San Diego CA Child, High School Senior & Family Portrait Photographer | Jules Trandem Photography » San Diego Child, High School Senior and Family Photographer

I’ve been lucky to have met so many incredibly talented and wonderful photographers during this journey.  People who share the same desire to capture their own families in a real and beautiful way.  I’m teaming up with eleven of these women on a very personal and meaningful project called, “What ________ Looks Like.”

Our goal is to capture our own families in a real and beautiful way.  Some people call it “lifestyle”, some call it “real life”, some call it “unposed”.  No matter what you call it, our desire is to snatch the moments that represent the relationships, the dynamics, the reality, the beauty, the truth, and the life of our families and record them here on our blogs as well as in print at the end of the project.

Each month we will each choose to fill in the blank with our word of choice.  Some of us may choose to use the same word all year and some may choose to change it up each month.  We will each link to the next photographer until our circle of 12 is complete.

We hope this project inspires you to take more pictures of your own families so that those unique moments that make your family unique will never be lost or forgotten.~ Wendy VonSosen.

Each of us will put our own spin on this project, making it more meaningful to us.  I wanted my monthly post to be in the form of a letter to Brooks.  When the year is complete, I hope to compile the monthly letters and images into a book.  My gift to him and to myself.  Here is his story of almost 7.

Dear Brooks,

Having you in the class next door has been one of my greatest joys this school year.  When I have a quick question for your teacher I always take a sneak peek at you and love seeing you hard at work.  Every.  Single.  Time.  Mrs. S. and I work closely together so we often plan our special activities together.  One of the coolest activities was the owl assembly and owl pellet dissection.  You and Laila switched rooms so you both could do the activity with your own mom.  Your pellet was a jackpot of bones … three skulls!  You were all business.  I loved watching you work and explore.  Such a little scientist.

One of your favorite traditions for the month of October is your Halloween advent calendar.  You happily picked out (the hugest) variety of candy and carefully filled each day of October with a specially chosen treat.  Each morning you raced to get everything ready for school (and drink a milk) so you could sit and enjoy the day’s treat.  Your favorite treat were the hot tamales… you saved the best for last … just like I would do.  It makes me smile.

This little set from Halloween is all that I have this year.  It was a total whirlwind of a day and there wasn’t much time (or energy) for photos.  You enjoyed the school parade, but with 85 degree beating sun and over 1000 students to march by, it was a very long parade.  After that you and Laila switched seats again so you could celebrate with my class.  You were a wonderful mummy wrapper!  :)  We raced home from school and joined with friends for the 6th year to play and trick or treat.  The kids have all grown up so much!  It wasn’t too long ago that you were all toddling around, now you kept busy by playing soccer and chasing one another.  You were a dirty, sweaty Harry Potter by the time we left to trick or treat.  The only pictures I have of the day were first thing in the morning… these aren’t lifestyle, but it’s my only memory of our day caught on camera.

One afternoon as we were driving around to get lunch, I asked you where you would like to go … anywhere.  Disneyland was your answer.  OK was mine.  I LOVED your sweet smile as you talked about everything you wanted to do while we were there.  I surprised you again by booking our stay at your favorite hotel in the whole wide world… The Grand Californian.  Disney really knows how to spoil a birthday boy.  We had bunk beds in our room and you were more excited to spend time there than in the parks.  We took off for California Adventure and went straight to the roller coaster you’ve been begging to go on … CA Screaming.  Glad you loved it because I won’t be riding it again with you anytime soon.  Seriously, I thought I was going to hurl the entire time.  We only rode a few more of our favorites and then went back to the hotel.  :)

Bright and early the next morning, you were ready to go and spend the day at Disneyland.  The last two of these are from Splash Mountain .. front row … one looking about to go down and one from the bottom totally soaking wet … and smiling!

The beauty of being an early bird is the opportunity to be FIRST IN THE PARK!  Seriously … never would I have imagined being first and I’ll I had was my cell phone to take the picture.  That’s ok because it’s a memory I’ll never forget.  Your plan was to head straight to Star Tours to be first in line.  All day long, we walked right on to each ride … yay, for no/little lines, plus you got to sit in the front row of each and every ride.  It was awesome!  Both of us were so happy and so excited.  I know it was your happiest birthday ever!  Thank you!!

I had 7 presents for you to open on your 7th birthday.  Four of them were legos and three were nerf blasters.  We had a great time getting the people sets all put together.  You always love the characters from the lego sets more than the set, so this year, I found two boxes filled with only lego characters.  They are so much fun and keep you very busy.

I’m looking forward to a more relaxing month in November filled with lots of down time and family time.

Love you to the moon and back!  xoxo  Mommy!

 

Now, please be sure to keep going through the circle to the incredibly talented Nichole Van | Utah Wedding and Portrait Photographer.

 

Thanks so much to my wonderful new group for joining me in this new project. I’ve been so inspired by them.  If you missed the first two months, you can catch up on What Responsibility Looks Like and  What theLast Days of Summer Looks Like.

P.S.  I would love to see how you spend your ordinary days!  If you posted something on your blog, please let me know with a link in the comments and I’d love to check it out!

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