Asher's Big Boy Bed {Bitterroot, MT Lifestyle Family Photographer}

A couple months ago, my little boy turned two. He LOVES his sleep (I know, weird, right?), so my husband and I spend a lot of time and energy thinking about making sure he's comfortable, so he KEEPS loving it. I had his bedding custom-made. He has a strict night-time routine that he knows by heart (jim-jams [pajamas], toot-bwush [toothbrush], dowies [stories, three to be exact], pway [pray], thing [sing], hug and kiss, tie-time [nighttime] with goner [glow-worm]). That's it. We know it by heart and we do it every night. 

So we approached the transition from a crib to a toddler bed with some trepidation. Wouldn't it disturb his beloved routine? What if he decided to not like sleep so much anymore? What would he do with all his freedom!?!

One day my husband just bit the bullet and converted his bed. And Asher kind of... loved it. He crawls in and out of it. He plays. He pretends his stuffed animals need to go to bed. 

It's both awesome and terrifying watching them grow up into their own little people.

Beating the Winter Blues {Bitterroot, MT Landscape Photographer}

I am ready for spring, how about you? We've been snowed in at least a couple of days out of the week for many weeks in recent memory. This week has been the craziest. We didn't go anywhere all weekend, and I had to reschedule a bunch of photoshoots on Sunday (sunrise maternity photoshoots in February in Montana. What, exactly, was I thinking?!?) On Sunday, my husband's boss called and told him not to come to work on Monday because the roads would be bad. Native Montanans conceding that the bad winter weather can create impossible driving conditions pretty much signals the apocalypse. We enjoyed our day at home, but even though conditions didn't improve on Tuesday, my husband went to work. By Wednesday, there was a break in the clouds and we even saw the sun for a few short hours. Asher and I headed to Missoula for some meetings with potential clients. Thursday, though, the weather was back to its old tricks and a blizzard began Thursday night. Things got really bad on Friday. REALLY bad. Practically everything was shut down and all of my husband's clients cancelled their meetings with him -- rendering him pretty ineffective at the office. He came home early. It was even worse in Missoula. In the afternoon there was an avalanche at the base of Mount Jumbo, a very populated community in town. It took out a two-story house and the elderly couple who lived inside were lost for several hours. An eight-year-old boy was also lost in the avalanche for an hour. All were found and are at local hospitals. I've never heard of anything like this happening in a city the size of Missoula. Please pray for everyone involved. 

Church and small group has been cancelled two weeks in a row. We can't ever follow through with social plans. We've got a bit of cabin fever, to say the least. It's been pretty difficult to stay positive when you can barely leave the house all week and all this havoc is happening around you. I tearfully told my husband one day, "This is the darkest month of my life!" And he cracked up laughing. "What?" I demanded. "That is the most dramatic thing I've ever heard!" he replied. 

Okay, so I'm a bit dramatic. I'm a dreamer, and lately I've been dreaming of what it will be like here in a few months. Our eight-acres piece of paradise in Montana is absolutely glorious in the summer. I gather armfuls of peonies and irises and fill every vase we own with fragrant flowers. An enormous rosebush blooms in erratic fashion off our porch. I have literally stood and watched our delicate poppies birth fiery orange petals in a matter of minutes from my kitchen window. 

My favorite feature of the property though is the twenty or so lilac bushes that line the front of the property. They bloom soft purple and white throughout the month of May. I plan to take our family portraits in front of them every year.

Lately, I've been pretending that the snow that collects on the branches of the lilac bushes is actually the first white blooms of the season.

The weather forecast says we'll be inside for a few more days because as this storm dies down, another follows right behind it. What do you do to stay positive during trying times?