and...we're back.

wow. i am way overdue to start blogging again. funny how you can really miss doing something but then the longer that you don't do it, the harder it is to start doing it again.

the truth is that i am excited to be in a new year that feels so ripe with possibility, both in life and in business. we really did have a wonderful break... full of all the people that we love the most. i feel like i got to do all of the
things on my pre-christmas wishlist plus a whole lot more. had some really good family time. played a lot of board games--some more fun than others but all good for future laughs. saw some fake snow at the zoo. ate a lot of really yummy food. stayed up late talking night after night. and...i actually read an entire book. it was fabulous. not even the book so much (though it did have some really beautiful parts) but the actual act of reading a book from start to finish and finding myself so lost inside of it. i discovered this really obvious thing about reading. as life has gotten crazier and crazier over the past year and into this latest season of
Christmas pictures, cards, and a new home, i had really convinced myself that i had no time for anything else. that somehow the best thing for all of the things that needed me (my home, my husband, our business, my own self) was for me to not
do anything else except work. and honestly, i am not sure there were really any options during the months of november and december. but i’m cool with that IF i can remember this: reading makes me better at the other things that
i do and it makes me especially better at being a photographer. so does listening to great music and taking some time to write in my journal. engaging with other types of art helps me with my own art.

it’s like i connect with the parts of me that remind me who i am and what i love. connecting with those things makes me feel alive in the same way that i feel when i’m taking pictures of families and people in love.corey and i have talked a lot this break about writing and what a gift that it is. here is what i love about it: i love reading something and feeling like i want to exclaim outloud, “yes! you’re exactly right. that is exactly the way that i would want to explain that thought or feeling or experience or whatever.” but the coolest part is that i didn’t even know that’s i would have described it until i read it. and it’s a connection. to me, it’s a feeling of being known, a feeling of not being alone, of being understood.

maybe--okay, really probably--this is a stretch but i feel like i have unearthed
what it is i hope photography will be in our lives and in the lives of others. that it will connect people to other people they love in ways that they had not even realized existed. so that when people see pictures that we take, they feel known in some way that they didn’t feel before. people tell me a lot that the pictures they end up loving of their children or their wedding day are the ones where they’re not smiling. it’s the ones where they see something else that is so familiar that it’s like they’ve known it all along. but they never could have descibled it until they saw it. Like I said, a stretch. And maybe just my excuse for trying to wiggle in a little extra time to read more often this year. Anyone have any good suggestions?

aside from my rambling post-vaction thoughts, there are some really exciting things coming up in the next couple of months. corey and i have been spending a lot of time planning and dreaming and we are really looking forward to telling you all the things we have in store. one of those things is a real committment to this
blog. i know that i have not been faithful in updating it but i’m asking for a new chance this year. i hope you’ll visit often. that you’ll let me know what you like and what we oculd do better. that you’ll let me know the information that could be more accessible to you. i’ve said this before but sometimes i think i’m a little too
accessible on this blog. i go back and forth about how much to reveal, how honest to be and whether i should just shut up and show my pictures already. but, for now anyway, i think this is all i know to bring. thanks for reading and happy new year.

things to look for this week on the blog:
-a special deal
-a cool, new kind of session
-the pictures from some fall weddings
-maybe one other announcement but you'll have to check back and see...

also, we gave my mom a family photo session for christmas. here are just a few fun ones from the day. it was cold and rainy but we really wanted to do it while we were in town. we literally had to cover the cameras and run to the car after the last one but it was worth it. how beautiful are my mom and sister-in-law? and the boys in my life are pretty cute, too if i do say so myself...