Join me as I take one photo a week for the next year, each one capturing a specific aspect of our family life and my kid's childhood that I want remembered. You can read the introduction post here, an FAQ post here and all related posts here.

It's the second week of the month which means we're photographing our family relationships.

Assignment 11: Photograph the relationship between your kids and their grandparents.

I tried to make this a little easier for you. Notice I didn't say photograph them with their grandparents? If your parents or your in-laws live close then this is an easy one. If they don't live close by or if they are no longer here, you need to get a little more creative.

We are so blessed to have my parents living close by (for part of the year) and they love their grandkids like crazy. They are so quick to help us out when we need it and especially love taking the kids on special outings even when we don't need the help.


There are so many different photographs I could have taken this week - my dad & Angelo on the seadoo, my mom helping Gracie put on her shoes, all of them together swimming in the pool - but I love these two with each of them completely engrossed in doing something with the kids. My parents have so much patience and, even when the kids want to swim or play at the beach for hours, they happily stay the entire time.

If your parents don't live in your city, you can always photograph your kids talking to them on Skype or on the phone, though I like the Skype idea because then you can have both of them in the photograph. If your parents are no longer here, you can photograph your children doing something that reminds you of your parents or with something of theirs - a quilt handed down or a chair that used to be in their house.

I'd love to see your grandparents photographs - link up below or send me an email.

Another month complete. It's hard to believe two months have gone by already.

While I love my monthly photos together again this month, when I was beginning to design this month's album pages I realized that, in all my weekly photographs for this month, I didn't do a close-up of their faces. I'm okay with that for this month but I'm going to think a bit more in September about intentionally getting some shots of their beautiful eyes.

Instead of doing two separate layouts this month, I decided to put all the weekly photographs on one side of the spread and my two favourites from this month on the other side. I had so many personal faves this month but I chose these two because it really shows where they're at right now. Angelo is full of smiles and fun and getting so big (I can't believe how old he looks here)! And Gracie is so independent and really looking like a toddler, especially with her hair pulled back in a hair clip.

And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you can read about my year in photos capturing a specific aspect of my children's life once a week for the next year here and here and see each weekly post here.

Join me as I take one photo a week for the next year, each one capturing a specific aspect of our family life and my kid's childhood that I want remembered. You can read the introduction post here, an FAQ post here and all related posts here.

The first week of the month is usually a room in the house but I'm preempting that for something a little more time sensitive.

Assignment 10: Photograph your "back to school".

Angelo starts a new preschool tomorrow and he's really excited. Since the first day of school is actually tomorrow, this month is a little more "set up" than normal but photographing his back to school get-up now means I can really be there with him enjoying his first day instead of worrying about getting that perfect first day photograph.


For Angelo, the first day of preschool this year is all about his backpack and getting his inside shoes ready and talking about who his teachers and friends will be. If you want to switch it up this week, consider photographing what school means to them instead of the actual first day of school. Maybe it's laying out all their school supplies or going back-to-school clothes shopping.

You can also go to the school today before school starts or one evening when it's not so busy if you want some photographs without all the craziness of that first week of school.

If your littles are too young to be starting school you can still capture the same feeling in your photograph. Most programs start up again in September so maybe it's the start of their swimming lessons or going to daycare. Or maybe the beginning of September means the beginning of fall and switching over to jackets in the morning or boots when you're out for a walk.

We'll still be photographing a room in our home this month, it will just be in a couple weeks instead. Send me an email or link below if you're participating this month so I can follow along with your project!

Join me as I take one photo a week for the next year, each one capturing a specific aspect of our family life and my kid's childhood that I want remembered. You can read the introduction post here, an FAQ post here and all related posts here.

Since August has five Mondays, this week is a bonus week. If you've missed a week or two, now is a great time to catch up. Wherever you are in the project, or even if you're not participating, I hope you'll all join in this week.

Assignment 9: Print a photograph.

One of my goals for this project is to have a printed album at the end of the year that my family and friends can hold in their hands and flip through. And I'm pretty good about getting family images up on our walls. But there's just something about having a recent photograph up that makes me smile.

I love our home and I'm passionate about having artwork of the people I love most up on the walls. So there should be no excuses for leaving my images languishing on the computer where no one gets to see them.


I had three of these "frameless" frames left over from a project a year ago so I decided to put them to good use. I ordered some custom mats from Opus and then printed some 8"x10" photos from the past month.

The best thing about this is that I can swap them out regularly. I'll actually probably swap them out fairly soon as I'm not overly crazy about how these three look together but for now I'm just happy to have them up on my walls.

I've only had them up for 24 hours and every time the kids walk by they stop and look. I hung them lower than I would have so they'd be able to see them and yet Gracie still wants to be lifted up so she can point at the one of Angelo. Definitely happy I decided to get them up on the wall, and thinking of another project to display some photographs at their height.

I challenge you this week to print a photograph. You don't have to do anything fancy with it - you can pin it to a bulletin board, put it in an old frame you're not using anymore or even tape it to your computer screen - just print one.

Join me as I take one photo a week for the next year, each one capturing a specific aspect of our family life and my kid's childhood that I want remembered. You can read the introduction post here, an FAQ post here and all related posts here.

We're back to photographing the details of our life.

Assignment 8: Photograph summer feet.

Your kids, yours, all together, take your pick.

There's just something about kids feet in the summer. Angelo's feet are always a little dirty from running around outside with bare feet. And when we're at the lake it seems like they're always covered in sand.  Gracie has the funniest little feet ever. They're cute and pudgy and her little toes are always curled under. I don't remember Angelo's ever being like that and I'm sure Gracie's won't stay like this for long so all the more reason to capture them in a photograph today.


This week was a lot harder for me than I thought it would be. Everything I tried didn't really work - either grass or sand covered up their toes or I just couldn't get the look I was going for. At first I passed this photo right by but the more I looked, the more I realized it had just what I wanted.

I love how you can see her toes curling under. I love that it's first thing in the morning and we're outside in bare feet and the little pieces of grass and dirt are sticking to their feet. I love the rock that made it's way into the photograph. Both my kids have a thing with rocks - they're forever collecting them and stowing them away in pockets, carseats, wherever. I love how you can see all the scrapes and bruises on their legs that come from having a great time outside in the summer.

And I love how you can see the difference in their colouring. Both kids were born with my colouring but as Angelo gets older you can see his getting closer to Jim's, especially in how quickly and easily he tans. Both kids get the same amount of sunscreen at the same time yet Gracie's skin still looks just like mine while Angelo's is so dark.

If you're playing along, share your link below in the comments. I'd love to follow your project. And thanks to my Seattle photog peeps for all the in-person blog love last weekend. Loved spending the weekend with you all, my artist friends!

Join me as I take one photo a week for the next year, each one capturing a specific aspect of our family life and my kid's childhood that I want remembered. You can read the introduction post here, an FAQ post here and all related posts here.

The third week of the month is either for taking a seasonal photograph or photographing part of our daily routine. Today we're going to start photographing our daily routine.

Assignment 7: Photograph your child sleeping.

Is sleeping part of the daily routine? I'd say so.

I love how each child sleeps so differently. Gracie used to sleep on her stomach with her bum up in the air and, even with all the photographs I take in a day, I don't think I have a photograph of that. So it's especially important to me to get a photograph of them sleeping today.


I had wanted to get one of her facing me but she woke up when she heard my camera clicking away. I decided I love this one anyway - the way she's totally stretched out with her right hand tucked up by her neck.


So then I snuck into his room to take his photograph sleeping. Except I remembered he had asked if he could nap in our bed today. He never asks so of course I said yes. He tried to give up his nap but every time he starts reading for his quiet time he falls asleep. I was going to retake this photograph in his own bed but he always sleeps this way which, in his room, means he's facing the wall. So I decided instead to be thankful he chose to sleep in our bed on the day I was taking the sleeping photographs.

And I specifically chose to do the sleeping photo while we still have long daylight hours. So if your kids are too old to nap (thank goodness mine still do!) you can photograph them first thing in the morning or at night before you crawl into bed.

If there's not enough light outside, turn on the hallway light and open up their door. Hopefully so the light hits their face. The orange colour of the light shining on them with the dark shadows in the rest of the room will really give a cool night-time sleeping feel.

Join me as I take one photo a week for the next year, each one capturing a specific aspect of our family life and my kid's childhood that I want remembered. You can read the introduction post here, an FAQ post here and all related posts here.

In the second week of each month we're going to be capturing our family relationships.

Assignment 6: Photograph the sibling relationship(s) in your family.

That sounded really formal. What I mean is, photograph your kids together. If you have 2 kids it's easy. If you have more than two then either photograph them all together or photograph each of your children with one of their siblings.

And just to challenge you a bit... photograph them doing something they always do together. For mine it could be playing "peek" with the quilt my mom made Gracie, having a race around our kitchen island, holding hands when they walk on the trail behind our house or the daily dance party that happens when they both need to burn off some energy.


These two love each other so much. As soon as they're both awake in the morning and Gracie's had her morning bottle, they pull down all the blankets and pillows and dump the small box of toys we have up here and sit and play. This is so typically them - just needing to be close to each other while they play.

If you have one child, then this is a bonus week. Photograph them doing something they love. Or photograph them with their best bud who is just like a brother or a sister to them. Your choice.

Have a great Monday and link up below if you've posted yours somewhere!

Join me as I take one photo a week for the next year, each one capturing a specific aspect of our family life and my kid's childhood that I want remembered. You can read the introduction post here, an FAQ post here and all related posts here.

Have you thought about what you're going to do with your photographs once we reach the end of our year in photos? The whole reason I wanted to do this project was so my family would have something tangible in our hands that showed what our life was like from the summer of 2011 to the summer of 2012.

I decided I'm going to do a 12"x12" album printed through my album supplier. It's just easier for me to go that route since I'm so familiar with working with them and the finished product is so gorgeous.

As I've been going through the month, I've been putting a copy of my images into a seperate folder labeled 'Our Year in Photos - July'. It makes it so much easier to see what I'm working with and put my pages together. I'm going to be doing my album layouts as I go along so it's not so overwhelming at the end of the year.



For this month I decided to do one layout of the weekly photographs and a second layout of my favourite photographs. Since the album is 12"x12" these photographs are going to be a good size.



Because my book is going to lay flat when opened, my photographs in the first layout go right across the spine of the book. Make sure you check how your book opens - if there's a spine like a traditional book you'll want to make sure your photographs are far enough away from the spine that you don't lose any of your image.

On their own, they aren't all the best most 'pefect' images of my family I've taken this month but I love how the randomness of them all on a page together really shows our life.

Let me know how you've decided to print your album!