Oh Hi!  Thank you for being here.  I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately and I’ve realized this little home of mine has gotten a little bit boring.  OK, if I’m being honest, it’s probably always been a little bit boring.  I’ve used this blog mainly to showcase client sessions.  Which isn’t bad if you happen to be the client and want to show off your amazingly beautiful family to all your friends and family, or you happen to be on the hunt for a friendly neighborhood newborn photographer.  But, it’s not exactly engaging (even I’m bored with it.)

So I’m thinking its time for a bit of a spruce up.  But before I talk about what’s to come.  I wanted to take a look back on what’s come before.  And by what’s come before, I mean how I got here.  WHY I got here.

Warning, today is the rock bottom part.  You know, the part of the story where everything goes to crap and you wonder will she overcome it or will it overcome her.  (Spoiler Alert: I’m still standing)

In 2009, my mom who was really truly my best friend (not in that everyone says that way but in the we talked every single night for an hour way), was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer.  We all lived in a bit of optimistic denial.  I believed in magic and I believed that she was going to be here for a very very long time.  She was going to get to meet her grandson that I was carrying around in my growing belly.  She was going to be OK.  So it was quite the punch to the gut when I got the phone call on my drive home from work one night telling me I had to get home quickly, she wasn’t going to make it.

I sat by her bed praying for a miracle.  But a miracle didn’t come and on May 5, 2009, I lost my best friend, and my belief in magic.  Life lost its color.

Six months later, on Thanksgiving, I became a mom to an awesomely beautiful boy.   I was still reeling in grief and I held onto that baby boy with every fiber of my being.  I clung to him not knowing where I was going, but knowing that he was my reason for getting there.

Six months later I found out I was expecting our second baby and in the late afternoon the following February, three weeks early, on my Mom’s birthday, my second baby boy made his way into the World.  You guys, on my mom’s birthday!  I started to wonder if I had given up on Magic a little too quickly.

So here’s a big confession.  I feel really guilty about the beginning of my boys’ lives.  I was pretty wrapped up in learning how to live life without my mom.  The first time I remember seeing color was when the Cherry Blossoms bloomed in the Spring of 2011 (Sam was one and a half and Will was 4 months old).  I loved my babies, I needed them, but that whole magical newborn phase, it was kind of lost on me.

So when the color started to seep back into my World and the fog of grief started to slowly lift (slowly!!) I felt like I had already missed so much.  Like I had taken for granted all the moments with these amazing little beings that had already passed.  And I had this unquenchable need to start noticing, start remembering, burn their details into my mind.  So I picked up my camera.

And that’s where my journey to here really began.

Hang tight!  The journey down memory lane continues tomorrow with Everyday Magic Part 2.