I thought about pretending that January didn't exist, but after yesterday -- all the things feel a little more hopeful. My feeds are full of fireworks and beautiful dresses and poetry. It's a far cry from the riots, attempted coup, and gaslighting we've been watching for the last few weeks. I've lost about 500 followers on Instagram in the last six months and my direct messages are hot. People seem confused that I would vote for a democratic candidate and still claim my faith is intact, but that might have to be a topic for another day. Instead, let's talk about how great it is to wake up irritated with the government for less innocuous reasons than border walls and blantant racism, shall we? beginning | Josh bought me a new photo album and pages with 4x4 photo pockets for Christmas ...
A Merry Family Christmas
Last year's Christmas card was full of snapshots from one of the best year's ever. It was only when I started to think about this year's card, that I realized we haven't taken family photos since right after Polly was born. We didn't make it to the beach this year and we have only done the bare minimum otherwise. I told my sister I wanted a casual family photo session at home and I couldn't be happier with how these turned out. We had an early morning session -- right before we met Santa on the farm -- and the day dawned grey and dreary. We had been worried about finding a spot away from harsh shadows and that turned out to be the least of our worries. When I look at these pictures, I can't help but have the fullest hard. At the end of a year that has felt so hard at times and, ...
Santa on the Farm
I've had some amount of anxiety about how to start posting here again. Do I attempt an explanation about my absence -- ahem, global pandemic -- or do I just start posting like I've been doing it all along? It's 4:30 in the morning and I've been awake for hours, so I figured I might as well spend my time wisely. Because of COVID, our usual Santa spot was something else entirely. While I wasn't keen on having the kids sit on a stranger's lap, among throngs of other grubby kids, I also didn't want a plexiglass barrier or a weird replacement activity this year. At the very last minute, I decided to book a session with a local photographer (who also happens to be my cousin!) shooting at a nearby Christmas tree farm. It still wasn't the best idea, but it was outside, with limited guests, and ...
Currently | December 2020
After months of being held hostage by a rogue WordPress plugin, I can finally add images and create new posts! I hate how off-track things have been this year -- I have months of photographs to organize and share -- and I'm so behind on documenting my favorite moments. This year has been such a huge shift in all areas for me and I think blogging might just be one of those. I'm hoping to play catch up over the next few weeks, but I'm probably going to disable ads and affiliate links and get back to sharing my family's memories. I miss the days of low stress blogging and I think removing the pressure to "make something out of this," will really help me regain focus. baking | We're gearing up for another solo holiday at home, so Sophie has been brainstorming dessert ideas for the big ...
A Gran Camp Christmas
When is the last time you attempted to get five toddlers to stand still and look at the camera at the same time? My mom keeps a group of the cutest kids ever and she loves buying them matching pajamas to wear during the Christmas holidays. She invited me over to snap a photograph to gift to their parents and this was seriously the best we got. I think I took 150+ photos and there were very few where the girls were all looking in the same direction! Polly's face right her perfectly articulates how I was feeling. Now that I'm working from home, Polly stays at home with me a day or two a week, but it has been so helpful to have my keep her the other three to four. She looks forward to walking to Gran Camp each morning and if given the choice, always leaves me home alone. If I'm not ...
A Quarantine Halloween
I know I'm not the only one who struggled to make something wonderful out of Halloween, but because our families are nearby, COVID has make our celebrations even harder. I think if we were separated by distance, it would be easier to shift our plans, but knowing that some of our favorite people are right next door makes it even more difficult sometimes. We obviously skipped out on the church sponsored Halloween parties (there were plenty) and avoided people we didn't know, but we decided that the best option for us was to Trick or Treat at the grandparents' houses, along with our aunts and uncles. Since Halloween exists mostly outside, we felt safe enough visiting for short outdoor visits, and our girls were so excited to see a few faces that we had been missing over the last several weeks ...
It’s Finally Football Season
School in 2020 has been the weirdest thing ever. I remember thinking that we were so relieved to get cheer tryouts in before our schools dismissed back in March. It was wishful thinking, but we expected to travel for cheer camp in July and to have a very normal football season. It's so bizarre to realize how far from reality that would be. One of the things we were most looking forward to this year, was having these two girls on the same squad, cheering at the same games. Molly is my cousin -- I'm the oldest in my generation and she's the youngest -- but she's only three years older than Ella. They are four years apart in school, meaning they would never have the opportunity to cheer together and wouldn't be in high school at the same time. We were so lucky that Ella was able to try ...
Ella’s Eighth Grade Interview
If you have a relationship with a teenager, then you know exactly how difficult it was to get them to participate in this nonsense. She balked at the letter board photos and has rolled her eyes every time I've mentioned the word interview. I get it -- I was a teenager once (a million years ago) -- but I also know that she'll treasure every photo and word that we memorialized and that one day her own daughter will love seeing her mom at every age. Ask me how I know. As much as Ella has missed seeing her friends every day, she has really enjoyed being a homebody. I've tried hard to balance remote work with sleeping late and movie marathons and lots of Netflix. Josh kept reminding me that our kids have never experienced anything like this before and it's okay to let them have more ...