52 Weeks of 2013 - Week 39

He loves his daddy so much. It was particularly sweet yesterday as he chose to wear a cap, just so he could look him him. Of course you know I had to capture that!

And one more, just because he's my sweet boy and growing up way too quickly.

Hoffman Family Sneak Peek {Marin County, CA Family Beloved Photographer}

I have taken birth photographs and newborn photographs for this family but it was finally time for a family portrait session. I could not be happier with how they turned out. The lighting and location were wonderful and we were able to take the time to truly capture this family and their relationships with each other. It's a long post because it was so hard to narrow down the choices.

I am a firm believer in marriage and the need to keep that relationship strong in the midst of busy lives and children needing attention and care. It is how family starts and it needs to be cherished and nurtured and valued. The love that started it all needs to be remembered, even on the tough days. Whether it's five minutes or twenty, I love to be able to provide a space to capture that love. Thank you John and Alice for not thinking it was weird to play my games and answer my questions to get these genuine emotions. You have something special, don't forget it!

52 Weeks of 2013 - Week 38

Sometimes life just gets very busy. No matter how busy it gets though, the children will always need feeding. Last week was just such a week for me and before I knew it I had come to the end of my week and not taken a personal photo for my 52 week project...and I needed to make dinner!

So here is week 38 in all it's glory, because my family always comes first and everybody needs to eat.

52 Weeks of 2013 - Week 37

Sometimes the sun is not perfectly placed but a moment still has to be captured...real life folks! These two are best friends, to each, the brother they never had, with the added novelty value of not being in each others faces every day. It's a wonderful thing. They can talk for hours, I mean who needs sleep anyway?

Just sharing a towel on the beach (and I'm sure, a secret or two).

52 Weeks of 2013 - Week 36

So,  last week was my birthday. It was one of those big-number ones. I turned forty! To my eighteen year old self, that seems so old, but I know that to my sixty year old self I will look back and think I never had it so good. It's all relative. I don't feel any older and although I most certainly don't look eighteen, I think I'm holding up pretty well. (Please don't burst my bubble)!

I have been around for a while now. I wouldn't want to be that insecure seventeen year old who none of the boys at school were interested in, or the twenty year old wondering what she was going to do with her life... if she would ever find love, having already been tossed aside. At thirty years old I was coming close to having my first child, full of doubts of how I would be able to love a little person I didn't even know. The years that followed of utter exhaustion, but so much joy and so many laughs and sweet cuddles and all the firsts.

This new decade is an altogether new era. A stage of my life is now officially over. I have been completely responsible for at least one child for over nine and a half years but it has all changed. After taking all three of my kids to school two weeks ago, including my youngest, my baby, for the first time, I couldn't stop the tears once I allowed them to start. They were big fat tears rolling down my face, like my little girl's just a short while earlier. I kept swiping them away, willing them to stop, but they kept coming.

I can't quite figure out what I should do next, because my husband graduates from seminary in December and until I know where we are going to end up, it seems kind of pointless. I feel like so much has to be on hold.

So I'll keep taking photos, because that always helps and makes me happy. I'll keep trying to be the best Mom I can be and maybe try to keep the house a little tidier...maybe. I'm trying to look more for the positive and enjoy the little things, because they do matter. Trying to live more in the moment, trying not to worry about a path we have yet to travel, that has yet to become clear. We really do still have a lot of life ahead of us. Remarkable.

I prefer to be behind the camera, but I felt that I needed to document this important milestone and it was time for a self portrait. I promise you, I have not touched up my skin in photoshop at all. No softening, or lightening of under-eye bags or wrinkles, I did put on a little makeup, but you can zoom right in and see the real me, unaltered (although, of course I'd rather you didn't). Photographers have all sorts of tricks they can use to 'help' a person look their best, but that was not what this was about, this really is me, as I am, right now!

Here you go, eighty year old self...back in the day when you were still 'young'!

52 Weeks of 2013 - Week 35

In all the years I have lived here, I had never taken any photographs of the Golden Gate Bridge. It is such an icon of this area and so last week, after dropping the kids at school I drove out to photograph the bridge. I arrived to a blanket of fog so thick, that I could see nothing! Initially I was disappointed and frustrated, but really, I should have known it was to be expected. This is San Francisco after all. So I sat and read and listened to music for over two hours, waiting for the fog to clear, or at least break.

Finally I glimpsed the barely there shadow of the bridge, then for about twenty minutes the fog thinned and swirled around the bridge, revealing glimpses of the blue sky to come, it was beautiful. Then just as quickly, the shroud of fog enveloped us again and I was done.