Each year we celebrate Halloween as a family. This year was bittersweet as four of the cousins will be graduating high school in June and may not make it back home next year for our annual tradition. We’ll make our memories whenever and however we can.
Tagged: childhood, Halloween, photography
He’s been begging for months to go camping. The weather, logistics, sheer effort stalls us. Anthony offered backyard camping and to our surprise he was appeased, as long as they slept in the tent all night. How we take for granted the incredible power we have, to be able to give our child his heart’s desire.
Tagged: camping, childhood, photography
Tagged: birthday, childhood, parenthood, photography
I made a human.
Three actually.
By the grace of God and biology my body coddled and nurtured a human being, releasing it from my womb at the moment it could breathe air.
But my job was far from done.
Breathing alone wasn’t enough to sustain life.
Things like eating and burping and sleeping in the exact right quantities needed to be tended to. Each miraculous milestone followed by the anxiety of achieving the next.
After they learned how to not spit up their meal I needed to focus on things like reading and puberty and social dynamics and politics and being conscientious and being kind and being a good friend and not over-eating and under-sleeping.
All of these little life skills taught over and over again.
With the constant, age old hope that they will be decent human beings. That they will raise another generation of decent human beings.
I am flawed.
How can I not pass on my flaws to my children? As inevitable as the tide and the sunrise.
The best I can do is laugh with them, own my mistakes and ask for forgiveness.
Oh and love them, with all my human being-ness. 
Tagged: B&W photography, childhood, Mexico, motherhood, photography, Sayulita, travel
God bless Oliver, a boy with wit, silliness and sincerity. Observant and inquisitive, noticing all the details that make him thoughtful and make him worry.
Tagged: childhood, faith, family, first communion, photography
Remember that time you blew out Oliver’s birthday candle? We had just finished singing “Happy Birthday” and before Oliver even knew what happened the candle was out. But I knew exactly what happened. With friends and family gathered around, with cameras rolling, this moment was documented forever. Look at Oliver’s and Penny’s faces, still waiting to blow out the candle that is no longer lit. But your face reveals your guilt. You were only five. Just a young child yourself. Unfair to ask you to be fair, unfair to ask you to be considerate of your baby brother, unfair to ask you to practice self-control. And look at my face, but worse, look at my hand. I have loved and hated this photo. I loved it for the honesty and realness of a mother in a moment of little patience with three children five and under and I have hated this photo because it captured me at my worst. Yet looking at this photo now as you turn twelve I have a different appreciation of this photo. Since the day you were born you carry our dreams and expectations. Your five was different than Penny’s five and Oliver’s five.
Tagged: birthday, childhood, family photography, Lucas, photography
A multi-year campaign built by the Earth Day Network is to End Plastic Pollution. For Earth Day, Ellanor C. Lawrence Park hosted an afternoon of walks, talks and games to teach us how plastics impact our environment.
Odyssey of the Mind is an international creative problem-solving program that allows students to use creativity and teamwork to solve a challenge problem with a long-term solution. For our first graders the theme was to create a cooking show. The kids created the script, scenery and props.
His first season of basketball he had never attempted to dribble a ball until the first practice. From chucking the ball when his dribbling skills slowed him down to going after every rebound and passing to his teammates his growth is a testament to the patience and diligence of his coaches and his tenacity.
