Jessie reached out to me over the summer to discuss the idea of a storytelling session, and I was smitten with the idea of a backyard dinner from her very first email.
There are so many beautiful moments that happen in our everyday lives, but sometimes we’re so busy that we don’t notice them. Sometimes, things become so normal that we are just blindly wondering through the day before we go to bed and wake up to do the same exact things the next day.
However, dinner with grandparents and playing in the yard is a normal occurrence for this family in the summer, and Jessie and her husband are sure to take the time to notice the beauty around them. Their children are homeschooled, so Jessie spends a lot of time with all four of them during the day. She shared so much about their personalities with me that I felt like I knew them when I got there. She let each of them dress themselves for our session (just like they would do any other day), and she didn’t tell her in-laws not to come just because I would be there. She loves these evenings with her family. She notices just how beautiful the little moments with her children truly are, and she wants to be able to remember life just how it is during this season.
No matter how different each of our families are, being able to observe and photograph different ones throughout my time as a storyteller has shown me that we’re really not all that different at all. This family was beautiful from the inside out. Their home was a dream, and Jessie has an eye for design, but that doesn’t change the fact that the kids still only wanted macaroni and cheese, loved jumping on the trampoline, and wanted one too many pieces of chocolate. We’re all a little the same, and it’s easy to find beauty in the everyday if you’re looking for it.
