it seems really mean!)

Over on instagram, there’s a little thing called “Friday introductions”!  It’s for all the new friends and new faces that have popped on over so they get to know who you are a bit!

Instead of instagramming this Friday intro, I thought I would blog it instead and share a little bit with all the new faces who have joined the blog too!

I am soo incredibly thankful for all the new friends and all the love shared here!  Sometimes I am even overwhelmed and blow away by it… you guys are amazing:  you rock, you fill me up and you inspire me ALL THE DANG TIME!  BOOM!  But seriously, without your hearts and your fearlessness when it comes to sharing your stories, your hearts and your true/raw moments with me, I wouldn’t be able to do what I love so much!  So thank you!

Sooo for all my new friends and all the new faces (and my friends that I have loved and loved me for a long time now) here are some things you might not know about me!!!

I’m Brooke… and I am a children and family lifestyle photographer!  I am a momma and wife and lover of the Lord FIRST and photographer second!  There were days and are still days that the only thing that keeps me running are the love and support and encouragement from my husband, family and photography wife Elizabeth Friske!  AND a coke that’s been made into a slurpee in the freezer… and dorittos and SUSHI!!  Possible all that masked together into a delicious and unhealthy meal!

As is says in my website blurb:  We live for the sunny days and salty ocean air!  I live at the beach and I am so thankful for those ocean waves (even though Linc panics still when he gets near them!)  He’s a surfer boy at heart but big waves not so much!

The mud is his life force and we are constantly digging, squishing and mud bathing/baking in the sun!

Photography is how I learned to appreciate everything I had and live for the REAL life:  the messy life, the chaotic life and OUR life!  Photography gave me the gift of letting go of perfection and learning that REAL is the best life.  That raw moments are the real moments and scars, tears, struggle and vulnerability are the beauty marks of our souls!

God graces us with amazing moments… photography allows me to hold on to those moments so I can remember to be thankful and appreciate every second I have!

Here are some random facts that you don’t know about me:  even if you have known me for years:

  • I love the water but I hate drinking it!  I carry a water bottle because I’m constantly dehydrated but drinking water makes me feel like I’m drowning!  I can barely do it and I have to force myself!  Yet a coke, I can down!!!
  • I’m super awkward and really accident prone BUT I was a dancer for most of my life and whenever there is music played I can pull out some pretty difficult balance moves.  I still have my pointe shoes from my ballet days and when Linc is at school, I put on crazy music (like audio machine or instrumental music from dark knight and create these elaborate ballet routines in my foyer!)  Once a dancer always a dancer!
  • I actually HATE vegetables unless they are roasted and squishy and sucked of all nutrients!  I am trying to eat them but unless they are over cooked or orange (carrots, sweet potatoes, butter nut squash) I have to really force them down!
  • I don’t feel like I truly knew myself until I became Linc’s mother and now I’m more comfortable with myself:  looks, personality and truly totally acceptance now that I’ve really accepted my role as a mother!
  • I love people and I am rather out going but I am actually a total homebody and I need time to myself BY myself almost every day!
  • I feel things to the extreme measure:  I love deeply, I cry at the drop of a hat, my feelings get hurt easily and I’m super sensitive!  I wear my heart on my sleeve and I always want to do whatever I can for those around me!  At the same time that means sometimes I am quick to anger but quick to forgive too!

What are some things no one quite knows about you?!!!!

Happy Friday everyone!  What are your plans for the holiday weekend?!!!!

 

Last year at exactly this time, Linc and I went Strawberry picking and it was the highlight of my year!

Strawberry picking is always the highlight of my year and has been since I was little!

One of the best things for me when I was growing up was when my mom would wake me up in the mornings and whisper to me that today was a strawberry picking day!  We would always skip school… the best part!  We would wake up and have ourselves a buttered biscuit from hardees usually on the way and of course a coca-cola!  We would gather our boxes and baskets and have them weighed and spent hours picking to our hearts desire!

The running joke was always that when I was little (Linc’s age) I would take a bite out of every berry in my bucket!  My bucket was pink and it was plastic but had the weaving just as if it were a woven basket.  I remember it just like I held it yesterday.  I always laughed at that story because I couldn’t really imagine taking a bite out of every single berry.

Now… I completely understand!

This was one of the traditions I swore I would pass down to my own children.  This special surprise treat of waking them up and making a special just one on one time day of it!  Spending the day and the morning outside picking delicious strawberries and laughing in the fields.  My mom and I would usually stop and get slurpees on the way home or if it was lunch time we always had a special lunch too!  It was always a great day spent with my mom and it has continued year after year!

Yesterday, I was so blessed to continue that tradition again with not only my mom but Linc too!  Tuck had a business trip so my mom and I planned it especially so that we could wake him up in the morning and make a mommy and Gigi day!

So for me this was extra special:  not only did I get to spend the day strawberry picking like so many times before with my mom again;  but also I got to spend it with my mom AND my little man!

It’s the little moments and days like this that I absolutely live for!  Those small moments and traditions that are passed down and remembered.

My mom was amazing at creating little legacies and traditions like this:  ones that never really cost a ton but meant the world because they were so simple but so full of heart and meaning!

This is why I wanted to share this post on my mother’s day week!

Sometimes we forget that to us mom’s it’s these types of small moments, memories and traditions that often have the biggest impact!  To us moms, these are the types of breaths we live for and for our kids these are the memories that stick like glue to our hearts!

Traditions like strawberry picking and being able to skip school and go to hardees.  Traditions like taking a walk on the beach to search out seashells and other ocean treasures the sea has left for us to find.

Traditions like romantic dinners on the floor with sprite in fancy glasses and cheese and crackers!  We did that too when I was growing up and my dad was at the fire station!

All these are so simple and yet soo impactful and life lasting!

Take a moment to think back to some of those things that really left a lasting impression on you… what were they?!

Happy Mother’s day to all and remember, sometimes it’s just having the time to hold a hand and set aside time to do something once a month that is as simple as building a fort or taking a walk!

Or strawberry picking every May and eating your belly full along with a nice buttery biscuit!

And of course… real is better than perfect!  Sometimes he just ins’t all that into photos!  I mean, the camera is ALWAYS in his face!!! But I love them and I love real life, so I love them… mr. prickle pants and all!  I’m also a big fan of no make up when I can get away with it!  (I’m a super eye rubber… so gosh by the hour after I have applied mascara, I look like the guys from KISS)

We also found some friends at the strawberry fields!!  And these two crazy littles FINALLY met!   And… well, let’s just say we have future play dates planned!