Hello Friends!

I can't tell you how excited I am to say goodbye to 2016!  I know that I'm not the only one who feels that way either.  In fact, most people I know are just over it!  Well friends, we can all be happy now because 2017 IS HERE! 

Let's recap 2016 so we can officially say goodbye. 

For me, 2016 was just, hmmmmm, well the best word I can use to describe it - MESSY!  It was just a messy year.  I can't say it was the worst year or even awful because overall I know that I am so lucky.  There were some good parts, some bad parts, some really, really bad parts, some fun parts and tons of crazy.  But I'm not crying over the fact that we're shoeing 2016 out the door! 

So here goes 2016 - the quick version!

In January, my family became official puppy raisers!  Cadence, who came to us from the Alpha Bravo Canine organization, is training to become a service dog for a veteran suffering from PTSD/TBI.  She will be with us for approximately a year to 18 months before moving on to her new family and home to the job she was born to do. 

In March, we decided to put our home of nearly 13 years on the market and it sold in just 12 days!  We thought selling was going to be the hard part and were beyond thrilled that the house we loved so much was going to a young couple with two little boys! 

In April, we found our dream home in Kennett Square and were super excited for our new adventure in a new town. 

In May, things fell through with our dream home just 5 days before settlement.  Ummmm....guess it wasn't meant to be the dream home after all.  We ended up moving in with my parents.  Yep - 2 adults, 2 kids, 3 dogs and a cat! 

In June, the hard drive in my MAC crashed. 

In July, we still hadn't found a house to live in yet and I was starting to feel a little crazy not knowing where my kiddos were going to be attending school.

In August, we still hadn't found a house and while we were on vacation in Florida, I tried to convince my family that we should just move there.  (I was only kidding a little bit.  They didn't bite on that one though.)  I also quit Facebook which many of you know and have yelled at me for!  (I don't regret it and still don't know if/when I'll be back.  I am on Instagram often though.  It just made more sense.) 

In September, the kiddos started their new school and we love it!  Everyone was so welcoming to them and they've acclimated really well.  What more can a Mom ask for? 

October, still no house.

November, still no house.  And my external hard drive crashed.  Fortunately, all of my sessions were backed up to the cloud except 1.  Unfortunately, ALL of MY personal photos of my kids were NOT backed up to the cloud.  It's still being worked on to recover any/all of my photos that I can get back.  It's crazy how much this one event is helping me shape my photography in 2017 though.

December, still no house.  We've been living with my parents for 7 months.  Thankfully it's going really well and we have had a lot of fun. 

So why am I telling you all of this?!  I'm telling you this to thank you for your patience while a vast majority of my life this year has been messy and chaotic.  To say sorry if things took longer or weren't as seamless as usual.  And while I would love to tell you that things are going to be perfect in 2017, I can't.  I'm optimistic though that things are going to change and these changes are going to be good! 

So what's changing?!  I'm glad you asked! 

First, I'm going to move out of my parents house (haha)!  While this initially is going to lead to a lot more messy and a ton of chaos, eventually I'm going to be more organized since all of my things will have a place and I'll be able to find them again.  (Most of our things are still in our rented storage unit and I can't find most anything!  We hadn't planned on staying with my parents quite this long so I didn't plan accordingly.)

Second, I'm going to be changing up my sessions a little bit.  The lesson I learned from losing my external hard drive with an entire years worth of my kiddo's photos on it taught me is that I need to get back to my roots, back to what made me start doing photography as a job, in the first place, and back to what made those who gave me the push that I needed to get into this business in the first place.  And that is story telling.  If you look at my pictures from before I started this business, they read like a story.  I needed no words (because I'm terrible at them).  Every memory I have is tangible in those photos.  When I was packing up my life into boxes and came across baby shoes, clothes and stuffed animals, I could remember everything about the time in life when they were the favorite things in my kiddo's lives.  The tons and tons of photos I have are my storybook.  Over time, I got busier and busier photographing everyone's kids but my own.  Now I'm missing parts of my kid's stories and I'm never going to get that time back.  They are 7 and 11 this year and the time I have left with them as kids is going to go by really fast.  I don't want to miss any more of it than I have.  I will do my absolute best to be accommodating, however, sessions will be a little more limited this year. 

I also need to get back to my roots when photographing your family too.  I want to spend more time capturing you as a family and telling your story.  Backdrops and ALL posed photos just aren't going to do that.  The session that will see this impact the most is the newborn session.  I want my sessions to be more a lifestyle photography session rather than a posed, sleepy newborn session.  I don't want to show up to your house looking like I'm moving in.  I'm simplifying things and capturing what matters most - the moments, the details, and the connections in a clean, natural way. 

Perhaps one day I will have studio space and I will be able to offer studio style portraits as well, but for now, and especially during this huge transitional phase of life that I'm currently in, this will not be the type of photography that I will be offering.  Believe me, I too love a well-done studio portrait as much as the next mom, but I've learned that to do this well, you really need a dedicated space for your lighting and your backdrops.  I'm always on the lookout for this space, but for now it's just not in the cards. 

so let's get together in 2017 and capture your family Have fun and let me capture the magic that I see when I photograph your family so that it's a memory you will look back on and cherish year after year. 

Here's a look at all of my 2016 sessions:

2016 Sessions

♥ - Kristi