All I can do is laugh looking back on last Mother’s Day. As my then two-year-old Hazel and I arrived for our Mommy & Me shoot with Lauren Fisher Photography, I went to get her out of her car seat and realized she had taken off her underwear in our hurried rush (as usual) to get home from work/daycare per my last minute decision to have our picture taken anyway. I was stressed out (as usual) and obviously not paying enough attention to her. Have I mentioned how happy we are to not have her in daycare and that I’m home with her now full time?!

This was just the tip of the iceberg on her independent “streak.” And she’s still a little camera ham just as photogenic as ever! But if you call her a ham, she’ll say, “I’m not a ham, I’m a person,” quite frankly. She corrects your compliments, if you say something she drew is cool, she’ll say “no, it’s pretty.” She’s got a mind of her own, Hazel Alice, that’s for sure. I keep a journal of “Things Hazel Says” and they’re quite funny to look back on.

 

One of the most notable this year so far went like this: During the daily struggle to get dressed for preschool (and I wanted to dress her because she had a concert that evening) Hazel said to me “Do you think you’re me? No. I’m me and you’re you.” What?? “So I’ll wear what I want to wear, and you wear what you want to wear.” On cue, she then shut her bedroom door in my face. Can we say three-ager?!

She can be sweet though. Her life is a constant song and dance and seeing her beautiful mind unfold in art on paper is amazing. At night she tells me “I love to you the rainbow fractal way and back.” (This was her take on “I love to you to the moon and back,” when I told her I loved her to Pluto and back.)

Back to that day last year, the photo, and that hair…People always ask where she gets her curly hair, so I let mine be natural for this photo (my best friend calls it my mermaid hair, she’s so sweet, I call it Def Leppard bad 80s perm) but at least just once, there’s a photo proof of my contribution to Hazel’s fabulous hair!

Also note, she gets to wear real Lilly Pulitzer, I am in Lilly for Target. Oh the sacrifices we make for our kids!

The perfect backdrop was made by the talented Stacia McComsey of Petals with Style using over 1,000 roses!

This year Lauren Fisher is a first-time mommy herself and her photography studio is doing Extended Family portraits just in time for a last minute Mother’s Day gift! Photos are May 15. Email studio@laurenfisher.photography for collections & details. See an example on their Facebook page here.