Chasing the Light

I’ve been pulling my camera out more this year, trying to notice and remember all the little details that make up our days.

On Saturday, everyone was grumpy and irritable. The kids were fighting and falling apart about absolutely everything. The house was a disaster and I was done with all of it.

At one point my daughter stood in front of the window and in spite of all the bad moods, I couldn’t help but notice how pretty she looked standing in the light.

I grabbed my camera and started clicking away. When Darren saw what I was doing, he got our son dressed and we had a little impromptu photo shoot in the living room.

I hesitate to share these photos at all — full of laughter and sweet smiles. Because that is not at all what our day looked like. If I zoomed out, you’d see our disaster of a house and plenty of grumps inhabiting it (myself included).

But in the end, I’m glad I stopped to take these photos — because these sweet faces are what I will remember about that day long after my memory of the grumpiness is gone.

I don’t ever want to forget the toothless smiles or the baby(ish) toes. I don’t want to forget the way the light fell on my daughter’s hair or caught in the folds of her dress. I don’t even want to forget the way these two will be fighting like crazy one minute and laughing themselves silly together the next.

These photos are far from perfect, I know that. Our day was miles from perfect. But I still want to capture as best I can all the little moments that make up these few short years we have together at home as a family.

I’ll blink and the pudgy toes will be gone. So will the toothless smiles and sweet little dresses. So for all our imperfection, I choose to notice and remember all the light we’ve been given to chase.