Five (Years Ago) For Friday: Missouri State Fair Family Photos

Five for Friday is a fun one today--- I'm taking you back FIVE YEARS to a family photo session I planned and dreamed about for ages, one that was so utterly perfect in so many ways that it's kind of ridiculous that all anyone ever saw from this was our Christmas card that year. Does anyone else do that??? Scramble like mad to get marvelous photos, use them on their Christmas card, then forget/fail to ever do more with them? No prints, no albums, no sharing online... Just a disc of beautiful photos doing no one any good? 

As your photographer, I implore you to STOP IT! Use that disc of images like mad. Share them everywhere. Print them huge! Commission me to make you a coffee table book! Something!! 

But as the flip-side person-- the client-- well... you can see that I'm as bad as anyone at taking my own advice. I mean, FIVE YEARS? We didn't even have Lucy or Quinn at this time. And there are so many sweet/cute/great photos here. Why are they not on my wall SOMEWHERE? (Actually, that's a long and irritating story re: weird jpg file not getting recognized by a canvas printing website and mama giving up after many many many many attempts, but I won't bore you with that tale.) 

I will say, in my defense, that even though we planned this session for weeks, and even drove 3 hours from home to get to the Missouri State Fair to make them happen, God had a sneaky plan in place that summer, and I ended up freshly pregnant with Lucy a couple of weeks before this shoot. So not only was I fluffing out a bit and desperately donning Spanx already, but then the weeks following our session, when I got my files from our lovely photographer, Kari Wright, I was just too first-trimester-ish to ever do more with them than make that Christmas card. 

But that doesn't excuse the four years afterward. Except maybe I was like, "Oh, those carnival photos that I love so much are obsolete now that Lucy is here. Darn it." Which is a normal thought, but in hindsight I am beginning to see the value in honoring ALL the family photos from EVERY stage of our family's life. From pre-kids to old kids with kids of their own, every family photo is part of the whole story. 

So anyway. Today was finally the day I remembered how little I had done with these carnival photos I loved so very much when we did them. And it's been the day I've been slowly getting them prepped and put into a Blurb coffee table book (finished and in queue to print! Yahoo!) and ready to blog. And here, five years later, I am so enchanted by them all over again. I don't notice that bloaty mama I thought I was here. I don't feel like anyone or anything is missing in these frames. It was us, right then, on a hot August day in Sedalia, Missouri, wrangling a mostly-unwilling 2.5 year old Noah, trying to stay photogenic even as we sweat under our fancy duds.  It was an adventure we'd planned for, Joe had tolerated me preparing for, and one that turned out so so well, in spite of the heat, the crowds, the naughty toddler, and the poor photographer who'd just barely met us (only a few phone calls to set it all up) and tried like mad to get the photos I dreamed of WHILE keeping Noah looking her way. (Bless you, Kari. You were magic. Your daughter was an AMAZING assistant. You made my carnival photo dreams come true, and I will never forget your willingness to take my call and let me be that crazy lady proposing crazy ideas to you, begging you to be our photographer.)

So enough meandering journaling. You wanna see my carnival family photo session, shot at the Missouri State Fair in August of 2010, by Kari Wright of Kari Wright Photography? Go ahead. Enjoy. I bet you a thousand dollars you won't love these half as much as I have been loving them all day today, as I finally give them a place of honor in my life story. 

"Get me OUT OF HERE, mom. Stop. Stop squeezing me."