Photo a Day February 2015 - Day 26

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

Photo a Day February 2015 - Day 25

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

The sister.

Photo a Day February 2015 - Day 24

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

Photo a Day February 2015 - Day 23

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

Some days you need to find your own sunshine.

Photo a Day February 2015 - Day 22

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

Photo a Day February 2015 - Day 21

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

British Museum

Photo a Day February 2015 - Day 20

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

Photo a Day February 2015 - Day 19

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

Photo a Day February 2015 - Day 18

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

Photo a Day February 2015 - Day 17

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

Photo a Day February 2015 - Day 16

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

Our nearest stop. (Just a phone camera shot this one)

Photo a Day February 2015 - Day 15

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

Somebody went to a birthday party and got her face painted.

Photo a Day February 2015 - Day 14

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

Photo a Day February 2015 - Day 13

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

Photo a Day February 2015 - Day 12

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

Sometimes you have to be home all morning (potentially all day) just waiting for the postman. Not the most fun, but it leaves you time for taking selfies :P

Photo a Day February 2015 - Day 11

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

Ah technology.

Photo a Day February 2015 - Day 10

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

Eleven. What he wanted more than anything was to fly back to America to hang out with his cousin and go to Ping's for his favourite Chinese Food. 

If only it was that easy. Sigh. 

Thankfully he has a great attitude and loved that it was his special day. He is such a great kid and makes it hard to be around him as happy as he is without being impacted. Just as he requested, he did get a homemade chocolate cake. Hoping and praying for a great year ahead of him.

Photo a Day February 2015 - Day 9

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

It's been ten years since we lost our Mum. Ten years today. That's a long time. A long time for memories to still feel fresh and pain to still feel raw. It's easier to just push it aside most of the time, but as the anniversary draws closer, it always gets harder...so I keep pushing, until the day, and then I have a little fall apart. 

This year is different than the years before. Before I was far away, I could pretend, because I wouldn't have the opportunity to see her anyway, but now I am back in my old home country, where she was, faced with the very stark reality that she is not here with us. It is just so very sad. I know that she would have been overjoyed at our return, to get to spend time with her grand-kids, to have us all together again. 

I feel like there aren't many ways to remember her. I don't know if she had a favourite food, or something that she loved to do, because she was always about serving everybody else. The only way I have to remember and celebrate her is to buy freesias, so that is what I do every year.

But this year, after dropping the kids at school, in this new place where we live, I could not find a single florist open. So I traipsed the streets alone, feeling sad, then came home and texted my brothers and sister. The date is easy for me to remember, because it is the day before my son's birthday, but I don't know if others have chosen to remember it or not...it's delicate ground.

I went out again, later in the day and found one florist open, but no freesias and no suggestion of where I might find some. Two other florists were closed for the day. It just added to the hopelessness of it all. So I had to settle for a little bouquet with roses instead. Simple (and it was on sale, which Mum would have appreciated) but roses are my favourite, not hers and it wasn't what I wanted for today.

Photo a Day February 2015 - Day 8

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

 Stuffie Choir

Photo a Day February 2015 - Day 7

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

Adventures on The Heath

Photo a Day February 2015 - Day 6

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

Used these in the kitchen today. Do YOU know what they are?

Photo A Day February 2015 - Day 5

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

When you move to a new country, you have to leave all your wonderful friends behind. It can be a little heartbreaking, especially when you've had such special friends from birth. If you then end up living in temporary housing for three months, with your toys and Lego not available to you and not much space so it's hard to have people over, it doesn't help you make friends awfully quickly. Add to that the fact that most of the girls in your class have already been together for the last five years and have solid friendships...and it can be really slow going. 

Sometimes there are quiet tears that you try to hide from your parents, who desperately need to know so they can comfort you and help to make things better, any way they can. Because a little girl shouldn't have to be that strong all on her own. It takes time and it takes effort. Today there was a long awaited play date and there was Lego and snacks and hide-and-seek and playing with the dog. 

Best of all there were lots of smiles. Hoping our future will hold many more of those.

Photo A Day February 2015 - Day 4

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

A visit from this little cutie today (and her Mama). I miss my kids being this little!

Photo a Day February 2015 - Day 3

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

It's a hard life.

Photo A Day February 2015 - 2

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

He doesn't play as much as he used to...but it's still a love.

Photo A Day February 2015 - 1

This is a personal kick start project, a photo a day for the month of February.

She and I were both under the weather this weekend. My usually busy girl spent all day yesterday in bed and most of today. We cuddled and read together and as sad as I was to see her not herself, I loved the extra moments. They just don't happen quite as much anymore.

And I just couldn't stick to one photo, I wanted to be in one with her, because we spent so much time together this weekend and she may not remember.

 

Photo A Day for February 2015

This move half way across the world has not been the easiest. Dealing with emotions and kids' emotions and trying to figure out what our new life looks like and what I am supposed to do with MY life, has not left a lot of motivation to pick up my camera. We are not outdoors as often as we used to be, because it's either freezing or wet here, or often both at the same time. I don't feel as inspired or as motivated. So it's time to get ruthless.

It's been a while since I have done a photo a day, a few years even, but I need a new kickstart, so for February that is exactly what I plan to do. Force myself to pick up my camera, force myself to shoot something, anything, because now that I've posted it here on the blog, even if only one person reads it, there is an accountability.

There's no theme, unless one develops, no promises of beauty or extreme creativity, but there WILL be a photo each day. I can't promise writing or captions each day even but there will be a photo, even if it kills me!

Feel free to follow along, or check in occasionally and I'd love any encouragement along the way :)

So Glad They Have Each Other {London Child Portrait Photographer}

Through no fault of their own, their little lives have been completely changed. They left behind their home and their school and family and their friends from birth. They were forced to say goodbye to loved possessions and familiarity and had to start over. They have good days and bad days. There have been moments that weren't so pretty, when they bickered and snapped at one another, but I am so glad they have each other. That they get to share this experience (that they will no doubt talk about in the years ahead, hopefully not in therapy) that they are the best of friends.We may no longer be in California, but Finsbury Park isn't so bad when you have the people who know and love you the best to play with. There are good times still to be had. To see them exploring together and having fun, warms this Mama's heart and gives me hope for our future here!

In London

One month ago my life looked so very different! I was living in sunny California, in denial that my life was about to completely change. I mean absolutely and completely. I could not even begin to fathom all that would entail. 

On Friday August 22^nd, we received my husband’s visa to enter the United Kingdom…I got online that morning and searched and prayed and bought us tickets to fly the following Monday, just three days later. We had known it was coming, but suddenly we had merely days to accomplish ending our life in America. To empty our apartment of everything; furniture, toys, clothes…memories. I was numb. It just had to be done. There was no time to think, or reminisce, or mourn.

On the Saturday, amazing friends pulled together a going away party for all our well-wishers to come and say goodbyes and we stayed up way too late, realizing these were moments never to be repeated. As we sat around at the end of the evening I fought back tears as I imagined all the future events to be hosted at that house, we would not get to be part of. We belonged there.

On Sunday, as so many gathered around us at church, to pray for us and send us off, the tears started. The tears I had been holding back could be held back no more. The truth was that I did not want to leave this place and these people I had grown to love. I could not imagine another life. The truth is goodbyes hurt, especially when you know the next hello is so far away and in reality, a complete unknown. There were more goodbyes later that evening, the gut wrenching type, full of emotion and no words possible to convey what needed to be said. Just tears…too many tears.

The next morning we had to leave. As a nephew sat sobbing on the steps my heart broke even further. It was more than our lives being forever changed.

I felt abruptly and sharply uprooted, naked and vulnerable with my roots hanging…and I didn’t like it, not one little bit. Over the days that followed there were many more tears, not the pretty ones that roll quietly down your cheek, but the ones that stream as you gulp and force yourself to breathe through the pain and your eyes become big and red and swollen. Because you have friends that can’t be replaced, because they belong with experiences that won’t be relived. Because they understand you, and that has taken years and doesn’t just happen overnight. Because trust like that takes time. There is grief.

And as I write, those tears, they come back again.

Yet, the uprooting has led to a transplanting. I am no gardener, but I know that you can start a plant or seed in certain, protected conditions until it is sufficiently established and able to withstand the environment in which it needs to ultimately be. Similarly, plants outgrow their containers and need to be transplanted to remain healthy. If their roots remain bound up they become unhealthy and slow growing. This was our time and even as I look at both of the reasons for transplanting, I can see that my husband was ready for his new 'container' as I had been protected and nurtured long enough to be able to survive such a move. We have a master gardener at work!

So I am comforted through the changes. It hasn’t been easy, but neither has it been as hard as it could have been. Where I once would have tried to deny emotion, I allow myself to go through the process, knowing it is part of the journey and aids in the healing and the moving forward. We have been welcomed and we feel loved by people who were strangers and we have a common bond. I cannot imagine having decided to make such a huge change for our family on a whim, without leading and direction and provision that I know can only come from God. I do not know how anyone could live this life not knowing Him and how utterly meaningless it would all be. So I am grateful. In the midst of the hard things there is hope and wonder for what is to come.

The sun rises each morning, just as it does where we were before. We share it with the people we shared so much with over the last sixteen years. My children still laugh as their daddy tickles them and pout when they don’t get their way. They walk through the changes with us and though they process in their own way, they trust us, as their parents, to do what is right and they feel safe and they feel loved. 

So we do the same…

Happy Father's Day!

 

My littles are blessed beyond the feeble words which so inadequately try to express all they have. A Daddy who is fully present for them, who laughs and listens, who has always been there and always will, unconditionally loving and supporting them and cheering them on. A daddy who is not afraid to show his emotions, who is setting an example of how to live and love, fully and unabashedly. For me to know that we are a team in this parenting journey, that we are partners in this life we are so fortunate to be living together is truly an honor and a gift. I could not have asked for more of the father of my children. Happy Father's Day James Cannan and thank you for who you are and all that you do, you are truly amazing!