One year ago today marked the last day I had a 40-hour per week job.  I said goodbye to a precious little girl and thank you to her family for letting me care for her for a year, while bringing my oldest son, Soren, along.  Truthfully, that was a really hard year.  Trying to balance being a mom of a one-year old while working to pay the bills by caring for a newborn only to find out a few weeks into your new job that you're expecting another baby was stressful.  On top of it, I had my business and it was growing, changing and improving.  I wanted to be good to my clients and to my kids and my husband and my job and myself and I couldn't do it all anymore.

So with a great deal of fear and exhaustion, I took my husband's hand as he encouraged me to leap forward into becoming a full time photographer.  And last night as we sat on the couch laughing and dreaming and hoping and trying to stave off anxiety with gratitude I realized something, this is not what I originally wanted.

Let me explain.  Seven years ago when I married the man I was, and still am, madly in love with, his mom called me up a few weeks before the wedding.  She asked what we would like as a wedding gift, what was something we didn't have but would really love to have.  My answer was, a camera.  But not a big DLSR, I wanted a little point and shoot because mine had broken and we had no way to take photos on our honeymoon.

So when my new in-laws showed up at our rehearsal with a great big bag that had a great big box with numbers and letters that I didn't understand in the slightest and a giant camera in it, my heart sank.  I didn't know how to use that thing and now we weren't going to have any photos of our honeymoon.  To add to my disdain, the morning of our wedding my future husband called me from Best Buy to ask about exchanging the camera for the newer model that just came out.  Since I had no idea what any of it meant and had resigned myself to the fact that the camera was a gift for him and not for us, my answer was "get whatever you want."  Because, it wasn't what I wanted.

(I took this photo on our honeymoon and could hardly contain my excitement, I didn't give the camera back the rest of the trip.)

Fast forward, past my incredible selfishness, I learned that not only did I have a remarkably talented husband who knew all about this strange device in that box but also he was willing to teach me about it.  I picked up the thing I never thought I would ever want and I fell in love.

Through years of learning and failing, falling and getting up again I find myself here, a business owner while still being the mom of two incredible boys and wife of my biggest fan.

I cannot express how grateful and humbled I am that I didn't get what I wanted, but instead was given a gift to express a gift I never knew I had.  I was sitting with Noah last night honestly trying to imagine what on earth I would be doing if not for this, and I cannot imagine my life without it.

So thank you.  Thank you to Noah for being my teacher and my second shooter and my foot massager and my reality checker.  Thank you to those who trusted me to watch your children so I could make this leap forward.  Thank you to my couples who have trusted me in this last year and been willing to make this journey with me.  Thank you to those who have been there since the beginning.  As always, thank you to Micah & Cassie for trusting us to take your wedding photos six years ago, I am still blown away by the gift you gave me by saying yes to letting us shoot.  Thank you to those who have read this far, let's get together soon.

Thank you to Kevin & Shauna for our amazing wedding gift seven years ago.
Seven years ago, this was not what I wanted and I am forever grateful.