It feels so good to be on here in the new year. 2016 was our busiest year yet and the last few months felt like a culmination of all the work completed during the entire year and squeezed into three months. Couple that with bronchitis, laryngitis, strep, our loving family sprinkling in through January, a Christmas party and caroling adventure, 3 birthday celebrations and that makes the recipe for a really exhausted mama. All such great blessings to have, memories made that we could never replicate but only hope to continue to document and enjoy together. But you know what they say.. when you party hard you fall on your face hard that I did. We took an extra few days break after the new year before jumping right into all things Marie Holmes Photography. I made a bit more of a formal “I’m back” post here on fb that you can check out. But from here on out we’ll be chipping away at so much new on the way I truly…. CAN. NOT. WAIT.
I wanted to start the year off with a fun project. Like the chef who orders take out at home (I am sure there are many!) I felt like I was lacking on my own memories. I’m pretty good with birthdays and holidays but after having beta tested some day-in-the-life sessions with some 2016 clients I ended up really wanting to capture that concept for our family but more stretched out. So here we are with a P52 (project 52 weeks) adapted from The Bethadilly Challenge. I stumbled across her prompts when searching to start a P52. One prompt each week, one image and I’m doing it all in black and white. My goal is to focus on creating more thought provoking images, more meaning, more story, more us. I hope I don’t let us down. Somebody hold my hand.
So this image titled “The Gift” which is themed documentary, has a little back story to it. You see our dear beautiful middle child…she is sometimes…. how do I put this? Aggressive with what she wants. Call it middle child syndrome I don’t know. It’s not exactly like she actually feels excluded but she definitely wants to be heard. In fact, often times I feel like we spend more time doing things with her and leaving the 2 boys out so go figure. Maybe it’s because she’s our only girl? Anyway, this gift situation. She was going to a birthday party and we searched 5 stores in one day for a particular gift that she HAD to gift to her best friend. Sweet girl.. perseverance will take her a long way. As you can imagine after so much time in the stores combing through every shelf, searching high and low I grew tired and frustrated because this item was just not going to be available. I began to ask her to start looking for something else she could gift instead and she… what is the word again.. oh yeah persevered and did not want to give up. Finally just finally! We found a version of the item at Walmart. Not thee item exactly but close enough. Thankfully we left the store just before a mother daughter showdown was about to go down. Day of the birthday she carefully bagged up her very thoughtful gift and sat in the passengers side clutching the gift bag ever so tight and then I thought to myself, look at her… so proud to have bought a special gift for her friend with her very own money. What a good friend, so thoughtful and kind. This is life.
Snap snap post.