Which makes me laugh, because the photo composition is definitely not the best, but who cares right?
I started looking back at some of the photos from childhood and I love the few photos of my mom. I love seeing her doing the same things I am now...every day mothering. She looks so beautiful to me.
I'm going to try to be better at "getting in the picture". No matter what, no excuses: makeup-less, fat pants or not, the dark roots showing, under eye circles not covered-I have to let that go because it's ALL-the good AND the not so good-a reflection of my life.
Well done! I love those pictures. So what if the composition is not the best. It's what they represent. After I nearly died last year I vowed to have more pictures taken of myself with the kids and with my husband. I realised they'd have nothing to remember me by since I'm always behind the camera. I'm still not as good at doing it as I'd like to be, but I'm getting better.
ReplyDeleteI love the picture of you and Janey by the foggy bathroom mirror! Captures one of those everyday, but precious, moments we experience as mothers.
ReplyDeleteYou are the spitting image of your mother!
I think the composition is absolutely perfect. I love this movement and think it is so important to get in the picture. I have been really trying lately, and only hope my kids will look back on these pictures fondly.
ReplyDeleteYour Mum looks amazing and so do you! Keep those photos coming!
ReplyDeleteCheers
Linda
Your Mum looks amazing and so do you! Keep those photos coming!
ReplyDeleteCheers
Linda
Your Mum looks amazing and so do you! Keep those photos coming!
ReplyDeleteCheers
Linda
You look just like your Mom! Beautiful!!! I like seeing you in pictures, it tells the real story of everyday motherhood, keep it up; I love your blog.
ReplyDeleteSnapshots of family life don't need good composition - they speak for themselves...
ReplyDeleteI think the picture of that sweet baby girl after a bath is the sweetest.
ReplyDeleteyou look gorgeous in the photo with janey after the bath. thanks for inspiring me to get in the picture.
ReplyDeleteI just told my husband a few weeks ago that I needed to take pictures and to be in more pictures. Like many of us we are usually behind the camera. I like this challenge cause as I look back at my photos I am no where to be found even though I am right there.
ReplyDeleteLove the pictures the boys took, they are the best! And you look so much like your mother.
Yes you are right, and your Mum looked beautiful - and so do you.
ReplyDeleteThat makes so much sense and your children will love to look back at how lovely you are just like you have done with your mother. Just lovely and so true.
ReplyDeleteI read that from Saydi too. It's so true.
ReplyDeleteAnd I love the first 2 photos! Janey is getting so big...
i think the composition of both pictures is really great actually! you've got a couple of blooming photographers!
ReplyDeleteSarah, you are beautiful! And I love the photos of your mom! You are right - I am rarely in photos, let alone photos of me mothering. And now the kids put them on facebook! I make sure I have my privacy set...cuz if my neck wrinkles are showing I'm not approving....I guess that's vain, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteJust last night I was going through Shutterfly ordering photos from my daughter's fifth grade "Moving Up" ceremony in June. I remember that day I was so upset when I saw the pictures of myself - my hair didn't look right, I felt overweight, etc. Thankfully I didn't delete them right away because when I looked at them last night, all I really noticed was how happy my daughter and I both looked. It was a great reminder that I can't get these precious times back and that if I avoid pictures because of vanity, I'm cheating my family and myself of these memories.
ReplyDeleteSunday night my husband kindly set up the system to copy an 18 year old family travel video to dvd, and I sat there for over two hours writing down the important points to put on the label.
ReplyDeleteI was struck by how happy we sounded, this big family of 9, since the camera was usually focused on the scenery around us and we weren't often in the picture.
That's important to remember - that families are happy! We are all part of them. Our children don't look for our wrinkles and blotches. We don't look for theirs, either.
We women need to look for happiness in all situations possible.
You are so beautiful Sarah, inside and out!
ReplyDeleteI too read Saydie's article. It is going to be a challenge but so worth it in the end.
ReplyDeleteThose are beautiful pictures! Your boys are great at this!
ReplyDeleteI actually really like both pictures!
ReplyDeleteThose pictures are beautiful. I love how you love motherhood. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI love this. Your children will treasure these pics one day, and so will you. I just reposted this on Facebook because so many moms try to stay out of the picture and I thought it needed to be out there for all to see. Your family is beautiful…all of you.
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely reminder. I bet you enjoy hearing that you look a lot like your beautiful mother!
ReplyDeletelovely.
ReplyDeleteit made me tear up...my mom is in very few photos my whole life. and i am not in my kids either!
i hate that!
i need to get better at this.
stat.
LOVE the fogged mirror shot.
it's soooo great.
That's a great reminder. So often I upload the pictures from my camera and think to myself, "I was there too, right?" I need to hand my camera over to my husband or to a stander-by more often.
ReplyDeleteAnd you look lovely in those pictures. Also, you look so much like your pretty mom.
sarah, they are absolutely beautiful!
ReplyDeleteOh I love this! I love that top photo after the bath, it's so so sweet.
ReplyDeleteI love the picture of you and Janey after her bath. Whoever took that one did a beautiful job! I also think you look exactly like your mom. Thanks for sharing and reminding us mommies to get in the pictures!
ReplyDeleteSuch a great message. And I have to disagree with the composition comments, your children did an amazing job at capturing some quiet, mommy moments. Those photos are beautiful!
ReplyDeleteSuch cute pictures of you both! She precious! I'm with you, it's hard to get in front of the camera!!
ReplyDeleteAnother blog has inspired me to do the same. She is big about embracing the camera and taking pictures of ourselves with our kids. Every thursdays is Embrace The Camera day and she posts her pictures. Shes also a talented photographer. http://andersonfamilycrew.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_8779.html
I couldn't agree more. The photos the boys took are precious.
ReplyDeleteI got SO sad on an airplane this week watching a mom with her new baby. It wasn't really that I wanted that baby or even my IWAN kicking in, it was more that I wished I had figured out a way to capture myself with MY babies. I wish I had more tangible memories of how much I could have eaten them up. I want to blog about this but man I can't fit it in this week so I'm so glad you're doing it. LOVE these pictures!
ReplyDeleteI've been trying to do the same. I even learned how to set the auotmatic timer on my camera:)) In the second to last picture of your Mom your either you or your sister, your Mom looks just like Abby to me.
ReplyDeleteI've been trying to do the same. I even learned how to set the auotmatic timer on my camera:)) In the second to last picture of your Mom your either you or your sister, your Mom looks just like Abby to me.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful pictures... you look like your mom!
ReplyDeleteI LOVE the pictures of your mom. So beautiful! I think I'll make a consious effort to in front of the camera also. Thank you for your inspiration. :)
ReplyDeleteThank you for the reminder. The days are long, but the years are short, and you'll never be sad you have those photos, poorly-composed or not.
ReplyDeleteI have some great photos of my grandma with my mom and aunt as very young girls, and I cherish those pictures. To see her being a mother, doing the things I would do, is priceless. But I usually hide from the camera, too. I'll have to check out the challenge.
ReplyDeleteYour post brought tears to my eyes. I am not ever in any pictures - if I looked like you I would WANT to be!!! :) You are lovely inside and out - and I think your boys did a great job of framing the beauty in you and sweet baby Janey! Love!!!
ReplyDeletePam in Poplar Grove
I have been doing the same! It only took me 47 years to realize that I am not getting any younger.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful Sarah! You and your mother look beautiful! I agree - so important to get in the pictures. I especially love handing the camera to my girls. The stuff they photograph is so telling! It's like seeing the world through their little eyes. (even if it's not the best hair day for mom) :)
ReplyDeleteYou don't look old enough to have a son in college. Thanks for a lovely post
ReplyDeleteAnother fantastic post! I really need to take the advice here, but I so hate seeing pictures of me. And you are the spitting image of your mother! Two beautiful women.
ReplyDeleteI just love this blog, it is my feel good moment of the morning. It makes me miss my child, at daycare, terribly, but it makes me want to be a better mom, to be a better family, to just live in each wonderful moment and just be.
ReplyDeleteI think I need to quit this job and be with her.
I love the picture of you holding Janey that is just the bottom half of your face. I don't know why, but I think that one is just precious. You are so right and this is a good reminder!! I rarely look the way I would like to look, but I always look the way the kids see me and would want to remember me.
ReplyDeleteSarah, that's how I felt for the longest time too (I was actually going to post something like this myself)...then while I was working in the nursing home and saw these older/eldery women in pictures with their families I thought it was beautiful to have such amazing memories and I felt horrible that my kids didn't and/weren't going to have those same types of memories of me, because of various reasons, so I made it a point to start getting in the pictures and having my kids take pics of me and whatnot...now they will have beautiful memories of me WITH them. Good for you for getting in the picture...do it more often!
ReplyDeleteThe fact that your mother is wearing a dress at the park with three young children is amazing!!!! Love it!!
ReplyDeleteThis is SO true and rarely am I in a picture with my kids. I am certainly going to make a change.
ReplyDeleteYou look just like your mom! I think you are an amazing mom, and make me feel like I was not. Two of my three kids are out on their own and I feel like I should have spent more time with them. I love them more than I can express and I only hope they can see how much I cherish them. I wish I would have been in more pictures! Hindsight is 20/20.
ReplyDeleteThis is so wonderful - thank you. I always feel a little silly (maybe even slightly vain?) asking someone to take my picture, but I really just need to smile and get over that. It's not only for me, it's for my children; for their memories; for their children to look at and see how they were raised. Great reminder!
ReplyDeleteI think you look beautiful in those pictures and I think that the way you see your mom's beauty in the photos with her is the same way your kids see you. Our children see our beauty even when all we can see is our critical view of ourselves.
ReplyDeleteI love that picture in the bathroom and the adoration in both of your faces :) And I love the pictures of your beautiful mother as well--you look just like her!
ReplyDeleteDon't forget to get into the pictures with your older kids too! I treasure pictures of me and my mom at all ages. Babies take so much time that older kids can feel left out. What a great way to say to each of the big kids, "see? I was taking time with you too." :)
ReplyDeleteI adore that first picture with the steamy air and all!!! It is raw, natural and definitely puts you "in the moment". I love it.
ReplyDeleteHugs from Kansas,
Amber
Sarah, you are stunning. You have nothing to run from in photos! And I love those two shots, absolutely beautiful. Keep 'em coming!!!
ReplyDeleteMy favorite pictures of me are from my days in Ethiopia, when I met my infant daughter--no real blow dryer, very little make up, exhaustion from the 11 hour time difference--none of it shows in the pictures--I am radiant. i'd like to think that all of my mothering pictures would be like that, if only I'd let someone take them.
ReplyDeleteSuch a great challenge, thank you for sharing, I know I totally need to get in the photo's more :)
ReplyDeleteThis is a great reminder post, so thank you! It brought back some memories for me.
ReplyDeleteI'm a little late to the party, but I posted about this today:
http://growanniegrow.blogspot.com/2012/11/get-in-picturewhere-was-mom.html