I admit since having an iPhone, I use it to capture every day moments of my kiddos a lot more than I did before I had one. You use what you have and what you have with you. I do love having grabbed quick snapshots with my phone. But I also want to get better at picking up my DSLR and capturing every day moments of our everyday life again. And more importantly, editing them, printing them and putting them in scrapbooks like I used to do. I carry a lot of mama guilt about how as we’ve had more children, I’ve gotten more behind on scrapbooking all the photos I have. 2016 is the year to change that. I may not get completely caught up, but I have been taking steps to organize what I have and work on projects more. Our kids love looking at photos of themselves, our family and our adventures. I decided more than anything, they need the gift of those memories printed and given to them to enjoy in a tangible way. It’s what I stress to my clients and why I specialize in creating albums from their YOURStory sessions. But when work and life get busy, personal photos get pushed down the to do list. Not right, but a reality. Hoping to change that this year…

I also like the freedom and flexibility my DSLR allows me when trying to capture a scene how I want. With my phone, it’s very much you get what you get. Photography has been a journey and will continue to be that for me. I need to be in the habit of taking pictures again even between clients and doing more personal projects because it’s really what helps me grow. While I have always wanted to grow in my technical skills, sometimes I just have to shoot and play, mess with settings, make mistakes, get composition right, but lighting wrong or have great lighting and miss my focus, etc. As a professional who prides myself on doing a great job for my clients, that pains me to say. But, honestly, I’m not perfect and either is my photography. I will always be growing and changing as will my skills.

I realize this post is a little all over the place, so it’s time to get on to the photos…no one reads these posts anyway, except maybe my mom. And that’s okay too. This is for me. Sometimes I care too much what anyone else thinks. Ugh, why is that? Working on that in 2016 too…ok, really onto the photos.

I love being able to look out my kitchen window. We have a beautiful tree out front planted there when my inlaws lived in this house. I can see the barn and a few pastures when I look out, although when the tree is green and busy, the barn isn’t quite as visible. This was a quick snow storm that came in, but if I remember correctly didn’t last too long and as you can tell, didn’t dump too much snow either. I wanted to make sure I got some of our winter scene as we didn’t have a super snowy winter.

This winter both the girls played basketball. We had our bums in the bleachers every Saturday in February and a few in March. There was no place else I’d rather be. Both of them grew a lot this year in their skills and it was fun to watch their teams come together during the season.

Moon sand. Best gift ever. This stuff (while still a little messy) has proven to be a great way for our little miss to use her imagination. It’s something she can do on  her own if I’m in the middle of work or changing laundry, etc. She was having a great time “baking” with it. I loved hearing her little voice describe all she was doing. This is what childhood looks like.