kitchener lifestyle photographer

Meet Toren...Toronto Family Photographer

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They're back!
My beautiful friend with her family from New Zealand to meet the newest addition to their family...Toren. Another amazing surrogacy story, this would be their second! 
For their first, Kairo, you can see our shoot and read some back story, HERE.

As you can see below, one of the images from that shoot made it to the cover of her book which is now published! I encourage you to BUY the book to read more about her amazing journey...

I feel beyond blessed that I can be a part of documenting something so miraculous! 
A true reminder that anything is possible ...xo

As for the goal for these photos below? Obviously to document Toren's arrival into the family...AND Amira wanted something very casual and fun -- which I always agree with, because...Toddlers and life work better that way :)

Making Time for What Matters...Kitchener Family Photographer

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“We all have fallen victim at one time or another to the relentless cycle of our children’s playdates and after-school lessons, to the push for their academic and athletic accomplishments, and to their endless desires for the latest toy, video game, or designer sneakers. The adage of our age seems to be “Get more out of life!” And we do our best to obey. Grab a snack, round up the kids, and we’re out the door—to do, or buy, or learn something more.

But in our efforts to make each moment “count,” we seem to have lost the knack of appreciating the ordinary. We provide our children with so much that the extraordinary isn’t special anymore, and the subtle rhythms of daily life elude us altogether. We do too much and savor too little. We mistake activity for happiness, and so we stuff our children’s days with activities, and their heads with information, when we ought to be feeding their souls instead. I know a mother who came upon her two-year-old sitting alone, lost in a daydream, and worried that he was “wasting time.”

Over the years, I have learned to quit speeding through life, but it is a lesson I must take up and learn again every day, for the world conspires to keep us all moving fast. I have found that it is much easier for me to stay busy than to make a commitment to empty time—not surprising, perhaps, in a culture that seems to equate being busy with being alive. Yet if we don’t attend to life’s small rituals, if we can’t find time to savor “dailiness,” then we really are impoverished.
Our agendas starve our souls...

When I stop speeding through life, I find the joy in
each day’s doings, in the life that cannot be bought, but
only discovered, created, savored, and lived. ”
— Katrina Kenison, Mitten Strings for God

The Picken Family...Kitchener Family Photographer

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I've been slacking and just getting around to posting these images from last year.
SO...that the NEW photos will be in order of events...(because there's more to come!)

I've already introduced you to the Picken's HERE.
And every time I see these guys, I fall in love with their photos...until the next time.
Maybe it gets better and better as this family keeps growing!
Actually...I know it does.

And a majority of what makes their photos so magic and memorable?
It's infused with their being.
They just show up, as themselves...bringing healthy snacks and smoothies.
Brock even brought a book he'd owned when he was a little boy! (...not a fan of props unless they make sense and are meaningful to YOU) So this was so special.

It's that simple, and think about the significance...
Great photos tell a story, and the only one that matters?
Is the one you're living.

xo

At the driving range with dad

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"...no one ever acquires all the muscular powers of which they are capable. Man is like a person born to enormous wealth, so rich that he can only use a part of his inheritance, but he can choose which part he will use at his pleasure. A man may become a gymnast by profession, but it does not follow that he was born with muscles of any special kind. Neither is the professional dancer endowed with muscles suited specially for dancing. The gymnast and the ballerina develop themselves by force of will. Everyone, whatever he may want to do, has such a wide range of muscular powers that he can choose and set himself a course. His mind can propose and direct his development. Nothing is preordained and everything is possible.
It is only necessary for his will to collaborate." -- Maria Montessori

...

First time at the driving range with dad! You were so excited!
Not to mention the hospitality from the owner -- thank you Jim's Driving Range!