Grateful

There's all this driving and reeling and running and scheduling.

It's insanity and exhilarating all at once.

I could complain, but the truth is, I wouldn't change much.

More time with the family, s l o w l y taking it all in? -Well, yeah, there is that.

Time to process life as it is happening, instead of running to the next thing scrawled on the calendar? - might be nice.

But there is this word that encompasses what God is teaching me right in this moment, and it is Gratitude. I am going through a book about it, with a friend. Gratitude reminders are getting deposited into my heart and mind through songs, sunsets, soft skin...

Deposit, deposit, deposit.

Be grateful. In everything.

Breathe it in.

Fill your heart.

Recognize it.


So, I choose to be grateful as I run and jump and scrub and try to pace myself through it all.



Several have asked about the wedding last weekend.

Yes, we did it! We made it through our first wedding as photographers, working together.

It was exhilarating.

It was exhausting.

It was great for gaining experience.

And we got some gems in amongst our combined 1,000 + photos.

(More here)

Not sure if I can say this enough: God has blessed me so much in what he has put into my life! 

I love what I do.

I get to be a wife,

a mom,

a photographer,

and a crisis pregnancy counselor.

I get to sing in our church's worship team, teach 3rd-6th grade girls in awana, lead our Mom2mom group, be a part of a neat camera club, write freely on my blog, make my house a home, be an encourager to a wonderful man, invest deeply in the lives of 4 of the most amazing boys.... I could really go on and on.

 I am living so many of my dreams.

Some days are just plain hard (as I admitted in my last post).

Some days are pure chaos.

Some days are sweeter than you could imagine.

But always.. gratitude.... always.

As I close this to run to the next thing that is calling out to me, I want to let you know that I am planning to do a photography post soon. I feel like I, personally, have barely even begun to scratch the surface of the vast amount of knowledge there is in mastering this skill, so I have hesitated with going forward with the photography post for a while. That being said, I went from a point and shoot to an SLR camera a little over 2 years ago and I learned most of what I know from blogs and on line resources. Regular, every day people sharing what they have learned is one of the best ways to sharpen skills! If you have any questions or topics you would like to read about, pertaining to photography or photo editing, please let me know in the comments of this post. I may or may not be able to address them, but I thought it would be really fun to share some of what I have learned!