It wouldn't be a schiessl family vacation...

It wouldn't be a Schiessl Family Vacation without all the chaos. Needless to say we all love traveling. Ever since having children, it has definitely been different. Traveling with patience, extra stops, and traveling with exponentially more stuff. Let's just say prepping for this self portrait family session was not just about planning outfits, and the best day to travel 1.5 hours from our resort to Garden of the God's.

A few much more unexpected events occurred on our drive. The windy roads down the mountain led to my daughter upchucking all over herself, and apparently caused my other daughter to literally poop her pants at the same time. Thankfully none of us had our outfits on by this point. Unfortunately, aside from these outfits, the girls had no other change of clothes. We left Garden of the God's purchasing a souvenir t-shirt a few sizes too big for Mira because they did not have pants, and left Mabel in a diaper that we luckily had in leu of a spare pair of underwear.

What we had also not anticipated is that it was sunny and in the 70's during the day, but as the sun slowly slipped around the mountains it quickly dropped to closer to the 50's. This mama forgot that coats are a must in Colorado. Yeah.

I quickly shot as much as I could from my family, but considering the circumstances of our arrival, I knew our time was very much limited. Many of these few images are printed largely in my home, and I cherish the memories leading up to them, as gross as they may be. The panic in my husband's eyes when we heard the noises of vomit, learning I was better at attacking the chaos and putting together a game plan, being on the fly with life, and watching how our littles responded in the moment.

As a photographer and a mom, you have to roll with the circumstances surrounding your day. My best advice to you, whether I am photography your family, or you are going to tackle your own family self portraits, carry grace, love and don't be too upset if life does not go exactly how you had imagined it.

I pray this never happens to another family, but let's be honest, it will. How will you handle it?