Robert Frost Farm, New Hampshire

Braedon read the poems aloud as the floor boards creaked under our feet. His voice adding a whole new level of love to the words already held so close to my heart. Lily brought her camera and so thoughtfully captured moments and items that called to her. The butterflies on the quilt, the typewriter keys, the shadows beside the curtains.

Halfway through our time there, I realized I kept holding my breath.

I think part of me wanted to somehow keep Robert Frost's ghost in my lungs as long as possible.

Hot Mess

Sometimes I hear people say, "I just really want the perfect family picture!" And I totally get it (no, really, I do) but I have to share these two images and just say: I had this brilliant idea that us jumping on the water trampoline together would make the best pictures EVER. And then I looked at them, and they were ALL a hot mess. At one point someone might have even gotten punched in the side of the head by accident.

(Can't believe I am even sharing them on here!)

But as imperfect and awful as they are,  they make us all laugh so hard every single time we look at them (bahaha Poor Lily! Look at Braedon! Why is Mom doing karate in her own world?!); and they really ARE the perfect family picture because we are kind of a ridiculous bunch together.

I guess what I'm saying is, these pictures are nothing like I had imagined, but they are exactly what I needed and sometimes it's not about a perfectly pretty planned picture.

I can't wait for B and Lily to share these with their kids and belly laugh at them together, too...

Family Camping Session

“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity...” ― John Muir

Yesterday, the Neff family invited me to their home for a camping session. And I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.

What if your photographer arrived in jeans folded up to her knees and immediately challenged your kids to a barefoot race up a hill to go catch polywogs? What if her only goal was to capture your little one's spirits being as wild and free as possible, under a canopy of trees and wide open sky. Grass stains and muddy cheeks a requirement. What if, after all of that playing, she set up a tent and built a campfire and brought bags spilling over with marshmallows and chocolate bars and graham crackers. I'm so ready.

Yup, family camping sessions have stolen my heart.

Thank you, Michelle and Hans, times a million.

His Arms

I stepped out of the Airstream tonight after a mentoring session and found Lily fast asleep in her Daddy's arms, warm and glowing by the light of the campfire. 

When I bent down to kiss her, her hair still smelled like the lake.

That Time There Was A Rainbow Around the Sun

The changes we dread most may contain our salvation.― Barbara Kingsolver

Today, as I was making the beds in the camper, I got a text saying that there was a giant rainbow around the sun.

I dropped the pillows and dashed outside, looked up, and then lost my breath.

I am aware that this image looks like nothing special. It kind of looks like a camera flare. But it's not.

It's a full-circle rainbow halo in the sky around the sun.

I laid on my back in the grass until it faded completely out of sight.