Monday is HERE…. and I kind of feel like it should already be Wednesday! My days are all mixed up and sorted around! I feel like I’m in a Bond movie except I’m inside the drink that’s been shaken, not stirred!
Anyone who was with me yesterday, will laugh and understand that joke! Everyone else it’s ok if you don’t laugh or even understand why that’s even a joke!
FIRST: I just want to say a GIANT thank you for all your support, encouragement, shares and comments on The Motherhood Journals!! I am truly overwhelmed and in awe by the stories you have shared with me and all the love and how many of you want to share and be a part of this! These Journals were created FOR YOU and it is because of you that we will truly be able to create a community for each other and really be able to lift one another up!!! THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!
This weekend was CRAZZZZ-YYYY! In the best ways possible! Today I’m exhausted and I can barely move! I feel like my bones and my muscles are about 120 years old and I’m walking like it which makes for some interesting conversations with my neighbors!
This weekend was chock full of events and I barely saw my family but it’s weekend’s like these that make me appreciate them all the more! The boys had an entire weekend to themselves and they played hard! Linc was spoiled with outdoor time, ice cream dates with daddy, and grocery shopping that included no structure and lots of random junk food in the carts! They had squirt gun fights and tub times filled with too much water and over the top splashing! I love it when they can have time like this just to themselves because Linc and I always have so much time one on one and it’s so dear to my heart! I want Tuck to have those same precious moments, moments that are just his that he shares with his son… no girls allowed kind of moments that both of them can remember years from now when time has seemed to pass by all too quickly!
So while the boys were at play, I was spending my time with an incredible family welcoming in a beautiful new bright spirit and little girl!
I will never ever get over how amazing, wonderful, beautiful, blessed, honored, thankful and a million other words I could say but will never do justice to every emotion in my heart about how truly and seriously grateful I am to be allowed to wake up each morning and participate in these moments with these families of mine!
Ashley and Joe have trusted me and have allowed me the pleasure and honor of being a part of this entire journey with them from the second they found out they were pregnant all the way through the anticipation of being induced and the arrival of their sweet little girl and Wavelry’s baby sister!
This friends is exactly what it means when I say I WANT to be your lifetime photographer! How amazing is it that I get to be there for the first few moments when you find out your pregnant, when you decide to share it with your family and friends, as your experiencing pregnancy and getting to know your little one as you wait for them, and then when you meet them for the first time!!!
Let me just say ya’ll… I cried! I cried so many times from Thursday until her birth on Saturday morning! That’s all I’m going to say because I don’t want to spoil the actual blog post that I will be honored to write soon!
But ya’ll truly, I just don’t have words!
So… I came home Saturday evening a changed momma! I just did! Then I crashed hard on Saturday night early and woke up early again Sunday to attend an advanced training for Body Flow instructors. What was I thinking? 10 hours of AIM Body Flow after not much sleep and an already exhausted body… I’m hard core ya’ll! Once again though, it rocked my world and I came home Sunday evening a changed person!
So lessons learned friends…
- Every time I shoot a birth, I come home wanting more babies! When I’m behind my camera in that room, what I see is all the love that brought you to the laboring! I see the hands gripping each other soo tight! I see the unconditional love and determination from the mom’s willing to do ANYTHING for their children before even having laid eyes on them.
- I see women who are selfless and giving saying already before having laid eyes on their baby, touched their baby, kissed their son or daughter, loving them before themselves and over themselves!
- I realized this weekend that I am so much more than a situational crier! haha I am a think about it, feel it, look at me and I cry. I guess that’s called a drop of the hat crier! If I had a super power or possessed any kind of magic I think I would be an empath! (yes please forgive me I like magic and I’m a total nerd!)
- Going to that Body Flow training changed me as a person and I was only there for 10 hours… what is going to happen if I go to a full weekend event?!
- The power of listening, like actual listening, in today’s world has a profound effect! We need as a culture to learn to quiet ourselves a little more and be present and listen. That means being fully present when someone is talking! We do this by focusing on THEM… not planning what we are going to say next to them, not thinking about how THEY are perceiving US, not thinking about ANYTHING else except what they are saying! It’s actually extremely hard to do sometimes but we need to practice it more often to help further the human connection! Try it out today!
- REAL eye contact is rare but it’s amazing when you receive it along with meaningful listening!
- Finding balance in our lives is all about finding a good pace and then allowing ourselves to move in and out of that pace! I notice I’m out of balance when my car is a wreck… so this morning instead of rushing in and getting to work and crossing things off my to do list; I cleaned my car! I feel much better about everything around me! Now I can tackle my to do list… and yes I’m a bit odd and awkward! But at least I have a clean car and de-cluttered mind!
Lot’s of really fun things coming up this week: A super fun sun rise session filled with bubbles and donuts and sandy toes!
There’s also a little bit of this coming your way too…
Happy Monday!
