A Day with the Sawyer Seven

I am pretty excited to share this session with you all today.  Last month I spent the afternoon with the Sawyer Family.  Prior to the session Cora and I bonded over a few emails about parenthood and transparency.  As I mentioned to her, one of my missions with these kinds of sessions is to be open with other parents about what really goes on in out homes.  With kids.  And full time jobs.  And chores.  I especially want new parents to benefit from this “mission”.  I painfully remember how much I struggled the first 2 years as a parent.  While I was feeling like a hot mess, I swear every other mother I would run into would look like they had it all together.  I had really developed a complex about going out in public and just forget about me inviting someone over!!  It wasn’t until a couple of very nice women from work pulled me aside and basically told me to chill.  And to quit trying to control everything.  And NO parent really knows what they are doing despite how confident they may appear.  We are all just trying to do our best to keep our kids clothed, fed, warm and challenged enough that they eventually grow up to be reasonable, compassionate and well balanced adults.  It’s all a science experiment.  If one thing doesn’t work, try something else.  And just because something worked with one kid does not mean it will work for every kid.  They are human too!!

Anyway, back to my day with the Sawyers!  Cora and Jared have 5 beautiful kids with 2 of them being 15 month old twins.  Their family honestly made me second guess my whole “one kid is enough” stance.  Ha.  They were crazy beautiful in thier perfectly imperfect ways and I was reminded of what I loved about my own childhood with my brothers and sisters.  Jared is the 4th generation owner of a local hardware store and a cute little coffee shop (that had excellent drinks by the way!!).  Just like in thier business, Jared and Cora run their home like a boss and they have just the best attitude towards life and eachother.  I really believe that your experience as a parent is directly related to how you approach parenting.  You can either embrace the crazy, wild, messy and tiring parts of being a parent and soak in those precious sweet and hilarious moments or you can treat parenthood like a chore and an obligation.  Jared and Cora shared with me what fully embracing parenthood looks like.  They were so involved with thier kids, yet they stayed so calm and relaxed even when the kids were pushing limits and trying to defy gravity.  HA!  It was just so awesome to be a part of thier day and to see what a normal day is like in another family’s life.  Hanging out with the Sawyers inspired me to be more patient, loving, fun and just a little more carefree ‘cause we only get this one life and really…shouldn’t it be full of all those things??

Thank you to the Sawyer family for letting me hang out with you guys.  I can’t wait to get together again!!