Yes! You’re ready to dip your toes in and give Year In The Life Sessions a try for your family. It’s time to make this a priority. But, you’re still on the fence. What exactly will be photographed during our time together?
The great news is that when we work together to tell your family’s story through images, I’m going to lead you every step of the way through the planning process. Each family I work with gets a YITL family planner with some questions and thoughts on what we can photograph each month so we have a rough game plan of what to document. Let me share some of those ideas with you!
Every Day Life
When our kids are little, it’s really the little things they will remember and cherish. Document those moments! The bedtime routines, the Saturday morning pancakes, going to the park together, baking or sharing a good book. Puzzles and games. Your kids favorite toys. Playing in the backyard with your pets. When you look back on your fondest childhood memories, what comes to mind? Your kids cherish those little moments too! Don’t hesitate from recording your day to day life.
Traditions, Milestones and Celebrations
Our family has a lot of traditions. Our family has pizza and movie night every Friday night. That’s a tradition we started with our kids many years ago and it’s time we cherish together at the end of our week. We also have lunch with my husband’s family after church every Sunday. Yes, traditions can also be seasonal, and those are great things to document as well. Does your family dye eggs for Easter? Do you go picnicking in the summer, or swimming at the pool? Perhaps you rake leaves together in the fall and put up Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. What is something your family does on the regular that we can document?
Just as important as traditions are those special milestones and celebrations. As our kids grow and change they are constantly hitting milestones. Maybe it’s birthday milestone, like turning 5, 10, 16, or 18! These are great things to document. Not only are there age milestones, but perhaps the milestones that are involved in special activities or programs they are involved in. Maybe they are graduating from Kindergarten or 8th grade, or they are part of a Karate program and they’re getting their next belt. Maybe they are a Boy Scout earning their Eagle Scout badge. There are so many things that can be celebrated and recorded.
Extended Family and Friends
Do you have family that visits once or twice a year. We have grandparents that live a thousand miles away that we only get to see a handful of times each year and those visits are so precious to us. How fun would it be to document some time during their visit? If it’s not grandparents, perhaps it’s family friends you don’t get to see often. Or maybe it’s friends that are as close as family that you do life with regularly. As the saying goes, it takes a village. Don’t be afraid to make your village part of your YITL story!
When it comes to what is documented during YITL sessions, the possibilities are truly endless. But isn’t that the beauty of it all? This a story that is uniquely yours. Not one that can be replicated over and over again, but one that is unique to you that no one else can have. And once you get started, the ideas will overflow! I look forward to sharing these moments with you!
