Beyond the Family Photo Session: Insta-Inspired Family Artwork

Stitch Fellas Family

If you missed the window for a sunkissed summer family photography session, you may now find yourself, like me, frantically trying to book a mini-session to have something suitable for this year's Christmas card.

Maybe it’s the Midwesterner in me, but I certainly feel compelled to capture my littles picking apples or wobbling amongst pumpkins at the orchard, sitting on a tartan blanket against a wall of fall colors, or bundled up among evergreens at the Christmas tree farm (or all of the above).

With holidays on the horizon, family photo sessions are a great way to knock out the Christmas cards and grandparent gifts. But sometimes it’s fun to explore other ways to capture your family at this moment in time. Last year, I gifted myself a custom watercolor of our family, including the dog, and I love it! So if you’re looking for some alternates or complements to this year’s family photo session, or for a unique personalized gift, these options can add a little something extra to your family gallery, in your own personal style.

Part of the Time, Life’s Mighty Good

Great Grandma

The day my grandmother died, I missed the phone call to tell her goodbye. I’ve often wondered how I would have handled the weight of that moment. Surely many “I love you”s would have been blubbered through tears, but would I have told her what I’d known for as long as I could remember? That if I was lucky enough to have a daughter someday, I would name the baby after her? I’ll never know.

But let’s not talk about that, she would say. This is not a sad story. A year later, I did have a baby girl. And I did name her after my beloved grandma, Corinne.

My pregnancy had been pleasant and uneventful until my water broke five weeks early, dousing the front seat of our car as my husband and I headed home from our first parenting class. Two hours later my baby was out and I enjoyed regaling the tale of our late-night surprise to my family, friends, and even clients via calls, texts, and emails. It was 3 a.m. and I think I was still high on adrenaline and whatever drugs they gave me for the C-section. Initially, doctors said to expect a week-long hospital stay for our preemie. I had only seen her for a second before she was whisked off to the NICU while I stayed on the table to be sewn up.

Eight hours later, with my husband’s coaxing, I finally stood up in slow motion and shuffled my way toward the NICU wing. I stepped into the room and froze. She was tiny. She was hooked up to tubes. She opened her mouth to cry, but no sound came out, a ventilator stuck down her throat. She would spend nearly three weeks gaining strength in the hospital, while I found myself in a dark fog. Even after she came home, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had missed out on so many “firsts” of motherhood.

Then, something miraculous happened. My dad emailed me a direct line to the past. My uncle had come across a typed essay my grandma, my new baby’s namesake, had submitted to Reader’s Digest sometime in the mid-1960s. It was never published—he also found the rejection letter—but today she may have been a bonafide mommy blogger.