Life at Sunset :: Elissa

“I was excited to shoot with the Pugh family! When you are going to do a photo shoot with a family who has kids named Ziggy, Goldie, and Elida, you just know it’s gonna be a good shoot…
and a great shoot it was! The kids were some of the most polite and kind kids I have ever met.
I loved my time with them!” —Tausha Ann Photography

I am a mother of three. Ziggy is seven years old and is in first grade at our local elementary school.  Goldie is three years old, and Elida is 17 months (around 15 months at the time of the photo shoot). The girls and I are home during the day. We pick up Ziggy from school at 3:45 pm every day. From that point until bedtime (between 7-8 pm) is the time of day I consider the most chaotic. The day of the photo shoot, I picked up Ziggy earlier than usual in order to be home in time for Tausha’s arrival.

On a typical day, after Ziggy comes home, we are fixing snacks, doing homework, changing diapers, starting dinner, and honestly, just trying to stay afloat until my husband gets home around six. On this particular day, we had just come out of the week of ice that kept everyone inside. When we saw the weather wasn’t half bad, everyone headed to the back yard to blow off some steam.

Before the week of ice, everyone but my husband had a stomach bug. After that, the baby had an ear infection. We had been cooped up for a loooooooooong time.

Tausha pointed out how they kids have me “surrounded” in this picture, and I feel that it very much represents the chaos of afterschool time.

As far back as I can remember, I knew I wanted to have three children. This moment between big brother and baby sister makes me so happy.

The kids would have been content to keep playing in the yard, but we needed to move inside and start dinner. Ziggy headed off to decompress with some electronics time, and Goldie and I started to prepare the chicken.

Daddy’s home! High five!

A small house, three kids, two adults, too much stuff, and not enough time is a constant struggle.

It was a bit hard to allow the chaos, the messiness, and myself to be documented. I am so very glad we did it though. The process reminded me of this quote by Ruth Hamilton: “Cleaning and scrubbing will wait ’till tomorrow, but children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow. So quiet down cobwebs! Dust go to sleep! I’m rocking my baby. Babies don’t keep.”

The days are long and the years are short; let’s remember to enjoy them!

Thanks to Tausha for helping me remember.

For more pictures and a peek into Tausha’s perspective of the shoot, be sure to check out her post here. And don’t forget to check out the rest of this amazing series as well!