Hanging Family Pictures

You may have read my blog about decorating my bedroom with images I took whilst I was on overseas trips.  I have now finally done photos of my children around the house.  I am so excited!

I am the second child (of 2).  There are literally thousands of  photos of my older sister when she was a baby.  Every milestone was a brand new experience for my parents.  They were so excited to finally have a baby, and they recorded everything she did.  When I came along 3 years later, it was a bit of "seen that before".  My parents adored me as much as they did my sister, I have no doubt about that.  But with a toddler around and this was second time around, they weren't as good as recording my milestone events.  I have very few photos of me and my dad when I was a baby, mainly because he was taking them!

My children have all had lots of photos taken of them. My youngest, who is 6 years younger than her next older sibling, had 3 different professional photo shoots at the studio in my house when she was born.  We have probably more photos of her than the others.  But ... I never printed them out!  What a horrible parent!  I have a few standing frames around the place of my kids as babies, but only a couple are of my youngest.  

My other big issue is that I am now divorced from their father.  So, any photos that had the full family in it, I don't really want to have up anymore.  However, I don't want the kids to be looking around and it be blatantly obvious that their father is not in the photos anymore.  So, I made the decision to put photos of only them up.  Not me and them, only them.  I have a photo shoot booked for me and the kids and I have in mind a big pano to go above my bed in my bedroom, but that is my bedroom.  I want their living area to be about them.

I planned every set, and have deliberately put them in sets. I have sets of single images of the kids (and the same number of photos of each child so it is even!) and then sets of the 3 kids together.  I have also picked images from the last 4 years (since we separated).  On each of the frames, I have written the year and the location of the photos.

The kids feel it is a bit excessive.  But you know what, they will know that they are the focus of everything I do.  I set this house up, for them. I work hard to provide, for them.  I want to be a good example, to them.  They will never question how much I love them, or support them.  (Please don't think I am saying they question that at their fathers', far from it, they are incredibly lucky children to have both households adore them). My kids are lucky that they have a photographer for a mother, they will never be short of amazing photos of themselves. There were so many amazing ones to choose from. I picked some from my new studio (and new business I am launching) and some from our adventures together.

Print out your children's pictures.  It doesn't have to be expensive, or as deliberate as mine.  It can be polaroids that hang from a string!  But have something up of your children.  It makes them feel like they belong.