Category: Me and Mine

My family. Loving, kind, thoughtful, helpful. I’m thankful to have married into this family and thankful to have these images to remember this time by. It goes by so quickly…

Just the two of us. Date night. It was wonderful, magical, a momentary retreat from daily life. Time to reconnect, and enjoy each other, to remember who we are when we aren’t pushing strollers and carrying babies. Hey, we can hold hands! I forget sometimes, what that feels like. Because even when your heart and your hands are full and busy with the babies, it’s just so good to remember the way it was before they were part of our lives. When it was just the two of us.

If anything describes my life in August and September, it would be birthdays. Endless birthdays, parties, cake and presents. There are 14 birthdays on one side of my immediate family alone. Yes, we have a very large family! It’s fun, it’s chaotic, it’s sometimes stressful, but in the moment, it’s always beautiful. The appreciation Eden always shows to everyone, for everything, it melts my heart. She’s such a sweet girl, Mumma’s girl.

Wow. August has been crazy. Is August crazy for everyone? Because it’s crazy for me every single year. Just on one side of my family, there are 14 birthdays I believe. I keep counting and recounting and I’m pretty sure- 14 birthdays in 6 weeks time. Three of those birthdays are Greg’s (25th), Eden’s (28th) and Kingston’s (Sept 3), plus we’re getting ready for school. Add to that house shopping, projects in our own home and everything else associated with life + 4 kids, and I’ve lost track of time. I’m frazzled. You might even feel frazzled just reading that. But in one short weeks time I am hoping to find some quiet time to recoup and get back into my peaceful zone again. In the meantime, I forgot to take an image for my monthly personal project, Me & Mine. However, I really dislike missing a month and so I’m posting just… me. Personal images I took with self timer on a quiet morning at home. Running back and forth, adjusting, waiting, checking and repeating. One day I will get some actual head shots done but I needed this image for an online professional profile, so this is what I came up with. Just me.

You will forever be my always.

11:33 pm. Exhausted and SOOO ready for bed, but my lovely friends reminded me that tomorrow is our day to post this month’s Me & Mine, and I won’t forget… my goal is to post one every single month, whether it’s a thought out moment captured with my camera or a crappy iPhone pic. This is how I hold myself accountable to being IN the pictures with my family. This week we are on ‘stay’cation. Just got home from an amazing time with my little family and I’m so proud of all of them. They are growing up so quickly and I treasure this time with them. These images were taken at the Niagara Aquarium and Martin’s Fantasy Island in Niagara Falls, NY. Both are awesome places for family trips with young kids and using my phone for pictures means I am able to be in the moment with them, rather than worrying about my camera!

You don’t just smile- your face lights up. Toothy grins, dimpled cheeks and sparkly eyes. It’s irresistible. You rock my world little man. I love you!

Wednesday mornings is storytime at the library. A whirlwind of reading, singing, crafts, shushing, chatting, chasing and shushing some more. I leave and wonder why on earth I do this to myself, and by the following Wednesday I’ve forgotten so well that I go back again. Because all I can really remember is the smiles on their faces, their sweet giggles, their hugs when we get home and the chorus of ‘You’re the best mumma EVER”.

I’m so thankful I threw my camera in my bag this week and I’m more thankful for my dear friend Steff for taking these. XO

I almost didn’t have anything for this month. It was 8 pm, and suddenly I remembered…Disney on Ice. There’s gotta be at least one (?!) of me in there! March is kinda a dull month for us… no Christmas, no snowmen, no fun outings…just dull. We didn’t do too much as a family BUT we always do Disney on Ice, thanks to my generous mother in law. And I always look forward to it for the girls sake…but I’m the one singing and dancing once we get there. Funny how our childhood memories come right back to us. I’m SO glad I handed the camera over to get at least one shot of me with Zion. She looked too adorable in her Cinderella dress (wish I remembered to take her hat off). This is always such a wonderful time for us girls, and I’m so thankful we have it together!