I’m a practice what I preach kinda gal.  Except when it comes to harping on my kids about drinking more water… I do not drink enough water. There I said it.  My big dirty sin out for the world to see.  I am dehydrated most of the time.  Or at least not at peak hydration.  It’s a problem.

Anyway now that that’s out of the way, now let’s move on to the advice I regularly give that I actually follow.   I see a chiropractor regularly, I go to as many concerts as I can manage and I ignore almost all parenting advice… see practicing what I preach.  I also spend a decent sum of money every year on family photography.  I’m not that photographer who sets up a tripod and takes my own family pictures, or only has pictures of their kids.

I like pretty much every other mom on the planet am insecure about the way I look, the pimple on my forehead, my bad posture or the lack of rock hard abs.  BUT I look past that crap because OHHH MEER GAWD I want to remember every damn second with these tiny people.  I look at little Lenny Wilde and remember Danger as a baby the whole time thinking HOW DID THIS HAPPEN!!   I want to take it all in.  Every exhausting, stressed out, pushed to the limit moment.   So every year I saddle up and take out my wallet and hire the most talented people I know.  Then I fill my walls, and albums and heart with my people.  My little tribe frozen in time.

This year we struggled with the idea of having just hired Lauren to do our Birth and Newborn Photos and the reality of Baby 4.0 coming 14 months after Lenny’s arrival meaning we’ll be investing in photos again very soon.  We still wanted to capture some of the in-between.  I couldn’t imagine not having a forever memory of what life with just us 5 was like. Also I didn’t want another thing for Lennon to complain to her therapist about one day, you know third child birth order and all.  So I told my pals Josh and Jenny EFF IT! PLEASE COME! How much for you to come from Kansas City and hang with us for an entire day! I want the whole shebang!  I planned ahead so I could save to afford their awesome them BAM! We did it.   Honestly, the time leading up to them coming was riddled with BAHHHH!! Our living room wall was still torn apart and the morning we shot the video there was a tile installer just a mere 15 feet from our pancakes grouting.  Life isn’t perfect.  Life is hard and messy and exhausting but man is it worth remembering.  I love these images now, our video is my heart wrapped up into 5 minutes and 41 seconds, but what is more amazing to be is how much I will love and cherish these stills and video 10, 20, 50 years from now if I’m lucky enough to still be here.

So, before I show you these little snippets of my soul and step down from my soapbox I’ll say this.  Whether it’s me, whether it’s the person down the street or whether you fly in the fanciest photographer money can buy PLEASE, PLEASE invest in your memories, every day we buy the newest TV, or Car, or another latte and we push aside our memories to be captured by an iPhone.  I’d hate for one day the only pictures your kids have of you together to be a blurry selfie on Facebook.

Mic Drop.  OUT!