Tim & Rachel :: family

Three weeks ago friends of ours came to spend the weekend with us.  Last year when they came to visit, Rachel was hoping we could do family pictures while they were here (as was I, of course!), but the weather turned rainy and frigid the day we were planning to take them.  We holed up at Queen City Creamery eating ice cream instead.  Incongruous?  Yes, until you counter in the warming butternut squash soup that waited for us when we arrived home.

This year we made plans for pictures again, but held them loosely.  After all, what can you expect in November?  It was a little pretty chilly but not too cold as long as we were sheltered from the wind.  And just like last time, there were little rain drops threatening, then sprinkling, then threatening….  We drove to Cumberland anyway and the rain stopped!  Just delightful.

I love these pictures of their happy little family!

Happiness is siblings to love on, music, and pretty leaves to play in …

Photography does so many things.  It documents the stages of our lives … the soft, pudgy cheeks of a toddler, the sparkly brown eyes of a little girl who loves to play princess … but at the same time, it encapsulates so many emotions and feelings that can’t be described.  Do you ever look back at a picture and go right back to that moment in time?  That moment when being a mom of little ones was truly the best gift you could have ever dreamed about?

I love beautiful, reflective light that showcases details in pictures so well we feel as though we can almost touch the people in them.  But a side of me is also falling in love with photography that is more emotive … a bit organic and earthy.  These sun-drenched pictures speak to me of the laughter of children, the wind in their hair, the happiness that exudes from their faces when they are free to explore and run and play.  Every parent and grandparent will treasure portraiture, but in the decades from now, I think these pictures will be the ones that make me close my eyes and remember how much joy and love and closeness we had in our family.  I love watching Rachel mother her children.  She is so gentle and patient with them, but most of all, I love watching her delight in her children.  Sunday afternoon we all piled into Tim’s suburban and headed into the back country bumping down gravel roads, up and down hills and fording a creek to reach this lovely field of tall, soft grass (after we got through the briery entrance, that is!).  The children ran and tumbled and laughed and ran again as the sun spilled a few last rays of light across the mountain ridge.

And these?  These spell moments of happiness to me.

…. because together is the nicest place to be.