Personal

My boys.  I never imagined I could feel so much pride, love and joy. I feel this way about all of my kids, but I’m especially proud of John in this picture. He is the most amazing big brother.  When we welcomed Jake to the family and John found his place as a big brother.  He loves his little sister Jorja, but they are only two years apart and sometimes they have their differences. With Jake, he’s protective, affectionate and completely over the moon for him. This morning John is reading to Jake. Well, pretending to read to Jake. They are looking at the toys in the back of Dad’s Northern Tool & Equipment catalog which is John’s favorite book right now. I’m sure this will not be the last time I see them staring at the pages of a tool catalog together.

I’ve been searching for new and easy ways to document our families life. Believe it or not, by the time I finish professionally shooting sessions and weddings, I don’t always have the energy to photograph my kids in the same “professional” way.  This mamma gets tired! My big Canon 5D isn’t the easiest thing to carry around for day to day snap shots either. So I’ve been experimenting with my phone and Instagram for Android. At first, I was super frustrated and hated my phone’s camera. I had to come to terms with the fact that it is: #1 a phone, #2 a smart phone, #3 not a Canon SLR or even a point and shoot. It’s a camera in a phone.  As I’ve been playing with it though, I’ve begun to love my instagram photos. In all their fuzzy, pixelated, filtered glory. I’m loving them. They allow me to catch a picture of my family on the fly. No special flash, reflector, or adjusting the right settings (unless I have something specific in mind) is necessary. I can simply click, upload and return to enjoying the moment.

What are some ways you document your families life?

I can not believe how fast the last three months have gone or how much Jake has grown!

This frame was taken on our family farm. A lot of my sessions are held around the farm. We have beautiful pastures, a few trees, a old buildings and vehicles, creek beds and other interesting backdrops all in one pretty location. That’s a subject for another day though. I wanted to share this picture one more time, because of the tornadoes we had a couple weeks ago in Rush County. Sadly this gorgeous, 100-plus year old tree was torn up.

You can’t quite see how big the root ball of this tree is (picture taken on my Android phone). I’m guessing the root ball of soil is more than 15 feet across. It is huge.

Now, I know we are so very lucky and blessed that the tornado hit in relatively open country. My husband was busy fixing fence the next night, but all-in-all, not too bad. Our neighbors were not so fortunate, and my heart goes out to all of those who lost their homes, or loved ones because of tornado damage.

This week, Jacob arrived. He is healthy, beautiful and we are oh so blessed to have him. I am doing good too, just adjusting to having three amazing kids instead of two.  I’m sure you probably want to hear the details.  Jake was born 9 lbs 10 oz. (more than 2 1/2 lbs bigger than my other two babies) and 23 inches long! He also has a full head of very blonde (almost white) hair and the sweetest little smile.