Sweet Indian Summer!

It's been positively amazing outside here in MN over the past week! We've hit temps in the mid 80's which is unusual for this time of year. The beauty of MN is that a week ago today I had the furnace on because the thermostat in our living room read 54 degrees! Fast forward a day or two and it's 80 outside! Needless to say we're spending every possible minute we can outdoors.

I've been having busy weekends with photo sessions both Saturday's and Sunday's and am now sneaking a couple in during the weekdays too. The only thing that's nice about me being away for a few hours is Royce is able to have one on two time with Rasa and Adia. I snapped this picture of the three of them yesterday morning when I was shooting off a few test shots before I had to leave. Candid's will forever be my favorite kind of photography. And I LOVE how very small children don't try to change their expression just because a camera is aimed in their direction. They are so very real.


Adia and Rasa have been busy growing and learning and playing. They're climbing and jumping (off the beds!) and talking like crazy. It's strange to be thinking about their second birthday coming up just after Christmas. I'm not wishing away time and I'm not thinking about things far off into their future. I'm simply enjoying being completely submerged in them and right now and consequently I'm learning more about myself in the process. The dynamics of my unique relationship with each daughter is impossible to put into words and it's funny because after all of these years I find myself believing, for the first time, that my Mom was being honest when she told each of us kids that she loved us all equally.

My favorite book, The Parent's Tao Te Ching, has one passage that has been on my mind lately. Its says, "Don't mistake your desire to talk for their readiness to listen. Far more important are the wordless truths they learn from you. If you take delight in the ordinary wonders of life, they will feel the depth of your pleasure and learn to experience joy." The reason being is that I love simple pleasures, my bare feet on the ground, the smell of the air outside, the warm glow of yellow the sun casts on everything in it's bright light. I watched my Mom enjoy simple pleasures growing up. She loved the sun in her face and the sound of the wind in the trees. She would sit back in a chair with her face up and close her eyes and smile. She didn't tell me those were good things. She simply delighted in them in front of me and by seeing her joy it taught me how to find mine. I've been noticing the simple pleasures the girls are finding joy in, the wind in their hair when the windows are down in the car, crunching on fallen leaves, the smell of my mums outside of the front patio. They actually stop to enjoy these things. I see that same look of pleasure on their faces as they slow down, take a deep breath and smile, just like my Mom does.

So the days where I hear an echo of "hurry up bitch!" from the back seat (I liked to consider myself a defensive driver) it's nice to know that when every moment with toddlers should be considered a "teachable moment" that they pick up on the good things too!