Back to School

All summer long I was counting down the days with dread, knowing that my sweet baby girl would soon be starting kindergarten.  Yes, I work full time, which means that I have long been accustomed to sending her off every day with a smile on my face and a little pang of sadness in my heart, but there was just something that felt so big and different about this new change - big new school, backpack, lunchbox, uniform, school supplies.  My little girl was going to be taking the first real step in the long journey that is her school years, and that reality was so much more than my heart could handle.  Not that I could ever stop her from growing up so quickly, but it just feels so much more out of my control now!

As a kid, I always loved the fall and going back to school, so I knew that I wanted to do a little styled session for her to mark the milestone - with her first little uniform and her brand new backpack and lunchbox.  But when the time came, it just rained and rained.  So I waited until the next weekend, and it rained again.  Finally, just as I was starting to wonder if she would be in first grade before I pulled this session off - over two weeks after she actually started school (and three times of "borrowing" that big bulky chalkboard) - it happened.  And I'm so thankful that we'll always have these memories. . .

I haven't been shooting my own kids as much as I'd like to or feel like I should lately, and even when I do, the images just sit on my computer unedited and unprinted.  So it felt really good to actually finish and edit a personal session. Maybe now would be a good time to actually go back and edit Parker's cake smash session - now that he's...um...almost 16 months?!  :)