6/52.

I want to remember…how routine activites somehow become magical.

5/52.

I want to remember…how fun it is to see my parents become grandparents.  I never really thought about the other births that happen when a new baby is born…I became a mom, Justin became a dad, our parents became grandparents, my sister became an aunt, my grandpa became a great grandpa.  New roles for all of us!

4/52.

I want to remember…how quickly time passes.  It’s cliche, but my new year’s resolution last year was to stop saying things, “I can’t believe she’s a year old already!” or “I can’t believe January is almost over!”  While all of these things are true, (By the way, HOW IN THE WORLD IS SHE ALMOST ONE!!??  and HOW IN THE WORLD IS JANUARY two thousand fourteen (really?!?! FOURTEEN!?!?) ALMOST OVER!?!?!?)  I don’t want to mourn how quickly time passes nor wish it away.  I guess the moral of the story is to simply enjoy the present.  Awfully cheesy?  Yes.  But oh so true.  And there is no other time that I want to be fully present in my life than now.  These two photos remind me how fast time goes and how much can change in just one short year.  (35 weeks on 1.31.13 and 10 months old 1.21.14)

p.s.  If you want to tear up today, watch this quick video by Boba: You Made Me a Mother 

3/52.

I want to remember…simple Saturday mornings in Maine with my new little family.  The combination of moving to a new town and having a brand new baby slowed the pace of my life way down.  As a photographer, I am almost always working the weekends and rarely have a Saturday that is truly relaxing and Saturday-like.  But I have been so fortunate to take some time off, slow down and soak up time with this girl that is FLYING by.  Our new Saturday tradition here is to take a walk and then go out for a late breakfast.  There are so many incredibly beautiful place to walk here (and great places to eat afterwards!), we try to check out a new place each time but we do have a few favorites pegged.  I’m sure life will have a way of speeding up again and I know when that happens I will look back and wish for one more Saturday just like this.

2/52.

I want to remember…blinking my bleary eyes open to this face first thing in the morning. Followed by a snuggle right into my neck, breathing in sweet baby morning breath, little fingers in my hair, toes digging into my belly.  Tired has never been so good.

I’m embarking on a weekly photo project and though I’m often paralyzed by blogging (dang pefectionist tendencies) I’m going to give it a whirl. I’m loosly using “I want to remember…” as a guide to help me focus on things I want to remember about 2014. Chances are, as a new mother, most all of these posts will be about life with my (why yes, very adorable) baby…  But my ultimate goal is to keep it simple, keep it real and to keep it up.  Wish me luck and follow along if you like!

1/52.

I want to remember…our first Christmas as new parents.  This year, everything has been a first and so far, Christmas has been the ultimate first!  For years and years, I have helped decorate that tree at my grandparents’ house.  I feel so thankful to have strong Christmas traditions and memories…like lighting (with TONS of lights) and decorating trees, my dad meticulously hanging Christmas lights on the house, making lefse, kringle, hardtack (all very Norwegian treats) and cookies too, my mom taking so much care to decorate the house and find just the right gifts, CHRISTMAS CARDS!!!!, the Concordia Christmas concert, candlelight Christmas Eve church, Christmas morning in our pjs, I could go on and on.  I love being rooted in these traditions and I loved seeing Clara experience them for the first time and I loved seeing our families enjoy Clara and I love that we get to carry on these traditions and start our own too!

Ok, so we did the whole house tour but I skipped a very important room!  The nursery!  This was actually the first room that we tackled when we moved in.  Which makes perfect sense since we didn’t really even use this room until she was a couple months old!  Ha…oh well, try telling extremely excited first time parents to be logical and get the rest of the house settled first…

As it turns out we could have kept the pink but at the time we didn’t know if Clara was a boy or a girl so we decided to to ditch it.  Plus, remember I am on a gray, gray, and more gray kick!?  p.s.  Where did all that STUFF come from?!?!  I never think I have that much until it comes time to move…

Let the painting begins. Even if you couldn’t get the best residential painting company philadelphia, get the right color.  Guess what?  Another gray!  This time it’s Cape May Cobblestone by Benjamin Moore.  It’s darker gray than the rest of the house but I think it’s OK.

Now it’s time for crib and rug placement and dresser assembly! We got the crib from (believe it or not) Walmart.  The bottom drawer originally had a wood finish so I painted it white to match the rest.  After that was assembled, the whole business of having a baby became R.E.A.L.  The rug is a Dwell Studio persimmon and cream draper that I got from Sugar and Spice Decor on a good sale.  The dresser is Hemnes from Ikea.  The dog is of the jealous variety but not for sale.

And it’s complete!  I ordered the bunting from Etsy.  I figured I could make one but there were so many cute ones there that I took the easy route!

The Dr. Seuss print was a gift from my aunt and uncle from our wedding that is a scene from the book “Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are”.  The lamp is one I had since I was kid-it was yucky brass and I painted yellow.  The green square is a plain canvas that I hot glued letters on and painted green.

I made the “I love you to the moon and back” prints in Photoshop, printed them at my lab and stuck them in Ikea frames.  And of course, baby’s first camera.

I ordered the colored felted balls from the Fickle Felt Tree on Etsy, grabbed a branch from our yard, tied some twine on top and strung the felt balls with sewing floss.  Oh and I cut out 2 identical hearts from a piece of felt, stuffed it with toilet paper and hand stitched it.  That’s as crafty as I get.

We decided to tweak the closet to accommodate a changing station/storage area.  We (meaning Justin) added the lower shelf and then we (ahem Justin) cut an old bookcase from college in half to fit underneath.  Add some white paint to the shelves and some aqua blue on the walls and call it done!

Not the greatest photo but we added the strip of lights (from Ikea) underneath the top shelf which we now found doubles as the perfect night light!

Overall, I wanted to keep things very gender neutral since we didn’t find out what we were having but now that we have a baby girl, it feels a little boy-ish to me.  We loved having a surprise and I wouldn’t change that for anything but we may have to phase a little pink in as she gets older.  🙂

One of my new year’s resolutions was to eliminate the phrase “I can’t believe it’s __________ already!” Fill in the blank with whatever…. I can’t believe it’s March already, I can’t believe summer is almost over, I can’t believe school started already, I can’t believe I’ve been done with college for 9 years (SAY WHAT!??!) already, I can’t believe he’s 4 years old already, etc, etc, etc. I felt (feel) like time is always slipping by too fast and I knew that as I get older and now have a baby it was just going to get worse. So instead of feeling like I’m always running out of time and not getting around to actually enjoying the present, I wanted to make a resolution to just accept the fact that time goes by fast and there’s nothing I can do about it other than simply live in the present and enjoy it. But, can I just say:

“I CAN’T BELIEVE WE’VE LIVED IN PORTLAND FOR A YEAR ALREADY!!!!”

Dang. I broke my resolution AGAIN but geesh, that went fast. I have an obsession with documenting memories so as milsetones roll by, I get nostaligic and revisit what we were doing a year ago. Moving out of my office. Moving out of our house. Saying goodbye. Shooting three consecutive weddings, one in Southern Minnesota, then one in Western South Dakota, then one in Baltimore. Fighting a cold. Moving into a new house. Unpacking. Growing a baby. More and more unpacking. Adjusting to a new city and new everything. Like most things in life, it’s been a combination of good and bad. Happy and sad. Challenging and worthwhile. Relief and dissapointment. But above all that, I am thankful. And I’m working on simply enjoying today because I know if I don’t, I’ll be saying, “I can’t believe we’ve lived in Portland for two years already!!!!”

Portland is a great city and there’s MUCH cooler things about it than our house. But getting settled into our house really helped me adjust to thinking of this place as home. Doing laundry would be way more productive but here’s the “before” and “after” tour of our house…something I meant to post about 7 or 8 months ago…

Anyway, here’s us moving in…October of 2012.  Why the awkward pose?  We started the tradition back in 2006 (see below…)

Moving in (on the left) and moving out (on the right) of our first home together.  2006 and 2012.

Let the before and afters begin!  Here is the living room before.  Moving in chaos and YELLOW!

And after.  The paint color is Horizon by Benjamin Moore.

The camera shelf is now officially baby proofed and bolted to the wall.

I found the (Pottery Barn!) lamp at Goodwill for $3.99 and painted it yellow.  The prints on the right I made in Photoshop and ordered from my lab.

Kitchen before:

The new wall color is Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter (which I LOVE) and used throughout the kitchen, entry hallway, stairwell and upstairs hall.  We also repainted a good majority of the trim as the previous owners had a mixture of white and off white trim which drove me batty.  The cabinets were also a weird cream/off white/butter color so we painted the base cabinets and had the doors sprayed.  Ahhh, I’m a fan of the white cabinets.  All the trim is Benjamin Moore Simply White.

I missed my light fixture from my office so much so we removed the old pendant shade above the island and took the existing pendant to a local lighting store.  They reworked it to fit the clear glass shade and we added an Edison bulb.  Not the greatest photo of it but I love the modern feel it brings.  Same with the concrete counter tops.  They were here when we moved in but I really do like them!

Dining room before:

And after!  Our instagram collages in the frames on the right.

The very blue half bath on the main level before:

Our house in Minnesota was very brown/tan/rusty red/orange which I liked at the time but by the time we moved out, I was way over it.  And in this house I am very much into the gray with white trim EVERYWHERE.  Justin thinks it feels a little like Russia with all the gray so I went for some COLOR in this room.  It’s Plumage by Benjamin Moore…sort of a peacock/teal/blue-y/green.

And of course my maps to remind us of all the places we’ve lived and loved.

Entry way organization.  Thank you nesting instinct.  🙂

This house is weird in the sense that it has two living rooms very close to one another.  This is dubbed the “TV room”.  Before:

And after.  The walls are Edgecomb Gray.  This is our furniture from our house in MN and so we needed a more brown/tan-ish color for the walls that wouldn’t clash with the Russia gray of the rest of the house.  I don’t LOVE Edgecomb Gray as a color but think it was perfect for this situation.

Stairwell before:

Stairwell after:

Master bedroom before:

And after.  I love the light and airy feeling of this room (Benjamin Moore Horizon again).  But really, Emily?  A white comforter with a black dog and a new baby?  Brilliant.  🙂  Also, those frames initially were waiting for pictures of the baby.  But new mom anxiety set in and they are currently sitting on the floor in the office because I was having nightmares of them falling off the wall while holding a baby in bed.  So we’ll be exploring “safer” options for decorations above the bed.  🙂

Add a pack and play and a bunch of baby stuff everywhere along with an unmade bed and that’s what this room now looks like.  And I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Master Bath…Revere Pewter.

Second bedroom before:

And after.  Edgecomb Gray in here too because we had so much leftover.

Second blue bathroom before:

And after.  Benjamin Moore Horizon again because we had so much leftover.  If I would have been thinking clearer, I would have switched the master bath and this bathroom colors because we have Horizon in the master bedroom and it probably makes more sense to have the master bedroom and bath the same but OH WELL!  Ultimately, all the colors we chose flow pretty well so it doesn’t really matter except to me who tends to obsess a little lot too much over this type of thing…  🙂

Wow, are you still here for all that?  Thanks for indulging my want to be DIY/home renovator self!  Happy Monday!

Hello blog, it’s been (LONG) awhile!  But there is a good reason you have been on the waaaay back burner…Our sweet little Clara June was born on March 6 at 5:22am weighing in at 8lbs. 1 oz and 21 inches long.  Needless to say, we are over the moon in love with her and have been soaking up as much time with her as possible.  I am just barely coming out of the baby bubble I have been in for over four months…I’m still in shock that we have a DAUGHTER (I was guessing she was a boy) with big blue eyes and lots of dark hair!  I have shot one wedding a couple portrait sessions since her birth so I have some new photos to post but in the meantime, let me introduce you to the newest member of our little family:

She doesn’t really look like this anymore since she is four (yes FOUR!) months old already!  You’ll be seeing lots more of her I’m sure but like everyone says, the time is going way too fast so I’m ignoring the computer (and dishes and laundry and weeds in the garden and the list goes on….) and soaking up as much time with her as possible.  We were so fortunate to have the amazing Becca Wood photograph her birth-to watch the slideshow click here.  I’ve debated about whether or not to share her birth story here but honestly, these photos tell the story better than I can and we are forever thankful to Becca for them.  Hope you all had a fantastic 4th of July and thanks for sticking with this neglected old blog!  🙂  More to come, I promise!

Whoa.  We have officially been in Maine for nearly 5 months!  (If you need a refresher as to what has been happening over the past year, you can read this post, this post, and this post.)  I had lofty goals of blogging this whole journey of moving as well as our pregnancy but as it turns out,  both of those things along with the photography work I brought with me have kept me busier than I initially thought AND perhaps even more so, I’ve realized that I’m a little more private that I realized in the past, especially when it comes to dealing with difficult things.  Don’t get me wrong, this move in so many ways felt like the right thing to do and really, it has been great and I’m so thankful for the experience as well as all the new opportunities that it holds.  But it certainly hasn’t been easy to leave family and friends that I love, a business that I worked hard for, and a community that gradually became home over that past six years.  Nonetheless, here we are: happy, enjoying the ride, and getting a lot of use out of our cell phone plans!  And sometime within the next 1-2ish weeks we are going to have our world rocked-even more so than packing up and moving across the country.  Our baby is going to be born!  Yep, that is STILL weird to say.  But we are beyond excited and will post a photo or two of little Baby G when we can.  That leads me to my tentative maternity plan for the next couple months.  I will be taking March through June off and will start shooting again (in both Maine and the Minnesota/Midwest) after that.  I am still taking Minnesota weddings although I am only going to take up to three more weddings in Minnesota/Midwest this summer/fall as my schedule is already filling up fast.  I also plan on doing both mini sessions as well as regular portrait sessions around the times that I am back for weddings.  If you are interested in setting up a portrait or mini session, here are the dates I’m tentatively looking at now: June 9-10, July 14-15, September 1-2, October 25 or 27.  I will update when dates/details are finalized but that’s a rough idea for now!  Thanks for your patience and understanding as I take some time off in the next couple months to figure out what life is like with a baby!  And proof that there really is a baby on the way…

photos by Sarah Field.