PhotoJenic Photography [blog]

A few days before Easton was born, we moved.  Note to self…pregnancy and moving don’t mix…I know, I’ve moved 3 of my 4 pregnancies, and it sucks. Especially when you’re moving at 40 weeks pregnant and it continues the weeks following while you’re sleep deprived and hormonal and your husband has to be gone moving all.the.time…thankfully we’re done having babies, cuz maybe now we’ll never.move.again.

We had a beautiful, much older home that we loved and had remodeled for a few years, however with the unstable economy and the amount of work and money it still needed (mainly in the form of yards, the pool and a bit more interior work), we sold it.  It was, and still is, a very hard decision for me…but I kind of think this quote says it best…

So much of our blood, sweat and tears…and MONEY went into that house. It was definitely a dream project for us to take on, and we did it.  We didn’t finish like we wanted, but our “wants” changed and in the name of more family time, long term financial security and less projects (no honey I just said less, not zero)…we moved on.

That part is hard, moving on. It’s not really the house at all, although it is heart wrenching to look at these photos of our personal selections throughout…but it’s all the other stuff. The memories we made, the accomplishments & learning we mastered…and failed, the time working with our little boys on yards, baseboards, paint and moldings. It’s the dreams now changed, the close walk to the school, the friends we made, the kids sitting up on the wall between our house and the neighbors. It’s knowing we brought our baby girl home there, the long driveway for bike rides and the big yard (that we were so.sick.of.mowing). Most of all it’s the end of an era, a separation of friendships and a time to regroup and start over…CHANGE…I don’t tend to like it one bit.

So in my effort to move forward, I first want to remember and share what was…to remember we DID IT, even if it didn’t go the way we originally planned…

We started with this…wallpaper covered nearly every room of this house…it.wasn’t.pretty.  We spent HOURS scraping those walls. In this room we took out the pantry, false ceiling, low pony wall and kicked out the wall on the left about 6 feet to increase the room size by a lot…

That took us to about this point where we built out a corner pantry to maximize our space. We also raised the ceilings in the hallways, which ended up making it feel so much bigger in there.

This shows the exterior area where we built a new wall gaining a lot of space in the kitchen.

And after 4 months during a hot summer, with no A/C because the ceilings were torn up, while pregnant with little kids…we finally were able to move into this…(ok the decorating was done later but you get the point)

I almost forgot how much I love those cabinets…until I make dinner tonight and struggle with the pot/pan cabinet =)

The living room also had some of that pretty baby blue wall paper and some pretty pink carpet too!

Without too much effort it became a much prettier space…

And as I’ve done more thinking on this over the past year than I care to admit, the end result is this…this “House” became our “HOME” not because of the cabinets I loved, or the tile we selected…but because of THESE PEOPLE which we created fabulous memories with.  And the best part about change is that they all come with the move, and together we will make our new “HOUSE” a fabulous “Home”, in fact, we already started =)

I’ll share a couple more of our remodel pics in another post! And I look forward to sharing before/after pics of the new house, which we LOVE, at some point too!

 

2012

It will not take much for 2012 to be better than 2011…it’s possible I could mark 2011 as one of my least favorite/most difficult years in my adult life. And it’s over…and I survived. And while nothing completely life changing is to blame for my difficult year…and plenty of people had a MUCH harder year…I’m just grateful I can move forward and make this year SO.MUCH.BETTER.

SO with that I have a very short list of my 2012 goals. I don’t want a bunch of nonsense resolutions…just some REAL, meaningful, personal goals…things I can focus on and live by.

This year, in no particular order I want to…

Be PRESENT in my life…I want to answer questions more, spend more time, laugh more, play more, pray more, hug more, compliment more, study more, teach my kids more and have more patience. This year I want to focus on being the wife and mother I want to be…and I’ll embrace the hard times and know that they are frequent…but short…and pray for better times to follow the hard ones, because they usually do.

With that I have a goal of some sort of organization to the dreaded dinner hour! I HATE cooking, meal planning, recipe trying and especially grocery shopping…but you see I have 4 kids, so this year, I’m going to try and cook more, plan more and grocery shop with a list. I won’t be perfect at this, and that’s ok, but I want to try to do it more.

In my business I want to be more intentional and present with my clients. I plan to do more face to face appointments to help clients make their photos their art. I want people to see and enjoy their images on their walls as much as I do…because I believe it truly makes your home a happier place. I hope to incorporate studio viewing appointments in the near future.

I want to exercise again. Yes, I want to be skinny, lose weight and shed all those baby pounds…but that’s not my 2012 goal. My goal is just to do more, eat better and TRY. I’m not going to beat myself up for a treat, a bad week and another Dr. Pepper. That just sets me up for failure. I will however, work on running again. Get fresh air. Eat more vegetables, drink more water and be more intentional with my health…cuz it matters.

I’m going to take.more.pictures. Well this probably seems like a no brainer…but you see, I take pictures for a living…and you know what that means? I never take pictures for fun. This year, I’m changing that. I WILL document my family in the mundane, day to day life as well as the bigger/more fun life experiences. I never bring my camera places, cuz I just don’t feel like downloading and editing more…and it’s dumb…and I’m losing out on great photos…so this year I will take more pictues. Some with my Iphone for convenience sake…and others with my 5D MarkII…either way I will have photos of my kids and our life this year!

And on that note, my last real intentional goal of this year is to PRINT.MY.PICTURES. I won’t get caught up from all the years past, I can’t print and organize years of photos all at once, but I will start. I have this disease of perfectionism. I don’t want to do an album or a book online because I just want to do something really cool and unique with all the really great vendors I can work with…and so my photos sit…on my hard drives…and my kids can’t see them!! Because I’ve never had “time” to do the really cool ideas, they just haven’t done much of anything, except for what is on my walls. This year will bring a mix of small, loose 4×6 prints in a lame Target album that I probably already have…and some other digital books, and I plan to even print up one or two quality photo albums from one of the wonderful album vendors I’m able to order from. It won’t necessarily be done, but I’m striving that it will be better than years past!

That’s it. Which already seems like a lot…but hopefully it’s still a manageable list.

And even though this post is already too long and you CLEARLY don’t have time…I will say, neither did I the day I watched this…but I watched it anyway…and boy has it resonated with me. I love this, yes it can sound cheesy and no motherhood isn’t all rosey, but it hits the nail on the head. And it sure has helped me the past few weeks as I work on being PRESENT in my life.

The gift of an ordinary day…

What about you? What are your new years goals?

Still precious and sweet, we passed the 2 month mark recently and here are some pics of our not quite as little…little man…

Who are you calling chubby?

At his 2month check up, he weighed a whoppin’ 13lbs 13oz! He’s in the 75% percentile and as his Dr. put it, he is “well fed.” Actually she kind of made me feel like my seasoned “mom to 4″ self wasn’t doing much of anything right, but oh well…we’re all surviving even if he isn’t sleeping as long as she says he should =)

He LOVES his binky, as in he can’t live without that thing! He sometimes sleeps one long stretch at night of 6 – 8 hours but since that starts much earlier than I go to bed, I’m still feeling quite tired.  His happy place is swaddled tight, with his binky while laying in his swing…that’s how you calm him when he’s overdone.

Like our other three kids, he’s got reflux =(  He started off really bad where he’d asperate it and it would come shooting out his nose and make him stop breathing temporarily, it was so sad!!  It seems this is happening less and less so I’m hopeful his post feeding fussiness will improve as well.  That’s about it…we sure love having him in our family.