Just the Two of Us

Throughout the mini session I was mentally checking the boxes of all the pictures I wanted to cram into 30 minutes:

Caroline + Daddy — check!

Thomas + Daddy — check!

Caroline + Mommy — check!

Thomas + Mommy — check!

Caroline + Thomas — check!

Caroline + Thomas + Mommy + Daddy — check!

Though we lucked out with the golden hour mini session, this timing also happened to coincide with our witching hour. So at times Thomas was fussy and didn’t want to participate. And Caroline would get bored and wander away. And we were all sweating. It would have been easy to wrap up our shoot at that point but instead Matt and I decided to tune the kiddos out and let them wander (out of Matt’s comfort zone) for a few minutes to capture just us. 

Last year and the year prior I was too caught up in straightening Caroline’s bow, sliding shoes back onto tiny feet and making funny noises to get kids to smile that by the end of the shoot I was exhausted and had completely forgotten to request pictures of just me and Matt. Once again, we’d fallen into the trap of putting the kids first, as always, and each other second (or in this instance, overlooked completely).

But this year Matt and I made a point to capture just us — our marriage, a special separate entity within our family. It only took two minutes to get a few images that we’ll treasure forever. We held hands, locked eyes, smooched and just enjoyed being husband and wife in those brief moments. And we wanted our minis to see us as more than mommy and daddy too.

It’s easy to overlook the handsome man you fell in love with before kids when you’re deep in the trenches of parenthood. This stage is hard and it’s easy to let the kiddos consume you. But we’re trying our best to carve out more moments for each other in the midst of chaos.

Just the two of us…