When you go into the kids’ room in the morning before the sun is all the way up and brother has climbed into baby sister’s crib.

When cooking waffles as a family means wiping batter off of quicker-than-you-remembered baby hands and was that egg in Beckham’s hair?? How did that even get there . . . ?

Grabbing a dry waffle in your hand so that you can set up paints for your two-year-old to keep him busy. When mom and dad tag team eating because you can’t both really sit down at the same time for very long with two kids this little.

When a bath is required after breakfast because there is food all over just about every inch of that babe’s body.

When daddy makes sure to kiss everyone goodbye before leaving for work.

When you’re finishing your now cold coffee after laying your baby down for a morning nap. When you pull your firstborn into your lap for his first one-on-one momma time for the the day.

It certainly isn’t the easiest or most glamorous of life seasons. But DANGIT if there isn’t so much sweetness in it that it hurts sometime? This is what I’m passionate about capturing. Real family moments. Because as cute as those posed photos of everyone smiling at the camera are (and I mean that, they can be so cute!), what do they actually tell you about that particular season of life in your family? In the short (and yet long?? and absolutely wonderful and yet completely imperfect??) nine months that I’ve been a mom, I’ve been finding myself thinking “Oh, I wish I had a photo from all of us snuggling in bed together early in the morning” because that time is so, so sweet to me. Or “I wish I had a photo of how giggly Juni gets on her changing table when she’s sleepy but still happy before bedtime.” These are the things I’ve found myself wishing I could have documented. So when I think of cute baby bed head and a family trip to the donut store or those towel-wrapped cuddles after bathtime and yeah, even those moments right after time-out when you’re having to lovingly explain why it’s not okay to hit — it’s in all of that that I see a lot of real and sweet moments just waiting to be chronicled.

Keep in mind I’m not proposing this naively. As I write this post as my 9-month-old plays with books she’s ripped the pages out of and climbs over empty print boxes and packaging materials she’s scattered on my office floor. My husband had to get up out of bed to rock her back to sleep three times the night before last. I have a constant underlying fear that she’s going to eat a bobby pin off the floor that’s fallen out of my hair. One day that won’t be what life looks like anymore. And that’s well and good but I don’t want to forget a bit of it.

When I first pitched Darby the idea of coming to their home before the kids were even awake and documenting a morning in their home without posing or “okay now everyone smile here!” she said: