Another Thing that Happened the Last 8 Years

Speaking from a personal perspective, another thing that happened the last 8 years that I've been in school and putting my business on "coast" vs "gas pedal", is all my kids grew up.  I look back on the years with my kids in my home with such nostalgia and fondness.  I absolutely adore the three people I created. 

As a mother, the snapshots and portraits that I spent my children's childhood making are now the art of nostalgia on my walls. We did so much together and spent a lot of time together.  I wasn't perfect, but I sure tried hard to do my best with everything that I knew.  Then, when I knew better, I did better. I worked really hard while they were growing up, and my photography business allowed me to prioritize them and work my schedule around their needs. My business allowed me to be able to buy them clothes, transportation, it contributed to the roof over their heads, and allowed me to buy toys, outfit them for school, buy furniture, pay for birthday and Halloween parties, and renovate our home. My business paid for several Disney trips and other trips to visit family. My business gave them a great childhood. (Another reminder that hiring small business and local businesses, money goes straight to family budgets and not corporate profits.)

My kiddos probably remember me in front of my computer in the later evening hours trying to get editing done. I feel like I balanced that out with quality time in other times of the day as well.  Our stomping ground was Edmonton at the time and we visited the Muttart Conservatory, West Edmonton Mall, and Fort Edmonton every year together. We would do as many activities as we could. Summertime was the best, but also very busy (weddings on the weekends).  It is fitting that the pictures on this blog were taken at Fort Edmonton.  After we moved to Lethbridge in 2009, we would travel to visit Fort Edmonton and we traded our Edmonton stomping grounds for Waterton National Park and camping together. 

We never know what is around the next corner of life, so prioritizing your people and making sure they know you love them is the point of life itself.  Relationships. 

I'm so proud of each one of my kids and am thoroughly enjoying this stage of life with them. 

From a mother and a photographer, take lots of pictures and treasure them.  Doing that captures windows of time that close shut and final, never to be opened again, and all you are left with are priceless pictures and memories.