We’re kicking off a series of posts titled How We Celebrate here at Houston Moms Blog, and we’re partnering with one of our favorite Houston photographers and videographers to bring it to you. Michelle from This Moment Photography will be working with some members of our contributor team over the next few months to capture how we celebrate — how we celebrate holidays, how we celebrate traditions, how we celebrate everyday, how we celebrate life, and how we celebrate family. I’m up first, and here’s how my family and I celebrate fall…
Like many of you, we have a tradition of going to the pumpkin patch each year. It’s our way of kicking off and celebrating fall. I make a big deal out of October. It’s my most favorite month of the year. I celebrate October.
Here’s why… It’s my birthday month {Halloween baby, here!}, it’s also my daughter’s birthday month, I love all things pumpkin, and we finally catch a consistent break from the 90plus degree temps here in Houston!
But October is also the anniversary of my mom’s death {23 years this year}. I’ve found that time doesn’t heal all wounds as that old saying goes. In fact, I lost my mom to brain cancer when I was 13, but I never mourned her loss more than 1} when I got married and 2} now that I have kids. So, no, time doesn’t heal, but time has helped me find different ways to cope and carry on. That’s why I make a big deal out of Octobers. I celebrate Octobers, because that is exactly what my mom would want me to do. She would want me to celebrate, create traditions for my family, create memories, and smile. In a way, it’s also my way of celebrating her too.
All that said, documenting my family’s annual trip to the pumpkin patch was a no brainer for me during this How We Celebrate series. I also love that said pumpkin patch is at our church — the church where both of my kids were baptized and the church that serves as my “village” in raising them. Doesn’t it absolutely take a village!? After taking a sneak peek around at all of Michelle’s work on Facebook, her blog, and her website, I knew immediately she had a talent for capturing all those sweet little details that could and would do our special traditions justice. She specializes in videography, and that’s mostly what she shot while we were at the pumpkin patch. However, these stills of my kiddos fighting might be my favorite photos from the day.
I love the still shots that Michelle captured and the ones she pulled from the videos she took, but the video of my kiddos and my family is, hands-down, the thing I love the most about this series and this session. I LOVE that Michelle is a videographer. In 10 years a sweet little photograph, whether printed or sitting on a hard drive somewhere, won’t remind me of my son’s sweet little skip or the precious way my daughter will give “sugars” to everything {even pumpkins}. We’ve laughed for over a year now about how my daughter is addicted to wipes and LOVES to wipe everything down. I love that Michelle captured that. I love that she captured our roles as parents very well on video also — me with my helicopter tendencies, wanting to be in the middle of everything, and my husband, the quieter, behind-the-scene observer.
Michelle went at our speed — well, I should say the speed of my kids. She was all about not forcing them to pose or to do things that felt unnatural to them. She wanted to capture them being themselves. She did just that. Thank you, Michelle, for spending the afternoon at the pumpkin patch with us. Thank you most of all for capturing these moments for us to have forever.
And then, as we left our beloved pumpkin patch on October 18th, we drove down Westheimer only to see giant red holiday bows and Christmas lights already up in Highland Village. We haven’t even finished celebrating fall yet. Sigh. Big, giant, huge sigh.
Connect with Michelle and book your session below…
This Moment Photography
Website | Facebook | Instagram
Please Note :: As we wrap up this post, we have to give This Moment Photography a great, big thank you for graciously sponsoring this series and capturing all of our special celebrations as part of it. We are so grateful to partner together with her on this project and encourage you to contact her too!
