My cousin, Andrea, and I have traveled similar paths this year. Both of our pregnancies led us to the hospital way earlier than expected, yet both have given us beautiful, healthy babies. Miracles!
I want to say a couple things about these photos:
I believe Susannah, the little squish in these photos, will one day win some sort of award for being the most compliant human being. I've never taken photos of an infant who cooperated. I've taken photos of happy infants, and well-rested infants, and well-fed infants, but Susannah was, like, participating! I would practically say, "smile!" and she'd smile. There she was saying, "Did you want my left arm here?" at 24 hours old.
That said, I love taking photos of infants, no matter their mood. Photo sessions always provide me a right of passage into such an intimate environment with the people I'm photographing, but infant sessions always do this in a special way. Mom and baby are at their raw-est. One is stunned by joy, the other stunned by the world, and both are wrapped in the swaddling clothes of blessed exhaustion. This sight makes me more sympathetic to humanity as a whole every single time, praise God.
You've seen it, too, I'm sure.
Enjoy,
Rachel
This post serves as the third in a series I've just now entitled, "The Boyden's: A Global Family". This isn't the title because it's a progressive idea of how to approach familial issues with a global mindset. It's the title because I've come to be convinced that, in some way, we're really all Boyden's (and we should be proud)...
One of my favorite things about taking photos and having lots of siblings is that I can employ a healthy dose of guilt and passive aggression when they ask anyone but me to take their photos. It's one of those awkward joys.
Just kidding. I would be a terrible person if I had thoughts like that!
What I really meant to say is that one of my favorite things about taking photos is that sometimes, I have the pleasure of being asked to photograph one of my siblings and their family. And here's what's so good about this. I'm also blessed that I call my siblings my best of friends, and as a result, I know them better than I know anyone else.
But here's the good part: This means that when I'm looking at one of my siblings through the camera, I can tell, without any shadow of doubt, that I've caught them at their best. I know this because I've seen them in their best and in their worst and much of what's in between. For a few of them, I've even seen many their different flickers of expressions of satisfaction and happiness, and in that photo above, this is my sister, Anna's, most peaceful, satisfied expression of happiness.
Buy you know, you could probably see that now, too.
Enjoy,
Rachel
Last week Edith and I went to Costco with my mom (a common occurrence) and they had a miniature playhouse there. [Enter, Edith's dream come true.] So, instead of doing any actual shopping, we, along with several other passersby (who we soon came to find were also grandmothers), watched her play for 45 minutes. One of my favorite stay-at-home-mom activities to date :-)
I'm fairly sure that little house was the same as the one you see in these photos, thus proving little playhouses prove to be excellent investments (plug for Costco in hopes of free diapers?). These girls and their personalities were so much fun to catch on camera.
Enjoy!
Rachel
