It’s been a while since I participated in the Impressions Project – which is a blog circle with creative and super talented women photographers from around the world.  They were nice enough to keep me in the group though and this month I got my act together to join them with Impressions for December.

If you’ve been following my blog for a while you know that I do a post about our annual winter stay-cation.  This made it very easy for me to pick out a theme for the December Impressions project – it is our stay-cation!

The girls had almost two weeks off from school, Victor took time off and I closed down shop for a couple of weeks so that we could spend time together, relax and recharge.  It was very laid-back but oh-so-lovely!   We had a big and very loud Christmas gathering at our house, went to Vermont for a few days to ski with friends, went to the city with my sister and her kids to look at the Tree and do all things touristy, had movie nights and game nights with friends, did lots of reading, cuddling and relaxing!  And of course the girls were so excited about a visit from Santa, complete with a note and PICTURE of him in front of our tree (curtesy of http://capturethemagic.com/).

I want to warn you though that these images are snap-shoty in quality and I am OK with that.  Being a professional photographer, it took me a long time be OK with not having to pose and position and perfectly process every single image that came out of my camera.   This year I just wanted to capture the memories of my kids – their excited faces as they read a note from Santa and opened their presents, the look of concentration as they were reading their new books, or building new creations with their construction toys, the joy of having family over…  Yes, I could’ve spent more time getting the colors just right or composing beautiful images but instead I chose to quickly document the moments and then go and LIVE them.   So if this is your first time on my blog, don’t judge my work by these images (you can scroll down or click here to see a sample from 2014 sessions).  Instead I hope you will feel the joy and authenticity in these images.

And after you are done checking out my images, click here to follow our blog circle and see what Natalie Carstens, who is an awesome birth story photographer in The Hague (that’s in the Netherlands!), has been up to.

Christmas Morning – Santa was here! 🙂

Christmas morning: the girls did not waste any time and wanted to read their books – gifts from Santa!

Christmas family gathering: my sister, cousins, I and my Grandfather!

A day in Vermont:

Vermont: reading My Little Ponies comics with a My Little Pony nightlight standing guard:

Silly:

Vermont: reading time

Back at home: the girls booby trapped their bedroom!

Impressions’ is a creative project by an eclectic group of female photographers from around the globe. We aim to share the inspiration behind what we do through our monthly posts. On the 8th of each month, we will be sharing 8 images that tell the story of what inspired us in the previous weeks: our families, nature, weather, or maybe even work itself! We are free to explore the meaning of ‘impressions’, and it is likely to change month to month.