The last year or so I’ve been struggling with BEING in the moment with my kids and CAPTURING the moments with them. When I’m IN the moment and not worrying about lighting and ISO and aperture I’m able to enjoy it more fully. However, with my lack of sleep and busy rush of life I’m starting to realize that if I don’t capture it I won’t remember much of it! I think both things are good and I’m trying to remember that sometimes I can even do both. And OTHER times I can even pass off the camera (setting set of course) to someone else so that they can capture ME in the moment with my kids! That happens so rarely but is OH SO important!

Anyway.

As we are working endless hours right now to make our house ready for move in day (SATURDAY!!!) I’ve been taking my camera everywhere with me. It started so that I could document all the changes taking place at our house but slowly, in the course of the last month, I’ve started being more in the mood to document the kids too. Isn’t it funny that just starting to document one part of life makes you want to start documenting others? It was such a natural progression I didn’t even realize it was happening. Like one day I went from always having my camera in my bag to having it next to me again, which is how I was when the kids were really little… it lived on our counter in the kitchen so it was always near by!

SO although I still do go on adventures and laugh at everyday antics that don’t get captured to be fully in the moment, I am SO glad that I’m getting back in the habit of taking photos of my own kids doing the mundane things that make up this awesome life! Will I be editing our family photos until the day I die and never really catching up? Probably, because the downside of this job is that client photos come before your own. But at least I have the photos now! Too many months went by without many taken at all.

My favorite series of our everyday currently is from a few days ago when I FORCED Grayson to get dressed by himself. This summer has seen a lot of change in our family and so much of it has been watching our baby-days disappear. There are brief instances where that makes me want to go get pregnant again because I do miss so much of the baby stage desperately, but 99% of the time it’s freaking awesome! One of our last steps was for Gray to dress himself and I knew he could… I just had to convince him!

He got this far and stopped. Just sat there. It was making me laugh so hard I grabbed the camera and THANK GOODNESS I did because these images totally crack me up!

It was not the best light but there was a window in front of him so I just cranked up my ISO and snapped away! Just proves it doesn’t matter if the lighting stinks! Snap anyway!

He was being such a stinker!

Then he gave up to play.

So mean Mommy came out and I tanked it over his head ordering him to put his arm in. I’m so mean.

It was a short sleeved shirt and he totally knew where his hand needed to go but MAN did it take a while for the stubbornness to give way!

“I tant’t DO it!”

He gave up to play again! See his fingers actually sticking out of the shirt? HA!

He knew he was being a stinker!

Terri (my mother-in-law) calls Bill a mule-head because he’s so stubborn and Chris definitely can take after his dad… I guess we have third generation mule-head now!

He thought he was SO funny!

Second arm going in and….

VICTORY!

These photos are priceless. I am SO glad I thought to reach over and grab the camera! Someday his wife will crack up at these and that makes me so happy.

What are your struggles with capturing your kids while also enjoying them? Is this hard for anyone else?

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Emails may take me a few days to answer right now because I just shipped my kids up to Wisconsin to hang with Aunt Abbie and Uncle Chris until Monday so I have four full days to paint, pack and move in before they come home! Once we are settled emails will be easier to get to! Thanks for your patience and I will post some befores/afters of our house once we’re in there for you guys to see!

A fun senior session coming up tomorrow!

Happy Thursday!