LaLa Photography

Here we are.  Another year gone.  Another year older.  Another renewed sense of where I hope to go in the upcoming year.  I have always been a fan of new years day because on this day, none of us can say, “It was a bad year.”  It is a fresh year.  We can make of it what we choose.  We can choose to focus on our past mistakes and hard times or we can choose to start fresh, with the chance of making this year what we hope it will be by living our life like we want it to be.

I said in my last post that last year was a very difficult one for me on a personal level.  I am still not ready to put it all out there for anyone who wants to read about it.  But there were a lot of changes in my life.  It has not been easy.  On me.  On the girls.  But I find myself where I am on January 1st, 2012, and I feel excited and hopeful for the new year.  For every year from here on out.  I am choosing to not focus on the past.  I cannot change any of it.  I wouldn’t change any bit of my life.  Because if I changed any of it, I would not be exactly where I am today – which is a mom to the two most amazing children in the world, a successful business owner, a person that is deeply loved by her family and friends, and a healthy, strong woman that doesn’t really have a reason in the world to complain.  Sure, some days are harder than others, but in the big scheme of things, the girls and I are healthy, we love each other with all of our hearts, and we are finding our happy little place in this world.  I plan on spending a lot more days this year smiling and laughing than being sad, frustrated or angry.  I can’t really say the same for 2011, so the future feels bright for us.

As always, I have goals for the year.  I like to write them down for accountability.  Here is what I have come up with:

1.  Continue to find a healthy balance between home life and work.  I am great at this until the last 4 months of the year when work becomes absolutely insane.  I just want a better handle on how I spend my time with the girls during this particular time.  I know me having to work ALL OF THE TIME is hard on them.  I need to be more present in my time with them.  As my dear friend Kate just said in her amazing new years post, there is never anything for work that is so time sensitive you can’t stop and play with your children for 10 minutes.  I need to write that down and tape it to my fridge.  It is important and I definitely told the girls a lot of times that I didn’t have time for something.  I know I will regret that someday, so I am going to do better.

2.  Be a better friend.  I isolated myself this past year.  It was almost like I was hiding from the world as I tried to figure things out.  Despite all of that, my unbelievable friends and family still managed to rally around me and make me smile absolutely any time that I would allow it.  I am so blessed.  I truly do come from the best family and the friends that I have made in this lifetime, both old and new, are incredible.  I don’t know what I would do without any of them.  I want all of my friends and family to know that they can count on me the way that I know that I can count on them.  Thank you to each and every one of you that has loved and supported me.  I love you all.  I treasure you all.  I don’t always act like it, but I couldn’t live without you.  I will be more present.  I will be more caring.  I will be quicker to actually show you this.

3.  Continue getting healthier and stronger every single day.  January 7th will be my 1 year anniversary of starting Crossfit.  NEVER have I come even remotely close to sticking with any sort of workout plan for an entire year.  NOT EVEN CLOSE.  I am soooooooo thankful for finding Crossfit.  For getting healthy and strong.  For giving myself 1 hour every single day to focus on me – my health, both mental and physical.  I love my gym.  I love the people there.  I love what I have been able to accomplish in the past year and I cannot wait to see what I can accomplish this year.  As a side note, I have a blog post written about how my mindset has changed since starting Crossfit and getting in shape.  It is a post written for women about how we view ourselves and beauty.  I have literally worked on it for about 8 months.  The post is written.  I just want to have a video to go with it and that is going to take a little time.  I am extremely passionate about this topic now and I really can’t wait to share it.  Hopefully sooner rather than later because it means so much to me.

4.  Be less quick to become frustrated and annoyed – especially with the girls and my family.  My poor mom, who is quite literally a saint, has taken a beating from me this past year.  I think because I feel more safe with her than any other person in the entire world, I felt like I could just let loose on her because I had to hold it together for the rest of the world.  I love my parents so very much.  They are incredible.  They would do anything in the world for me or the girls.  And just like a small child is with their own mother, it was like I was acting out towards my mom because I needed to vent it somewhere and I knew that she would always love me no matter what.  Mom, you are the best mom I could ever ask for.  Thank you for unconditionally loving me no matter how ridiculous I act.  I am sorry I have been such a grump so much of this year.  I love you and every other member of our family more than I could ever make you understand.

5.  Take more pictures of the girls.  I have been AWFUL about this the past two years.  Absolutely awful.  I am vowing right now to do better.  I got two really cool books at Urban Outfitters this year.  One is a one line a day journal that goes for 5 years.  I have it by my bed.  I think I can handle writing down 1 line about my day everyday.  I started today  I hope I can do that.  I think it will be so neat to have.  I also got a photo album that has a spot for a printed image for every day of the year.  I love this.  I love it because they actually need to be printed and there is room for a little caption.  I am not focusing on the images being perfect – rather an actual representation of what a year of our life looks like.  I’m excited about this.  And, to get motivated, I treated myself to a bad ass point and shoot camera so that I don’t really have an excuse of not wanting to take my big camera with me everywhere.  This one fits beautifully in my purse and my goal is to have it with me everywhere I go.  I certainly won’t be blogging every image, but I promise to post my favorites.

So there it is, my top 5 goals.  Certainly nothing earth shattering or all that different from what the rest of the world hopes to accomplish in a new year.  But they are honest, manageable, and they mean a lot to me.  So here’s to us all having a great year!  I am not just hoping for a great year, I plan on living my life to give me that great year.  Happy New Year to each of you.

Here is a mixture of pictures from over the holidays.  I know this is my business blog, but it is my personal blog as well.  So my personal images aren’t about the perfectly focused and edited photograph, instead it is about documenting our lives exactly as I see it.  That is what these are.  Annie still won’t sit in Santa’s lap.   She talks a big talk, but when the time comes to actually get up on his lap, she is outta there.  The tub pictures are from today, so I am doing better already about taking more real life pictures.  When I looked at them tonight, I realized exactly how much I love images like this and how sad I am that I have so few of these from the past 2 years.  No longer!

It has been a while since a picture of the girls together has made my heart as happy as the next one does.  Oh, I love them so much.

So, for a whole long list of reasons, I have stopped doing personal blog posts.  I have repeatedly told myself that I wanted to start doing it again, but on the long list of to dos, it just kept getting pushed further and further down the list.  Spare time has not been abundant around here lately.  The saddest part about me letting this part of the girls’ lives go is that I have gotten TERRIBLE about photographing my own beautiful children.  I genuinely am sad about that.  Hopefully 2012 will bring a renewed sense of inspiration to do a better job of documenting their precious lives.  I am praying for a great year in 2012.  This has been a very difficult year for us.  But I am excited about all of the possibilities and the fresh start that I feel coming in 2012.

For all of you that used to love to follow my darling girls’ daily adventures, you will be thrilled to know that I am going to give you a full update on both girls.  As you all know, it has been QUITE some time since I have done this.  Here goes.

Lucy.  My Lucy Goose.  She is 5 now.  Turned 5 on August 1st.  No clue how this happened.  I feel like she was just a baby in my arms that I would have to rock for hours every night to get to go to sleep.  Lucy has always been mature way beyond her years.  Even as a baby people would comment how she didn’t act like a baby.  She is still like this.  She is elegant, graceful, beautiful, kind, caring, artistic, smart, and still loves to be my baby.  She indulges me when I need to just sit and snuggle with her.  She is a very intuitive child and she doesn’t miss a beat.  She knows when something is not right or someone is feeling sad or upset.  She wants to help with everything.  She is very much the first born in that she has that bossy gene and wants to control most situations, especially ones that involve Annie.  She is a child that adores routine and structure and rules.  She almost never breaks any rules.  This makes her a definite teacher favorite at school.  At her teacher conference they actually asked me if she ever gets out of line at home.   And of course she does, but she will not ever be the kid acting up in class because she does not like to be in trouble or feel like she has disappointed anyone.  I pray that this strong sense of structure and need to always follow the rules doesn’t hold her back from things.  As a younger child, it often stopped her from playing with other kids because I think she was so concerned about how they were acting.  She has definitely loosened up over the years, and I love nothing more than for her to jump in the car from school and tell me all of the games she played that day with her friends.

Her favorite things in the world are painting, drawing, coloring, reading, and dressing up.  She is sitting right next to me at this very moment diligently coloring a picture and making sure to stay right inside the lines.  She loves projects that involve intense concentration and fine detail.  She will sit quietly and work on something for hours as long as Annie does not get in her way.  She likes things just the way she likes them, and can be quite short tempered with Annie when she messes with her stuff.  We are working on this.  She is very neat and tidy and she will get out every single toy in her room but will also clean up every single toy in the room when it is time to clean up.

She adores princesses and “fancy” things.  Her current favorite princess is Belle.  She loves jewelry and high heels.  Her imagination is amazing.  She is really learning how to read.  It is fascinating to watch.  She went from not being able to string sounds together herself to being able to sound out 5 letter words over night.  It was seriously so cool to watch her little brain figure that out.

People are naturally drawn to Lucy, but she is not naturally drawn back.  She is reserved.  She takes her time with most people.  She is cautious.  She prefers to watch from afar and then, if she feels comfortable, will slowly start to open up to others.  Again, this has become much less severe as she has gotten older and has become more confident in general, but she is still my girl that assesses every new situation with a hand on my leg and a cautious eye.

On her Christmas list from Santa are only three things:  Belle costume from Disney store, Smurfs movie, and the American Girl doll Julie, who is Ivy’s best friend.

Annie.  My Annes Banans.  She is now 3.5 years old.  Her third birthday was April 1st.  I also feel as though she should still be my spiky haired teeny tiny baby girl that loved her bottle so dearly and would rock to sleep in about 2 seconds every night.  But instead she has decided to get big on me, too.  She started her time with us as a baby that did not know how to be loved.  Her little body didn’t know how to relax and she didn’t know what it meant to be comforted when she was in pain or upset.  Well let me just tell you, she now LOVES to be loved and she loves even more to love right back.  She is an absolute love bug.  She has the most infectious smile of any child I have ever been around.  I have always said that she smiles with every inch of her body and she still does that.  She can completely have her back to you and you still know the second she starts smiling.  So so so sweet!  Annie has the most gorgeous features.  A perfect little nose, the most darling lips, and those huge dark eyes.  I could eat her up just thinking about her little face.

Annie is my wild child.  I always describe the girls as complete and total polar opposites.  Everything that I described about Lucy above, take the exact opposite and that is Annie.  She is boisterous, energetic, extremely opinionated, full of life and adventure.  She is a free spirit.  She plays by HER own rules.  She does not like structure or routine.  She does not appreciate being told what to do and she will just flat out ignore you or pitch a fit if I insist she does something that she doesn’t think is a great idea.  You know, like brush her teeth or get clothes on.   I would not change one thing about her.  I adore her spirit and know that some day it is going to serve her so well.  It is that spirit inside of her that got her through her first really difficult 7 months of life.  With that being said, that little spirit can be exhausting to chase around!

If I ask Annie not to do something, there is a 100% chance that she will do it.  All while watching me with the most ornery look in her eye that you could ever imagine.  That is just how she rolls.  I have been known to describe her as naughty because, well, she is often quite naughty!  She is a mess.  Literally, a mess.  She could care less if she is covered in drool, snot and food.  She just smiles away, happy as lark.

She is on her own path for development.  She is in speech therapy and we are definitely seeing progress in her talking.  I think her school and being around bigger kids is helping.  She still has only a few phrases that everyone would recognize, but I know her well enough to know what she is talking about most of the time.  Not always though and I know that is frustrating for her.  I pick up on new phrases every week though and I love it when she says something new.  I pray for her speech to continue to improve every day.  And it is, just slowly.  Because of some of her oral issues, she is still a drooling machine.  I mean, the girl can DROOL!  I would love for this to improve a lot more over the next few months.  I just hate it now because she is a bigger child and so people notice it more.  And let’s be honest, it is a huge mess.  I am so used to it now that I just wipe her mouth with my hand and wipe it on my own clothes.  I know, I know.  Gross.  But you do what you gotta do.

Annie’s favorite things are baby dolls (she is a very excellent and attentive mother), painting, cooking in her play kitchen, dressing up, and watching movies.  She would watch tv all day if I let her, so I really try and limit this for her.  And movies are her favorite – Beauty and the Beast, Gnomeo & Juliet, Strawberry Shortcake.  She is obsessed with anything that Lucy is doing and in true younger sister fashion, she loves to intentionally push Lucy’s buttons just for the reaction.  I can relate.  I am the second born as well.  I may or may not have been a little annoying to my sister from time to time.  The good news is, they have recently realized how much fun it is when Lucy lets her play and Annie doesn’t try and drive Lucy nuts and they will play together really well.  Like right this moment.  Nothing makes me happier than hearing them in their room giggling together and making up little games.

As wild and crazy as Annie is, she will honestly sit and snuggle with me for hours at a time.  She loves to be close to me.  And I love having her close.  Sometimes it makes it very difficult to get much done, but I really love that she is such a lover.  She is hilarious and I can’t imagine not having her in my life.  She makes life so much more fun and colorful.  For every difficult moment I have with her, she makes up for it with many more amazing moments.

Annie’s Christmas list from Santa:  Dora Fairy Princess Doll and an Aurora costume from the Disney

I will continue to thank God every day for allowing me to be the one that these two girls call momma.  The one that they come running to when they get an ouchie or need a snuggle.  The one that gets to steal as many kisses a day as I want from their sweet lips.  The one that tucks them into their beds at night and sings them their favorite songs as they fall asleep.  Being a mom is not always easy or glamorous by any stretch of the word.  But I would not trade a minute of any of it for anything in the world.  I am so blessed.

And now what I know you all really want to see, the girls in all their glory.

Here it is.  My final session of the year unless I cave and accept a few more clients.  I first photographed these three brothers last fall and they had me laughing the entire time I was with them.  They are so funny together and they feed off of one another.  They make me a little nervous though because I am never sure what they are laughing about.   Enjoy!

Every child that I photographed last week had gorgeous curls.  Lucky me.  This is my third time with Miss Abby and this was the first session that she has been on the go.  She was a busy girl for our session!  She is an absolute doll and I am so happy that I got to see her again.  Enjoy!!

These are friends we have known their entire lives.  These two girls are so so so good to me when it is picture time.  They are fancy little girls and they really thought getting to see me and have their pictures made was a very big deal.  I love them so much and we had such a great time together.  This was the first year we got family images and I am so happy we did.  They are so sweet!  Enjoy!!