Central Alberta Family Session ~ A Personal Post ~ Learning to let go

Dear Moms out there that are like me and expect A LOT:

It’s okay when your kids don’t behave like you want them to during your photo session. It is. The world won’t end. I promise. I have proof!

All I wanted for Mother’s Day this year was to have an updated family photo. My husband took the evening off (GASP!!) from seeding which is pretty darn rare! After scouting a field that I wouldn’t get yelled at for driving in to would work well, getting my settings all entered on my camera,  my awesome brother in law played the part of a human tripod and snapped these photos for us.

You can see from the shots below, no one took this session seriously. I figured, whatever. This was the first time in days the 4 of us had been together since Grant was so busy on the farm. I was grateful for the 30 minutes we had together. I realized while seeing these images for the first time once I got home and uploaded them, this IS our family right now. Summer is silly and just wants to dance around and be near her dad. Brody is crazy and is a total mama’s boy and can’t sit still for longer then 3 minutes (unless he’s watching Trucktown). My husband, so comfortable in his own skin, just thinks it’s hilarious anytime I try to make us all look decent, ‘like a family should’. And then there’s me. Exasperated to no end. Lol, but I love everything I feel when I look at these photos. I can hear the giggles from my two kids as I flip through them. I can hear my young at heart husband yell Yee Haw with my son while riding the tree, I can remember how Summer’s lashes fluttered between shots asking if she looked like a princess.   Like I said, proof. The world didn’t end. I took a deep breath. I didn’t threaten anyone with time outs or no treats. No one cried or pouted…or had steam coming outta my their ears.

I just let all my expectations go and let my family be who they are and HOW they are when we’re together. It’s okay that we don’t look like we belong on the cover of a magazine. We belong on our friends’ fridges and our parents’ mantles. In a dusty old frame in the corner of my own grandparents living room! And on my own walls, in the home we’ve built together, as a family, so when we’re all together and happen to look at these portraits, or walk past one, we can remember our time together that evening and how much we enjoy and love one another.

The Schulmeister Family

May 2015

xo Rae