I chose the latter.

As a photographer, I see it as my job to document their lives.  And believe me, they are WELL documented.  And in my endeavor to tell the perfect story, capture the perfect image of the perfect moment that just so happens to be captured in the perfect light with the perfect clothing, I sometimes lose sight of the simple fact that my children want to spend time with me.

And while I love doing these Life Stories and hope to have the time to do a “real” one next month, this month, I just didn’t want to take the time to tell the full story of anything.

I just wanted to spend time with my kids.

And so I did.

So, what I’m sharing here is just some of the pictures I captured this month.  Not a full story of any one event… but just snippets of our month.

We biked.

We waited for friends to arrive.We went to the library and read book after book after book.

I found my daughter immersed in cat books.

We swung.

We played in the sun.

We went to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.

We hunted for eggs, played with cousins, and laughed with family.

We ducked.

We played tennis…

…it was hot.

And we hugged.  And we loved.  And we laughed.

So, there you have it.   I suppose it IS a life story of sorts.  The story of our month.

If you are not familiar with this whole Life Story thing, well, I hate to say it, but you’ve been missing out.  It’s basically a blog circle…start here, and follow the links at the end of each blog post to continue the circle!  You can get a full description of what it’s all about right HERE.  And if you want to see some of the other ones, you can go over there yonder to the left, click on the Categories tab, and then click on Life Stories.  It’s been a fun project for me this year, and I’m happy to be part of such a wonderful group of photographers who are participating in this with me!

Speaking of wonderful photographers, up next is Audrey Frantz of Kentiga Photography!  Follow all the links at the end of the post until you end up back here!  Thanks for visiting!

You can follow me on Facebook right HERE.

Over two years ago, I was scheduled to fly to a photography workshop when my mom was diagnosed with cancer. I canceled the trip, called the airlines, and got a voucher number that I could use within a year. In my distraught state, I just threw that voucher number into my desk and forgot about it. I found it right before it expired and ended up booking a ticket to Portland to visit and shoot with some amazing photographer friends. On my flight back, I sat on the plane and edited those photos on my laptop. Unbeknownst to me…

someone was watching…. (insert ominous music here)

She liked what she saw, and by some sneaky moves that I still don’t quite understand, she found out who I was (I’m guessing I watermarked an image?) and a year later, she contacted me to do this session.

That’s cool, right?

And gosh am I ever glad she found me, because her family is amazing.

They all came together from different parts of the country to celebrate the littlest guy’s 100th day birthday, a Korean tradition.

Here are some of my fav’s from the session.

I am really close to my family and it was wonderful to watch all of these guys interacting. The comfort and love that family brings is like none other.

Both the kiddos had fallen asleep on their way to our session. When this sweet little three year old started to wake up, I couldn’t resist grabbing a picture.

Seriously…I love this family.

It took him a while to warm up, but gosh, it was worth the wait.

I really was tickled when the sun came out and little baby E woke up.  I love that he is so chubby that he has a dimple on his forehead.

Isn’t he a little angel?

And my favorites of the day were the last several shots fired.

Mother and daughters.

So much love….so much energy….so much laughter….

I had a wonderful time with this family. Who knew that a ticket voucher, almost lost, would be the reason for this session? Pretty dang cool.

Thanks so much for looking! You can follow me on Facebook, if you like, and I always appreciate comments.  Have a wonderful day!

This month’s story is about an incredible group of kids.  I hope you enjoy it!  If you don’t know what this Life Stories thing is all about, click here to find out more!

My daughter is pretty dang amazing.  And so are her classmates.  Since Kindergarten, she has attended the Mandarin Immersion Program at our local school.  She’s learning Mandarin.  And she’s pretty dang awesome at it.  I don’t speak Chinese.  I’m not even Chinese.  I’m half Japanese, but um, yeah, I don’t speak Japanese either.  My husband doesn’t speak Chinese either.  He’s Korean, and um, yeah, he doesn’t really speak Korean.

But my kids?  My half Korean, quarter Japanese, quarter Caucasian kids?  Well, they’re learning Mandarin.  The program is amazing.  This year, she also had the opportunity to learn Kung Fu and Chinese music as part of this program.  THAT’S called AWESOME.

And because of some seriously awesome parents and staff, they got to participate in the San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade.  That’s a huge deal, people!

I wish I could share more images, but I didn’t get model releases for everyone, so am sharing what I can!

I took headshots of all the kids before the parade so that we would have a reference sheet in case anyone got lost.  Luckily, it wasn’t needed but I did love the shots I took.  These were probably taken in a span of 10 minutes.  Aren’t they cute?

In preparation for the big parade, they had an assembly where I was asked to take pictures.

My proud sweetie, waiting to perform:

Excuse the blurred faces.  I wasn’t able to get model releases for everyone, but had to share how amazing they look!

It was pretty dang cool because they had these Wu Shu Kung Fu masters from Beijing perform for the kids.  They were amazing.  The guy in the middle was in the movie Karate Kid.  Not the old one with Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita, but the new one with Will Smith’s kid.  The kids were totally stoked to see him. And that guy that’s “lying down?”  He was jumping up and down in THAT position while swinging a rope under him.  CRAZY.

After months of practicing and preparing, the kids were ready for the big night!

They were just a little bit excited.

Excuse me for a second… I have to gush about this woman.  She is the mom of one of the kids in the Mandarin program, as well as a teacher.  Her energy, determination, and enthusiasm was contagious.  She did SO much to make this parade happen.  Let me just publicly get it out there: she ROCKS.  I love this picture of her at the parade, looking excited and so proud.  She’s quite a woman.  Thank you, Mrs. M.

The San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade is the biggest Chinese New Year parade outside of China.  It’s a very organized parade, and only 10 adults were allowed to be with the kids once the parade started.  I was not in that group, so did my best to get pictures of the kids before the parade started.

It was such a fun night! Everyone was so excited.

I love these next two. I asked them to hold up their streamers that they had during the parade, and shot through it.

And here’s my sweetie cakes. She wrote an essay inspired by this picture called “The Ladybug Parade.”  She pretended that this picture was a picture of her peeking through the streamers at a group of ladybugs who were performing.  I love her imagination.  I love her intensity.  I love her face, her eyes, her smile.  I love this child.

When it was time for the parade to start, I had to get off the street.  Due to the crowds, I wasn’t  able to follow her for very long.  I got this shot of her just as they were getting ready to start.  I love the look of pride in her eyes.

Such a wonderful night.

Click here to continue the Life Stories chain!  You’ll know you made it all the way through when you make it back here!

This is the story of two years of cancer.  The story of hope.  The story of faith and love.

This is the story of my mom.

Mom, you mean the world to me.  I write this to you because I love you beyond words, and I feel that pictures will help me explain.

Here you are just 3 months before your life was rocked by cancer.  I love this picture of you.  Calm and poised.  Wisdom hiding behind your eyes.  Love shining brightly directly into my soul.

You.

Mom.

My ever present mom.

Two years ago, we got the devastating news that you had brain cancer.  You had tumors in multiple areas of your brain.  It happened so quickly.  You had just been in Guatemala, helping others, nursing others back to health, and then, with a blink of an eye, you were on the receiving end of that nursing care.  Days after you experienced your first symptoms in a remote village in Guatemala, you found your way back to California with so many people escorting you home.  I am so thankful for them.  I think you made it home just in time.

We had no idea what was to come. We didn’t know, quite frankly, if you were going to die.  You could barely roll over in bed.  You were scared.  You tried your best to hide your fear and sadness, as only a mother could.  But you were scared.  All your kids jumped in planes and cars to be by your side. It was so wonderful to be together as a family, but that comfort was bittersweet.

I took these pictures while swallowing back tears.  I didn’t know if this was it.  I am crying as I type this, just thinking of how lost and helpless I felt.  How lost and hopeless we all felt….  Cancer sucks.  Just go away, Cancer.  You are not welcome here.

We were all so scared that these could be our last moments.

All I could think is that I had to document you.  I realized how few pictures I had of you, and it broke my heart.  I had to document you: mother, grandmother, friend.

Look how little he is, Mom!

And, he was just a month old.  A newborn that just weeks earlier, you had cared for.

Gosh, the kids just keep getting older, while we keep getting younger, huh?

You read to her, and she just soaked you in.

Pictures took on a new meaning for me when you got sick.  No longer were they just to create a pretty picture.

Pictures preserve memories.  Pictures are important.  They put an image to a feeling.  I can’t thank you enough, Mom, for letting me take pictures of you now.  I remember how reluctant you were to let me take your picture before you were sick.  When you were in the hospital, I remember asking “why are you letting me take pictures of you now?”  And you said “because there’s no expectation for me to look good.”  Ha!

The day after those pictures were taken, you were too tired and weak for visiting.  It was a tough time.

But you responded so amazingly to the chemo, the love, and the prayers.  You were soon walking again.  You got better so quickly.  By April 2010, you were home.  How amazing!  You were home!!!  I remember walking through your house when you were first diagnosed and thinking you would never be back in your house.  But there you were.  It really was a miracle.

We gathered and finally got a decent family picture.

It was a happy time.  A hopeful time.

And there you and dad are.  The happiest divorced couple that ever lived.    Dad, your help through mom’s illness….  Words cannot explain what an amazing man you are.  Thank you….  I don’t think I have ever sat and thought about your heart’s generosity without getting choked up.  And the fact that you brush it off so easily…. you shouldn’t do that.  What you have done for mom and for us is nothing short of spectacular.  Thank you.

 Looking back at it now, Mom, I see things at this point, as starting to get back to manageable.  You were living on your own.  You were back to the YMCA and exercising.  You were fighting and working.  Every day.

And you were feeling well enough to start protesting having your picture taken.  : )

But maybe you just know now how important pictures are.  You rarely hide from my camera anymore.

You were able to visit us.

In March 2011, your chemo port was removed.  No more treatment.  You were done!

And then in June 2011… three months after getting the “all clear” from the oncologist….

Another tumor.  Just one this time.  But a big one.  At the base of your brain.  This one affected your speech, your swallowing, your cognition, your mobility.  This one… was a whopper.  It was so difficult seeing you unable to say what you wanted.  When you tried to cut your food with a menu, my heart just broke.

All us kids took turns spending the night with you in the hospital.  The night that I stayed, you told me that you thought you were going to die.

I fought with all my strength to hide my tears from you.  It was the first time since you had been diagnosed that I had heard you voice those concerns.  You touched my face with your hand and looked so deeply into my eyes with concern and said “I don’t want you to be sad.”

Always the caregiver, Mom.  Always concerned more about the ones you love than being concerned for yourself….  I understand that now that I am a mom.

I love you so much.

But you didn’t die.  You fought.  You fought with everything you had.

I love both of these pictures of you.  On the left, you have just the hint of a crooked smile since that stupid tumor was messing with your mouth, but the look in your eyes….  Pure love.  And the one on the right.  You’re a goofball, Mom.

Back to acute rehab for intensive physical, occupational, and speech therapy.

Then back to the hospital for more chemo… and complications.  Pulmonary emboli made it difficult for you to keep your oxygen levels up.  You were on 15 L of oxygen, but your fight was so clearly back.  Twinkling eyes behind the mask.

These pictures are two of my favorite pictures of you and dad.  I love the relationship you two have.

After what seemed forever, you were ready to be discharged. But not home.  Your stairs made that impossible.  So you moved in with dad and a 24 hour caregiver.  And you continued to fight.

Hallway laps, anyone?

By November, you were getting ready to go home.  I love this picture of you.  Resting after climbing your stairs.  Back in your home, after almost 6 months away.  You’re just breathing it all in.

But those stairs still made it a difficult transition home.  I’m so glad you got that stair lift.

And now you’re home.  Still fighting.  Still working.

Still here.

Mom, these two years have been hard on all of us, but hardest on you.  I want to take this time to tell you how amazed I am by you.

You are my best friend.

You have always been there to listen to me, offer advice, be a shoulder to cry on.

You have taught me how to love… and to do so unconditionally.

You have taught me to give…without wanting to receive anything back.

You have taught me strength.  You have taught me this through example.  You live your life deliberately, Mom.  Your actions and words have meaning.  I see you.  I see all that you do, and I’m sitting here choking back tears that I am lucky enough to call you mom.  I am so lucky to have you as an example of how to live my life with a loving heart and a giving hand.  I am lucky that I have learned from you how to live my life deliberately.  I am lucky that my children can call you “Bama.”   I am lucky, and my kids are lucky, that you have taught me how to be a mom.

And Mom, I want you to know that I am so happy that you are still here on this earth.  I continue to learn from you, to love you, to gain strength from you.  And someday, I know, you will leave this earth.  We all will.  And pretending that we won’t is silly.  No one can run from it, so we might as well just accept it and say and do the things we want to do now, while we’re still here to say and do those things, right?

And because I am now a mom, I know something.  I know that beyond anything else in this world, I want my children to be happy.  I worry about their well being.  And I know you worry about your kids’ well beings.

So, Mom, I want you to know that when you die… I will be okay.  I will miss you and grieve your loss immensely.  I know that.  But I will be okay… because I have you inside of me.  And that flame is too bright to ever extinguish.  The strength you have endowed to me will carry me through any storm.  I have you with me.  Always.

I love you, Mom.  And my kids love their Bama.

Thank you for everything you are to me.  I love you more than I could ever express to you.

And to any of my readers who made it through this post, I ask that you please send a healthy thought or prayer my mom’s way.  She’s pretty dang awesome, wouldn’t you say?

Click here to continue the Life Stories chain!  You’ll know you’ve made it all the way through the chain when you make it back here!

I come from a family of four children.  I am the third, and obviously, favorite child.  Haha.  And I love my siblings.  I realize, as an adult, what an impact they had in making me the person I am today.  I look at my own children, and marvel at this reality: I may be the parent, but I see the bond my children I have and fully recognize that their experiences with each other will help form who they become.  I see the love and respect they have for each other… even if they don’t want to admit it, and maybe don’t see it themselves all the time.

I saw that love and respect in these two siblings here too.  It was so easy between the two of them.  They were so ready to laugh, so ready to hug, so ready to enjoy their experiences together.

Such a joy to capture their bond.

Do you hear those squeals of laughter?  Me too.

I loved how easily they held each other.

I loved how easily they celebrated together.

I loved their tickles.

I loved all their moments.

I hope they look back on these images and remember a happy, carefree time.

I hope they look back on these images and smile.

Because, I’m sitting here right now…just grinning.

And as this little boy grows up, I fear that the snuggling time will decrease.

And that just can’t happen.

So, in my attempt to keep the snuggling time alive and well in my household, I have figured out a covert operation that allows me my snuggle time without the boy even knowing it’s happening.  Wanna know my secret?

We wrestle.

It’s like WWF all up in here.  Sort of.  In between throw downs, atomic knee drops, and death blows,  we laugh and smile and say “I love you.”  I love it.  Some day he might key into the fact that this is my tricky way to smother him with love, but for now, he thinks we are having a knock down, full out, BATTLE.

To shoot these as self portraits, I knew I would have to channel my inner MacGyver.  I used two backdrop stands, a tic tac toe type design with some curtain rods I had lying around, and random things around my house to hold my camera directly overhead.  And yes, this did include duct tape and string.  I then fired the shutter with my remote, which you will notice is in my hand in many of the shots.  I’m pretty happy with these pictures.  I now have pictures of my kids and me doing something that ALWAYS fills my heart.

And the fact that these are self portraits just tickles me pink.  :)

And so without further ado, I present to you The Story of Love and Wrestling.

The wrestling match always begins with someone standing on the bed, assuming the Battle Pose.

But no one stays on their feet long.

Battling now commences.

As you can tell, I am very, VERY fierce.

You can clearly see that this battling business is not fun at all.  Battling is hard work.  And it’s dangerous.  But someone has to do it.

I really take a punishing.

He’s ruthless.  You can clearly see that I can hardly stand it.

As the battling winds down, it becomes a little bit more obvious what all this battling is really about.  Hugs.

But someone else wants in on this game.  My girl.  My mini me.

And she brought her cats.

It started out innocent enough.

But soon….

But it always ends in happy sighs and snuggles.  I seriously just love it.

If you are now just tuning in to my blog and are wondering what this Life Story is all about, let me tell you.

Cuz it’s awesome.

And very very fun.

I teamed up with a group of amazing photographers and each month we are taking the time to document our own lives.   This is a challenge for us to capture our every day worlds and hopefully make us and everyone aware that our “ordinary” is actually “extraordinary.”  We’re calling the series “The Story of ________” and we’ll each be filling in our own blanks. At the end of this post is a link to another photographer who participated, and she’ll be linking to someone else. It’s a whole big circle of stories in pictures. Click through and enjoy!

To follow this story, click right HERE.

If you’ve missed my other Life Stories, don’t despair!  Here they are: Pumpkin Patch,  Best Friends, and Christmas Tree.

And I love new fans!  You can follow me on Facebook.

I remember these things because they were our traditions.  We did it every year.  That repetition makes memories stick.

I want sticky memories for my own children.  So, every Christmas, we go and cut down a tree. We go out to lunch, get treats, and we cut down that tree.

This year, we changed things up by going to a different place.  We found ourselves in Half Moon Bay at our favorite restaurant, The Flying Fish Grill.

My goal was to be as unobtrusive with the camera as I could, which is kinda sorta hard to do when you are taking pictures in a restaurant with your big ol’ camera.  But I tried.  Minimal direction from me…. just watching my family interact.

My goodness, look at my son’s and husband’s lips.  They look so much alike.

I love watching my husband play with our kids.  He does so many things just to make them laugh.  Here, they were adding all sorts of weird stuff to his water and then he would drink it.  As you can plainly see, Daddy is hilarious.

My loves….

Daddy love is awesome love.

And then off for treats.  Seriously.  This cookie was enormous.  And my daughter is part monkey.  She is always climbing.

And finally… to the Christmas tree farm.

It wasn’t long before we realized, these trees were seriously UGLY.

Look at this one.  It was missing a whole section in the middle of the tree.

My daughter was less than thrilled about the choices of trees.

My son didn’t seem to mind.

The dude is slightly insane.  And no, I didn’t ask him to pose.  He does this all by himself.  haha.

He’s so cute.

But c’mon…  Look in the background at the choices.  I’m telling you.  Pickings were SLIM. Good thing my cute daughter added some beauty to the place.

As the search went on…and on… crazy started to set in.

And daddy made an executive decision.

“We’re getting this tree.”

I was too tired to argue.

My boy hurt his knee but quickly recovered so he could watch his daddy cut down that tree.

But how would we get that tree onto the car?

Daddy lifted the tree.

By himself.

Cuz he’s wicked strong.

See?  Look how strong he is.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!!  Sorry.  This was taken earlier in the year, but I just wanted to show him off.

OK, back to the regularly scheduled program….

My son

My daughter

My family

I’m a lucky girl to get to build these traditions with this bunch.

And if you don’t know what this whole Life Stories is about, you’re about to be in for a treat.  Click on this link right HERE to see another amazing photographer, Claire Hunter.  She’s participating in this big ol’ circle of Life Stories.  You can see her amazing pictures, and she’ll link you to another amazing photographer.  If you keep on going through the circle, you’ll find your way right back here.  I’m doing this all year.  If you missed my last Life Story, you can see it right here and here.  And you can follow my work on Facebook.  Thanks for looking!

First picture, and I pretty much knew this session would be magical.

Yep.  This was gonna be fun.

I love this family.  Like, really.  I love them.  Their love for each other is so evident.  You can tell the parents are soul mates.  You can see the love they have for their children.  And they are all really wonderfully incredibly FANTASTICALLY good looking.  :)

We played.

The stars aligned….

They hugged.

SHE hugged.

I swear, she’s beautiful.  Crazy crazy beautiful.

And his hair…. his eyes…. his smile…. his soul….  Such a doll.

I…can’t…stop…sharing…..

OK OK OK.  I’ll stop.  No more sharing.

Thank you, M family for allowing me to capture the love and laughter that surrounds your family.  My heart felt joy throughout our session and as I edited them.

Just one more… to say goodbye.  You can follow my work on FACEBOOK.

My kids have some really awesome friends.  And so this is the story of them.  The story of the kids that make my kids better people.   My daughter’s best friend just happens to be the sister of my son’s best friend.  And guess what?  Their parents are pretty awesome too.  It’s just a huge gigantic friend jackpot!

We had them over for the entire day this week.  They got here right after breakfast and stayed until right before dinner.  What a day!

This pretty much sums up the day:

The kids were pretty excited.  Where to start?  All kid visitors always want to start in the kids’ secret room–a crawl space, converted into a fun area for the kids.  Adults have to crawl in.  I painted some of the walls with chalkboard paint, which makes for fun times.  This particular day the kids were not allowed to look at what was being drawn on the wall behind them until we were done drawing.  Ha!

But no playdate is complete without playing in their rooms.

And no playdate is complete without a fun new art project.  This one was extra fun.  My friend had shared this idea with me and the kids were eager to try it out: handprint snowmen on ornaments.

Step one: paint hand with white acrylic paint.

Step two: hold an ornament and carefully place your fingers along the sides of it:

Step three: let it dry while you play Twister.

Yes.  Really.  If you want your snowman ornament to turn out right, you must go play Twister.  I know it seems weird.  But it’s true.

I can hear their giggles.  I love how well they play together.  I actually get a little emotional looking at all of these.  Friends rock.

We wanted to be sure that the paint was dry.  So they had to play a little more.

All this waiting for paint to dry can make you crosseyed.Is it time???  Yes.  It’s time for Step four: draw the faces on the snowmen.

Aren’t they cute?  I  think we’re going to have to do this again.  I see grandparent gifts here, don’t you?

And now, time to go outside.

I MADE them take a nice picture.  Well, I TRIED to get them to take nice pictures. 

I love how much they love each other!

And I have a little something to tell you.  I know some cool kids.

Cool girls….

Cool boys….

Cool kids….

Hope you enjoyed this episode of Life Stories as much as I enjoyed shooting it.

And if you don’t know it, well, you’re in for a surprise.  Click on this link right HERE, to see another amazing photographer, Leah Jent.  She’s participating in this big ol’ circle of Life Stories.  You can see her amazing pictures, and she’ll link you to another amazing photographer.  If you keep on going through the circle, you’ll find your way right back here.  I’m doing this all year.  If you missed my last Life Story, you can see it right here.

Hope to see you back here really soon!

And I love new Facebook fans!  Feel free to like my Facebook page!

He’s a stunner. Check out his two different colored eyes.  Can you say “WOW!”?

Some of my favorites from the day.  There’s nothing quite like Daddy Love.And there’s nothing quite like Mommy Love either. So many favorites!

Thanks so much for looking!  And thank you C, S and C for giving me the opportunity to watch your family grow.  I look forward to next year!

You can follow me on Facebook!  I love new fans.