One of the big things I have struggled with over the past year is taking personal photos.  I started my business because taking pictures (especially of my family) is was what makes my heart sing.  Somewhere along the way it became work.  Getting the camera out to document my own life became a hassle.  Not to mention the trouble of downloading and editing and then blogging the photos.  AHHHH.  Makes me tired to just think about ALL that work for a photo of my daughter.  I mean, she’s standing right here.  I can look at her.  Then I remembered that there are those whose love her that are not so lucky as I.  They don’t get to see Mia everyday.  It’s definitely not everyday that is snows as much as it did today in Texas!  The main thing that got me bundled up and moving this morning was the thought that NOW is the time to record this.  NOW is the time to tell Mia’s story of a snow day.  She will NEVER again be 5 years old on February 11, 2010 with a sparkle in her eyes because it’s snowing.  Time is fleeting and I was suddenly panicked that I might miss it.

I made the time, and my heart sang.

Dear Blog,

I have a confession to make.  This may be hard to take, but I just can’t live with myself if I don’t tell you the truth.  I have been cheating on you.  With Twitter.  I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean for it to happen.  It just did.  Twitter is so easy going and fast and always has time for me.  Twitter makes it SO easy to share photos from my iPhone and always lets me know when my friends have something to say.  I know those reasons are not a good excuse, and I hope you will forgive me for neglecting you.  Maybe this video with make up for it.

Love, Cindy

Here is a little video I threw together (literally) last night.  I videoed and snapped about 20 mins. of Mia playing in our backyard and in about 2 hours had this sweet little video that I have been planning on making for some time now.  I keep watching it over and over and every time it chokes me up.  I can’t watch it without thinking about how someday I will show this to her when she has her own 4 year old.  I’m not sure what it is about the black and white, bubbles and that SONG, but I am just in awe today at how BEAUTIFUL my daughter is.  It makes me forget that she broke my favorite vintage camera and threw up red kool-aid in the MIDDLE of my living room carpet.  When I watch this video all I see is love and happiness!  I hope you enjoy it too.

Mia in the backyard | July 2009 from Cindy Mills on Vimeo.

One of my favorite memories from growing up is of taking pictures in the bluebonnets every spring.  I’m sure people from other states think it’s an odd tradition, but us Texans get excited over a field of bluebonnets.

There is a BEAUTIFUL field of them that I know of….it’s a secret, but I’d be happy to take you there for a session if you want. wink. wink.

Today, Mia and I dropped by to get a few photos.  I haven’t done a mini-session with her in quite awhile.  She went through an uncomfortable smiling phase.  Like the episode of “Friends” where Monica and Chandler go to have their engagement photos taken and Chandler makes that terrible fake smile……..that was Mia.  Anyway, she seems to be over it (mostly) and was very excited by the blanket of blue flowers as far as the eye could see.

It really is amazing and beautiful to see so many bluebonnets in one field.  Tradition passed on.  You can rest easy mom!

Strangely enough Mia LOVES to take pictures.  I just don’t know WHERE she got that from!  Anyway, I thought it would be fun to make a storyboard of a few of the photos she has taken recently with my iPhone.  It just amazes me how beautiful these photos actually are.  I think she has a real talent.  Of course, I could be slightly biased, but I do think that they are beautiful in a very innocent way.  Most of these were taken while I was having lunch with an old friend.  Mia was just keeping herself busy with the camera, but I love how she captured life as it was happening.  This will be printed as a 12×12 storyboard to put in Mia’s room.

My favorite is the one on the bottom left corner of her reflection and her shadow.  See…..beautiful!

I know I have not done a very good job lately of keeping the blog updated.  It’s been a busy few months.  I am getting caught up finally and had a few moments today to finally download some photos.  How sad that my personal photos have sat patiently waiting on the memory card until I had a few moments to finally get them off.

Anyway, here are some photos of the past few months that if I don’t share soon some of my family members are going to come hunt me down and…..well….I’d better just show the photos.

In no particular order:

A day at the park.

A good friend’s birthday party.  First pony ride.

The last day of ballet classes.  A “recital” of sorts.  Mia loved ballet so much!

Halloween.  Mia’s costume got quite the reaction.  She was a princess riding a pink, flying, unicorn.  Not my choice, but she loved it!

The next one was taken after it was completely dark with only the light from the street lamp.  Not too shabby Nikon!  Thanks!

We got to tour the fire station near our church.  Mia thought it was so cool!  I think Saylor thought it was pretty cool too.

Her “Highness” and her buddy “Supergirl” aka Mia’s good friend Emory.

The first day of gymnastics.  The outfit is not near as cute as her ballet outfit.  She likes it though and wears it around the house all the time.  I think she is going to like gymnastics even more than ballet.

And last but not least some pictures from just last week.  It was cold out and told Mia if she wanted to play in the backyard she would have to put on warm clothes.  This is the outfit she came up with.  Her princess dress, a sun hat, a jacket and her warm boots (although I don’t think you can see them in the pictures).  I don’t know how warm she was, but it made me laugh!

I love that smile!

Have a great weekend!

I have really been struggling recently with the balance between documenting my own life and the life of my family with documenting other people’s lives. I LOVE my job! Maybe, I love it too much because I’ve been so busy lately that I’m starting to feel a little uninspired. Especially when it comes to taking photos for myself. I use to be an avid scrapbooker and had a strong desire to document the little things in life. All the mundane, day to day, little moments that when all put together make a life. If you ever want to waste some time go back to the beginning of my blog and you’ll see what I mean. I had the time to document what Mia was having for breakfast on a Tuesday or when she got into the Ovaltine and ate it with spoon. Now, it just seems that all I have time to do is work. Don’t get me wrong, I truly LOVE what I do. I get giddy over bridal portraits and ecstatic over a great wedding reception capture. The struggle is…….how do I keep up the enthusiasm about photos that I take for myself?

So what am I doing about it? Even though I don’t really scrapbook anymore I have continued to religiously read the blog of Ali Edwards. She is so talented and I really love her style of design. Lots of simple graphic elements and just the right words. She is currently walking her readers through a great project and I decided that I needed to MAKE time to do it. It’s called “A week in the Life” and the assignment is to document a week in your life through photos and words. It’s a bit of a challenge to drag the big camera everywhere I go, but so far it is SO worth it. I realized just how worth it when I got this photo this morning on the way to Mia’s ballet class.

As for being inspired??? I’m feeling it!

Mia started her ballet lessons today.  She was BEYOND excited about it.  We grabbed a few quick photos before leaving the house (notice the car door is already open in the background).  She looked so cute in her little ballet outfit with her new haircut.  So grown up!

Check out that funny face.

When we got to class the teacher shooed the parents out into the hall and we were able to watch through the windows with blinds on them.  It wasn’t easy to get photos THROUGH the blinds.   I tried anyway.  Mia was a little bored with the stretching and kept getting up and looking out the window.  While the teacher taught the class first position Mia twirled in the corner.  While the teacher taught the class how to point their toes Mia pointed out to the teacher where her car was in the parking lot.  She leaped and made faces in the mirror while the other girls walked around on tiptoes.  But when they went to the ballet barre…….she loved it.  I guess in her mind NOW she was finally a ballerina.  It was really SO cute with all the little girls pointing their toes!

Mia and I had a girl’s salon day today. Not really, we just got our hair cut, but she acted SO grown up. She quietly “read” a magazine while I got my hair cut and then when it was her turn she crawled right up in the chair to get her hair washed. No crying or screaming or arguing! She was a big girl! She had enough hair cut off that she was able to donate to Locks of Love. I explained it to her, but I don’t think she quite grasped the concept. Mia’s new cut is SO cute. I can’t wait to see if she’ll let me try styling it so I can get some photos with the REAL camera.

We had a little excitement around here last night. Around 5:30 Mia was entertaining us with her dancing skills which tend to include a bit of gymnastics also. She attempted a handstand which turned into a side roll and came up crying. She did something to her arm and we still haven’t figured out what happened exactly. We think she landed on a My Little Pony. Anyway, she hurt her arm and by 8:30 it was still hurting enough that Saylor decided it was time for a trip to the Dr. I’m glad I didn’t have to make that decision. We went to Acute Kids Care and spent about an hour and a half freezing in the little exam room. Mia had an X-ray done on her arm and luckily it was NOT broken, just sprained so she still got a sling for it. She has to keep it on until Monday….then we start ballet on Tues. It should be a FUN weekend! She has complained about it still hurting this morning but still wants to go to playgroup. What a trooper!

Here are some photos of our little adventure. Taken with my iPhone (excuse the quality)

And her X-Rays……..

I’m not sure why but being able to see my child’s bones like this was a little emotional. It makes her look so tiny and fragile. I’m so thankful she is o.k.

My sister-in-law and her family visited this weekend. Mia and her cousins played and played and played until we were ALL exhausted. We don’t get to see them very often so it was a really fun weekend of catching up and playing (for the kids). Shellee and I discovered a new passion for Sprinkles cupcakes, the kids and Nana danced the tooty-ta (don’t ask) and the guys went to the shooting range. I think everyone had a wonderful weekend. I grabbed a few pictures of the kids together just before they had to say goodbye.

This one is getting printed BIG for Mia’s room.

My nephew….he just lost his first tooth!