Being a photographer who is also a mom (aka momtog) can be overwhelming sometimes because you can get reaaaalllly behind on your own family's photos. At this point, I still have all of 2014 and 2015 to edit and *hopefully* get into albums. My goal is to get it all done before baby arrives in February....yikes! So I've buckled down, and I finally got our daughter's 1st birthday party from last year edited. She's already had her 2nd birthday party, and even though they were in the same location, I'm kind of embarrassed by the quality of last year's photos. But the memories were what really count.

We had an Alice in Wonderland theme, and my very talented grandmother sewed her dress to look identical to the one in the movie. We had a royal tea party, and my husband the Mad Hatter performed magic tricks for the kids. And since Little One's birthday is just before Halloween, we made it a costume party, which turned out awesome! What a lucky girl to have so many people in her life who love her. We appreciated everyone who came to celebrate her first crazy year of life, and what a joy to celebrate her health after a bumpy ride.

I can't believe what a baby she was just one short year ago. It makes me want to hold onto her a little tighter for fear that she'll grow before my very eyes.

How bad is this? Nearly two months later, finally editing and blogging about Independence Day. This is better than I've done in the past, though, so I feel pretty grateful. Being part-time at my other job, which allows me to edit over my daughter's 2-3 hour naptime and also get to bed at a decent hour, as well as not taking on more clients than I can handle this year, has been a huge help with editing my family's photos. Documenting my children's lives from a mother's view of watching them grow and learn and investigate and celebrate is the sole reason I bought my first camera to begin with, and this year has been an amazing reminder of why I originally chose photography, even before I was blessed with my first beautiful child. So I don't want these photos to sit on my computer, completely untouched, when this is my primary purpose in photography.

Our friends have a really great piece of land and an incredible house for hosting. They are kind enough to host a wonderful 4th of July party, and this year they even had a bounce house. I think you'll see below just how much fun Little One had.  How long ago that seems already!