from both of us.

Happy Mother's Day...from both of us. I love the sound of that. This was the first 'from the both of us' card I have received. It made me smile, as did the careful 'x' Xander signed on the inside and the squiggly line Kinsley drew that ended up in equal part on her leg. It also made me realize that this time last year my card was from the one of us. I was still pregnant and Kinsley did not even have a name yet. Here we are a year later and my whole life has been shaken up, dumped out and put back together into something more amazing then I could have ever imagined. More chaotic then I thought I could handle. More love than I knew I could feel. More wonderful. More crazy. More perfect. Because 2 is more than 1. Better than 1. And today, as with everyday, I am thankful to be their mom. To hear "I love you bigger than the milks away (milky way)." To get wide open mouth kisses on my cheek with the 'smack' sound on a 5 second delay. To cuddle them and love them and watch them grow. To try to remember every moment as they pass by on fast forward. Happy Mother's Day to all of you who are walking this road with me. To all of you who are looking back from the finish line and to all of you who are taking your position at the start.

my purple giraffe.

I have a purple giraffe. It is unfortunate I am the only one who can see him as he is quite amusing. Sometimes he jumps into shoots with kids (usually kids in the 6-10 range) and changes the entire atmosphere of the session. The well practiced cheese becomes honest grins and the tension dissolves when my purple giraffe sits down right next to you and starts chewing on your dress. Seriously. He's right there. You don't see him?

And then sometimes the instinctive cheese grin is a little harder to let go of. Sometimes a kid is holding onto their fake smile a little tighter. Sometimes you have to catch them off guard. Sometimes you have to fall off a porch. Seriously. I noticed earlier in the day that Ellena was laughing SO hard when I almost fell into a fountain (really almost fell in) so I put it in my memory and later when the fake cheese made its inevitable come back I pulled it out. I set up this serious look at your hands shot and then backed up and backed up and AHHH! You got it. I fell off the porch. Opps. But I love the second one even more than the first.




And that is part of why I love shooting kids. Every session is different not just because the child is different. And the setting. And the shots. But because the entire atmosphere of every kids shoot is unique. It is individual, like them. And sometimes you have to really look for the purple giraffe. But when you find it....