I got to play with tonight? Miss Amelia! Her sneak peek is coming sooooooon! :)

…in order of the wee’est one to the oldest.
While I was home in Minnesota I took advantage of all my little people being in one spot at the same time. Yet, we didn’t get a picture of the three of them together. Go figure.
To be honest, I knew Sabrena would be a cinch. I don’t think she’s ever taken a bad picture…she knows how to work the camera. I figured Miss Ayla would be just as easy, but I had my concerns with Luka. He’s a mover and a shaker and to get a picture of him looking at the camera is near impossible at times. My, my, my how wrong I was. He was such a good boy. I got sooo many pictures of him and he is adorable in every one. Now, Ayla had a different agenda that day. Reanna and I were shaking keys, dancing, making ridiculous noises…nothing. She was NOT amused. It wasn’t until Sabrena and Grandma joined in that she turned it around. Whew.
So, here is a little peek of the three of them. I was going to give them each their own separate post, but I couldn’t decide who should go first so you get all three!
Much love to my beauties…
Auntie K xoxo

Miss Ayla:

Love this. She was reaching for the flowers and I am happy to let you know that her mission was accomplished. She did indeed end up with a fist full of yellow goodness and it went straight into her mouth. :)

Can you tell it was a little close to bedtime?

Mr. Luka:

SO Luka.

Sabrena: Doesn’t she look old? :(

I don’t know why, but I love this shot. It was one of my favorites out of her whole session…

Bo:

Hannah:

Dan and Kari:

Miss Meela:

Love this one.

It’s a wrap and Dan and Bo couldn’t be more excited. :)

My good friend Kari and I have talked about scheduling a family shoot for them for quite some time now. You know how it goes…”Let’s get together soon….let me know when you’re in town…we reaaallly need to get together…the kids are getting older…” Soooo, we finally managed to find an open day in both of our calendars. I’m so happy that we did. Kari told me that she had found the best location with trees and tall grass. A pond. Gorgeous light. I was sold.
She wasn’t lying. We pulled up to the edge of a treeline and behind it? Rollings hills of trees and flare. It was absolutely beautiful.
Even more beautiful, though, is this family. Hannah, Bo, and little Meela were so sweet and so well behaved. I have so many gorgeous pictures of all three of them. I wish I could share them all. I am quite certain that Hannah should be modeling for Crewcuts or GAP Kids too. She was a natural in front of the lens. :)
Dan and Kari – it was so good to see the two of you. Too much time has passed, but it never seems so. Thank you for letting me spend the evening with you and your gorgeous babes. The offer still stands to send your children to me too. You know how it goes. I photograph them. I fall in love with them. I want them to be mine. :)

Much Love,
Krysta

What I wouldn’t give to not be sitting here today. Staring at the calendar wondering. Wondering how the days fell one by one and now…a complete, full, entire year has passed. Our life has been measured in blurred and hazy days. Many of them lapping over in the next without so much as a second thought from us. There have been many moments where I have felt like an outsider looking in…watching someone else’s life play out before me. Surely this can’t be mine. The life I know is contained within a perfectly shaped bubble.

But this new life? It is unfamiliar. It is a constant balance of living and missing. The house is quiet. Seldom does the kitchen get used. The spices my father spent forever collecting are still sitting where he left them. His briefcase and reading glasses still remain in the exact same location he put them the night he died. His sandals still greet us at the door…although it’s summer, they have not been worn for a year now. We are in no hurry to move them. His cell phone sits on the counter. The missed call list displays our numbers as we still call to hear his voice…my breath catches and my chest tightens every time I hear it. His clothes hang neatly organized in a row…just as he liked them. There have been days where I have stood in that closet and ran my hands through all of his clothes watching them swing back and forth and then come to a still again.

The bare bones truth is quite simple. I miss my father. I miss him walking, living, breathing in the same world that I exist in. I miss his laugh, the way his eyes crinkled in the corners when he smiled, his larger than life presence. I miss my mother and Nathan. I miss the people we all used to be before death came in and changed us unalterably and forever.

I miss my father’s views on the world. His positive, joyful nature that presented itself on a daily basis. I have spent many many days wishing I could be more like him. I miss the way he loved people, genuinely, for who they were. How he could have been stripped of every material thing he possessed in this world, and still given you a thousand reasons why he was blessed. I miss the way he brought my mother a latte every Thursday. She would get so excited to see him in her work day and call me like a smitten schoolgirl telling me she had seen him that morning. Thus, I dubbed their weekly latte event Giddy Thursday. I would give all of my tomorrows if it meant her having him here for one more Giddy Thursday…

I miss him for Sabrena. How it killed me when we were home for my father’s Memorial Open and she wanted to go to the range to hit golf balls. A simple request, but everyone was so busy with the day’s events that she ended up going down by herself. Right before she went she buried her face in my side and said, “If Grandpa were here, he would’ve gone with me.” I had to turn away so she wouldn’t see the tears falling onto my cheeks.

And she’s right…he would have.

I miss him for Michael, Luka, and Ayla…that they won’t know him like we did. I won’t ever be able to properly relay to them how the kitchen smelled when he was cooking…how no one knew the concoction of spices he used, but the mix of them smelled like home. They will never know how gentle and soothing his voice was or see his endless facial expressions when he was telling a story. How will we ever be able to encompass the man that he was and put him into words? I struggle.

Today, my mind was elsewhere. I was with him. I didn’t want to remember where we were a year ago. I can’t let myself go back to that day. It cuts too deep. Instead, I envisioned him just the way I remember him. Jovial. Wise. Witty. I went back to every moment he had me laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. I visited the days we spent at the coffee shop lost in conversation for hours. I remembered every time he came to visit and how he was my father, but also one of my best friends. To think of him in any other manner today would be a disservice to the wonderful, amazing, irreplaceable man that he was.

And although the calendar marks 365 days, tomorrow at 366 days, we will miss him no less than we do today…

A gift given to me from Sheye. I don’t think she’ll ever know how much it means to me that she captured these moments. The shirt is his favorite Lynyrd Skynyrd rock and roll t-shirt. He wore it the night before he died. I slept in it for months after he left.
These images are such a reflection of our new world and my new life with my father. Although he is not physically here, he is still very much present in everything I do, everywhere I go.

A thousands thank-you’s Sheye…

Sometimes there just aren’t any other words for Gorgeous.

Miss Ivish in California. A little treat today for her mummy whom I just happen to adore.

Much Love and Happy Weekend (heading to Minnesota so our weekend starts early),
Krysta