real life. real love. real pics of my 3 under 3.

I love taking pictures of my kids, one of my favorite hobbies in fact.  I've always been obsessed with picture taking, even back when it meant taking a couple disposable cameras on all my adventures and vacations in high school and then making photo album after photo album of the developed pictures. I've never professed to be a great photographer but I do love capturing memories and pictures of people I care about.

That love only intensified when I started having kids, as it seems to do for many of us.  I pulled out my "good" camera and we even bought Photoshop, something I'd been wanting to learn how to use for years.  And I have thoroughly enjoyed the process of learning how to take better quality pictures and using Photoshop.

But ever since we had sister, our third, join our ranks, I haven't even bothered trying to take pics of all three of them together, usually just one or maybe two of them together.  Well, a couple days ago I decided it was high time, mostly because all my pictures in my house are outdated and I really wanted some with ALL the kids together.

Ha, it was a laughable attempt, I couldn't even get them to all look at the camera at once, let alone smile or keep their fingers out of their eyes or nose or mouth, or each other's.  A bit silly to try and take them on like that flying solo during the day I know but evening is hard for just about anything with them.

But as I've gone through the shots I got, I just felt more and more happy with them, no the kids aren't looking at me most the time, at least not all of them, in not one of them are they all smiling at me, but they are being themselves. And I loved capturing some of those real moments. I've tried hard to focus on the good moments I want to remember from this crazy and busy stage of life. And as I took these pictures and chilled out a little bit about the result, I found myself loving the growing friendships I was able to capture as a result. I absolutely adore my three little miracles, in spite of how far they push me past my capacities every day. And I can only hope and pray they will learn to become the best of friends, as my siblings have become for me.

I believe there will always be a place for that classic family picture but I hope to fill my life and home with more of the real family moments from here on out.

So without further ado, here are some of my favorite shots (from a couple different days) of what makes up so much of my days (and my nights) currently.