Thoughts for a Friday Afternoon

I wish I would have blogged two days ago. I was having -the- best day ever. However, I find myself on this Friday afternoon tired and a wee bit sad. I don't know why. I hate feeling this way, I realize it will pass, it is just hard to realize that I can't always control how I feel. While I am still trying my best to choose to be happy, it is on days like today that it is just a little extra hard to take a deep breath and move onto the next task, when all I really want to do is run away to Hawaii. By. Myself.




However, reality sets in and I remember I have three of these little people. That girl there reminded me that I would have MUCH more fun if I took my kids to Hawaii with me (no really, she told me that when I said I wanted to run away.) Then I laughed and squished on her, and her older brother and her baby sister, then I remember how good life is. I am lucky. Truly.

I have the best kids on the planet, I am pretty certain of that. While the little one screams a lot, I don't know what I would do without her, or how about that middle child who LOVES to talk and talk and talk, or my boy who is all boy, and yet so sweet and caring and wants to always make everyone around him happy and find joy as he does. They are all so very smart and FUNNY. I think they get the funny from me. See? Another reminder that life is good. I am funny sometimes.

These people have been trying to help me stop saying bad words. They have me on a bad habit 'sticker chart'. I have been trying for 2 months, I only have one sticker which means I only went ONE day without saying a bad word. I struggle. However, I discovered that most of the bad words happen around bedtime. The jury is still out as to why on Earth the bad words start exploding at that time of day. (-Insert sarcastic grin.-)

These are the people getting me through, making me crazy, helping me to reach to be better.

These are my Friday afternoon thoughts.

My last thought? I hope you have a beautiful weekend. Truly.

Soak in some sunshine, kiss on the ones you love, hug on them just a little bit more, just a little longer. Serve someone. Eat something delicious, take a walk, forgive the dog when he poops on your floor or eats your new Merida doll. Run through a sprinkler, blow on a dandelion without the fear of spreading the seeds all over your lawn. Grab some sidewalk chalk. Spend too much money on a new charger for the Power Wheels and go nuts. I plan on doing it all.

I hope you do it too.

xoxo

Kim

Real Families | Utah Lifestyle Photography

I love to document real life. I enjoy nothing more then being invited into someone's home and being able to capture the real them.

I also love families who trust me to come back year after year to photograph their babies, their children, their growing family.

I love capturing the here and now. The moments that won't last for always. The tiny house, the neighborhood, all the little things that, with time, will eventually change.

This session was no different.

Thank you for trusting me Wendy. 

I hope you enjoy.

View entire session and order prints here.

Choose to be Happy

The last two nights have kept me awake into the wee hours of the morning. This insomnia makes waking up the next morning extremely difficult. However, my mind does not turn off and it reels and reels and reels until somehow I get it to quiet down.

These past two nights I have blogged. In my mind. Too tired to get up and wake up my body even more by blasting my eyes and mind with a computer, I lay there and I write. In my heart, and in my mind, and somehow in the still of the night it quiets my heart. This meditation of sorts helps me to realize all that I am working toward to be better.

Last night my dialogue had a lot to do with how things are going in my "Choose to be Happy" mantra. Sometimes in life we have these enormous epiphanies, and it can be easy to let them go and forget how utterly life changing they were for us. We so easily can become bogged down by the every single day, and the worries that we forget that we are choosing something different. Our focus is not going to be on the difficult times, the times that stretch us to our very limits, but rather that there can be happiness during those times. 

I am happy to say that for the last month, I have been doing well. I have been trying to remind myself that if I am happy, the rest doesn't matter. Happiness is better for my physical, psychological and emotional bodies. I have felt it, I have worked for nothing less. The problem? We have a million other things trying to tear us down. We have hard trials, struggles, and people who want nothing more than for us to fail and wallow in our misery.

Last night was hard. It was dark. I was sad. I was lonely, I was depressed and it was so hard for me to see any sort of light or happiness. Then I remembered that I just had to. I had to take deep breaths until I found some sort of light and happiness and hope in my life. Eventually, after the fourth hour I found it. That, along with the help of some Xanax, I eventually found peace, and rest, and sleep.

I was able to wake this morning refreshed and ready to take on a new day.

Even when life is hard, it continues to be good, especially when I choose to be happy.

Breathing Space | A Blogger Retreat

I am STOKED. The Breathing Space Blogger Retreat is this Friday and Saturday. I get giddy just thinking about it. I am so excited to meet new blogging friends and renew my love for all things blog.

I love Daybreak, it is one of my favorite places to photograph families. The lake is serene, the beach absolute fun, I long to live along it's banks. The bridges and concrete call to my photographer heart. I can't wait to walk along the shores and field by myself and just soak it all in.

 

  

  

I feel pretty lucky to have such a lovely event happening in Utah in our own backyard. It is going to be amazing. Friday can't come soon enough.

A special thank you to some of the sponsors of this event:

Candle Warmers

Coke Products 

 Flirty Aprons 

 Girl Scouts of Utah

Daybreak

**Disclaimer: While I have been given a ticket to The Breathing Space Blogger Retreat. I have been asked to tell you all about these wonderful sponsors, I am in no way obligated to do so, however, I love each of these products and believe in supporting local whenever possible. I am genuinely excited for my adventures this weekend and am undeniably in love with Daybreak and this event, which would have been worth the ticket price times one hundred.**

I didn't know that you could choose to be happy, thank you Elizabeth Smart for teaching me otherwise.

I honestly didn't know. I mean, somewhere deep down inside of me I am sure that I did know. Being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that fact is pretty much nailed into our brains from the time we are infants, isn't it? Or was it lost on me thinking I had to be completely 100% amazing in order to be happy?

The world teaches us that we have to be beautiful and super model thin to be happy. We have to have the seemingly perfect life in order to be happy. Our husbands have to shower us with gifts and they come home from work and clean the house and kiss us and hug us and forgive us for all of our wrong doing. We always have our makeup on and our hair done, and dinner on the table, and our kids are so well behaved and craft masters and reading masters and all other types of masters because that is what is required to be happy. You can't be happy unless your life is without trial and sorrow. If you have not all of these things, happiness cannot be found.

At least, that is kind of what I thought.

Until almost two weeks ago when I finally learned that it is possible to choose for yourself each day to be happy with what you have been dealt in life.

It went down like this. I was up late. As in...extremely late that it becomes early. You know those nights. Life had become all consuming to me. I was being bombarded with trial upon trial upon trial. I was miserable in my marriage and after the seemingly thousandth time of forgiving, I was so done with it. Done with my marriage, done with a huge trial in my extended family, I was ready to run away.

This particular evening, after being up for so many hours I was feeling the weight of everything on my shoulders, and I was feeling it hard. I went to shut down my computer before bed when I saw people talking about the wonderful speech they had heard that evening by Elizabeth Smart. I read the comments from Facebook friends, and went to bed thinking about what she had said in reference to the trials and terrible things that had happened to her during the nine months she was taken from her family. I went to bed that night and I prayed. I prayed hard. I prayed that I could find happiness and that I could learn to truly forgive and let go.

I texted my husband at 4 a.m. that morning. A simple text, where his only response was, "Wow."

The next morning I awoke to somehow come across this news article from KSL. It was as if I was being slapped in the face. I took her words literally to heart, they sang to me, rang deeply into my ears and resonated into my heart and a light finally went on inside of me, a light that had either faded after so much sorrow, or one that had possibly never even been lit before. 

 

My favorite portion of the article reads:

It was not until later, though, that Smart and her mother would have a conversation that would prove to be life- changing. "She said, ‘Elizabeth, what this man has done to you is terrible, and there aren't words to describe how wicked and evil he is,'" Smart said. "'He has taken nine months of your life that you will never get back, but don't give him another moment. The best punishment you could ever give him is to be happy.'" "And that's exactly what I'm trying to do for the rest of my life, is be happy." Smart focused on keeping trials in perspective and realizing that what may be difficult for one person may not be difficult for someone else. "Nobody is trial-free, but we have a choice," she said. "We can choose to allow our experiences to hold us back, and to not allow us to become great or achieve greatness in this life. Or we can allow our experiences to push us forward, to make us grateful for every day we have and to be all the more thankful for those who are around us."

That night I was able to forgive my husband for everything terrible that had been plaguing our marriage for the last 4 years. I was able to finally see that while I thought I had forgiven him, I had not. I was harboring anger and resentment and misery instead of truly choosing to be happy, and move forward with our life together. I chose, finally, to choose happiness in my life.

It has been 10 days of choosing happiness, and I have a lifetime of more happy days ahead of me. It is truly up to me to find joy in the every single day, even when the days are hard.

Does this mean our marriage is fixed and I am super happy and we are just the perfect amazing couple and family? H no. We both still act like three year old's throwing tantrums and each wanting our own way, but we are both willing to look within ourselves to see what needs to be fixed in order for us to find happiness.

There has been more laughter. SO much more laughter. There has been so much more baby squishing and big kid cuddles. I know my kids feel the change in our home. I know it is because of the changes in me.

I want to thank Elizabeth Smart for sharing what her mother shared with her so many years ago. It has truly changed my life and my heart for the better.

I hope you each choose happiness today and every day.