Happy Valentine’s Day | Calgary Baby Photographer

 

I can’t wait to blog this session…it’s one of my favorite newborn sessions of all time. I know, I know–one should not play favorites, but it is inevitable. So, here is a wee sneaky peaky for Valentine’s day. All you need is love. And naps. And snacks. Snacks are important too…may your day be filled with all three Happy Valentine’s day!!!

Life Coaching

I’ve been meaning to write about this for awhile, but for some reason never found the time. And then, after I wrote that last post, I thought that it would be extremely good timing to put this little plug in for my friend and life coach–Jennie Willings. I did some life coaching with her last year. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure what life coaching would be all about, but what I discovered is that it is about helping to discover your core values and beliefs and then help you learn how to remain true to them. Authenticity. It is at the core of what I do–discovering the truth of the family’s I photograph. It helps so much more when I am living in mine. That probably sounds a little hippy–but that’s me If you want to learn more, please contact my wonderful friend. Thanks to the miracles of Skype and web technology she can coach you no matter where you live!!

Since I can’t write a post without an image…here is a little ditty from the other day. Hasn’t it been the most spectacular winter? The fog and the moisture combining to create just the most wonderful amount of hoar frost…it almost makes the cold bearable.

January

My friend, Tara, had this idea to do some ‘family self-portraits’ and turn them into a book for herself at the end of the year. Once a month…which should be about all I can handle. We took this family self-portrait at the end of December before she announced this project out of sheer desperation to get me in some of the images. So my kids don’t look back on our life and wonder where I was. This will have to do for our January portrait. Us, in our living room on a cold winter’s night.

January is always a time for slowing down for me as the fall and rush to Christmas is just mind numbingly insane. This year, there was something incredibly different about the whole experience–Bob quit his job. Some of you know this, but I’m not sure that I have really talked about it. It is easy to dismiss the reasons as simply–he wasn’t happy where he was OR something had to give–but the truth is, what he did was something even more wonderful than that. He put his career on hold so that I could pursue mine. He did so for several reasons…not the least of which being that I am crazy passionate and in love with my work and it was consuming every ounce of me in and out of our family life. With him at home now, I have been able to breathe. Deep breaths. I have been able to read again. I used to read ALOT but that was one of the things that got lost in the busy-ness of running a business and a household. I read 5 books last week(I was also flying a lot of the time which also helped). There was more time for us to do things together…to sit and chat, to grab a coffee and to play games with our children.

In January, I was able to sit back and reflect. Especially with our holiday to Orlando. I was able to see that our children have grown even more attached to him than they used to be. When they need help with something, no longer do they just default to me as their saviour. Someone asked me if this makes me sad, I quickly answered no…not at all. It makes me feel more complete.  The transformation in our children has been the most shocking and wonderful aspect of all of this. Georgia has calmed down so much. Jack has been able to turn to his dad to help him discover all the answers to his increasingly more difficult for me to answer scientific questions. Don’t get me wrong, they both still have their moments(Georgia had a pretty major one about a half an hour ago), but watching them blossom into more creative play, more cooperative play, and wonderfully inquisitive, artistic children is such a gift. The perfect combination of the two of us.

And, well, most importantly for our family…my relationship with Bob has never been better. I am constantly reminded of why I married him and he makes me feel so beautiful and loved and we laugh…loud, houseshaking belly laughs all day long and end the day sitting in the living room after the kids have gone to bed listening to music and just smiling at each other. How perfect is that?