I have been talking a lot lately about how I truly believe having a documentary session of your family is something everyone should have done, yet I had never had one done myself. Part of the reason was because there are very few documentary photographers in our area and the other half was probably the  same reason I am sure you have been hesitating as well: I kept waiting for the “right time’. Well I’m here to tell you a secret: there isn’t one. I was always too busy, I needed to lose at least 20lbs (I’m still hanging on to the lovely 40ish pounds I gained when I was pregnant with my son), or didn’t have time to make the house “presentable” (is there really such thing as presentable with two kids under four?). Basically, it was every excuse I tell all of you lovely parents to try to look past.

Before long, I was realizing time was flying by and soon, this stage of my life would be gone before I know it. My son is already almost two, my daughter is almost four, and our lives already look drastically different than what is was a year ago.  I’m going to keep it real with you all, I suffer from some insane body confidence issues and that was probably the biggest reason I kept putting it off, but a year later I was still 40lbs heavier and according to pictures of my kids’ lives, I barely existed. That is when I decided to push past my insecurities and practice what I preach: I embraced my imperfections and contacted my very talented friend, Shawna, of Shawna & Co to book a ½ Day in the Life (DITL) session for my family. After having the session and seeing the results, my only regret is that I didn’t book her sooner.

Want to know how hard I embraced imperfections? Well, we are starting to get our house ready to list and the day Shawna came, we had a huge 20-foot dumpster in our driveway. I embraced the heck out of that big maroon dumpster—this is real life after all.

Shawna came and documented our typical Saturday AM craziness. We made pancakes (my daughter dumped an entire container of blue sprinkles on her pancakes when I wasn’t looking and my son promptly finished where she left off), went to gymnastics (yep, she came to class with us), and went to lunch at the diner across the way.

I always love doing these sessions for families, but seeing our crazy life through Shawna’s eyes was nothing short of incredible. The pictures she took captured the essence of our family and the personalities and quirks I never want to forget and hope my kids never grow out of. She captured our everyday in the home I brought both my babies home to, the home we have outgrown and will be saying goodbye to soon—it’s a gift I will always be grateful for.

Because of these images, my kids will get to see what a typical morning looked like for our family at this point in their childhood. When my daughter thinks back to gymnastics class, she’ll be able to go back and look at the pictures of her time there, my son will be able to see how it took two adults to corral him in his gymnastics class and how much fun we had. I’ll remember how much my daughter loved the “cat” hat she is wearing in some of those pictures and how (outside of gymnastics class) once it was on, it rarely came off.

For half the day, our family embraced our vulnerable side by letting a stranger into our home to document our day—no staging, dressing up, forced smiles—just our everyday, crazy life in all it’s glory.

You can view a slideshow of our session below. To see more of Shawna’s work, you can visit her site here.

Now there are no excuses, if I can do it so can you <3 I promise you won’t regret it. Contact me for more information or to schedule your session.

I love Timehop. I am a sucker for nostalgia and Timehop provides me with daily doses of it. If you don’t know what it is, it is an app that gathers all your photos/social media statuses, etc. for that exact day, years in the past. Most of my updates and messages are from about 2-3 years ago (when my kids were born and I started photographing them incessantly), but I have had Timehop days have gone as far back as 10 years. It’s something I look forward to each day—its gives me the opportunity to reminisce on the past, see exactly how much my kids have grown, and how my life has changed over the years.

Today’s Timehop has also taught me a valuable lesson: as the years go on, you have no clue just how much you forget. 

For the last couple of weeks, I have noticed my son has started to hold his hands behind his back whenever he watches TV. It is so adorable and endearing—he looks like a very serious, little man watching the news. Up until today, I thought this was something unique to him—one of his own little quirks I love. Today Timehop showed me this was not the case. Exactly two years ago today, I took a picture of his big sister watching TVwith her hands in the exact same position. Apparently, it’s a family trait.

I CANNOT believe I forgot that, but I am so grateful to have this picture (even though it’s a just a quick cell pic) to remind me of this. Knowing this, makes it even more important for me to make sure I get a photograph of my son doing the exact same thing.

Timehop reinforced my belief of how important it is to document the little things no matter how insignificant you may think they are—even though you think there is no possible way you could forget something, the fact is that as time goes on memories fade. Having a tangible memory in the form of a photo ensures you won’t forget even the smallest of details in yours, or your children’s, lives.