In a few minutes it's October 1st and I don't know where this year went so far! All year my children have waited for September because that's when it's their birthdays. My son at the beginning of the month and my daughter at the end. All year I tell them, don't wait for your birthday because when your birthday gets here the summer is over! Children love their birthdays and I remember how I waited all year for mine!

Between all the obligations as a busy mom and business owner sometimes a birthday can seem like another thing on the to-do list. All the shopping, maybe throwing a party and trying to make each birthday special and memorable is not easy. I often struggle with that.

I've been wanting to make each of my children a book from birth until now but have yet to do so. But this year for my son's birthday I investigated all my hard drives and pulled some pictures and organized files. I made a slide show that I already watched a million times. Going through pictures was not easy, lots of tears and emotions. I am so happy I did it though. Now I have it all in one spot to finally make a book.

My daughters wish was for me to make her one as well. When she was little, one of my hard drives failed and I lost 1 TB of data including her newborn pictures. Luckily I had some printed and some uploaded to shutterfly. These days I back up everything double and triple. I try not to focus on all the pictures I lost but have learned a valuable lesson and now take the time to backup and print pictures. Anyway, I made my daughter a slide show but I need to pull some pictures from birth and during the first year from shutterfly or scan them in one of these days.

I've learned that when you strive for perfection not much gets done because you think it won't be perfect anyway. These days my values have changed and even a 'bad' picture of my children is still a good picture and tells a story. Or a slide show with the first year missing - so out with perfection and in with 'getting stuff done'.

My photography journey has been pretty intense, always focusing on other people, literally. I haven't taken much time to smell the roses, I usually work and have zero social life. It gets lonely often, especially since it's been 18 years since I left Germany. Every year gets harder. I only have a handful of pictures from my childhood and sometimes I wonder if my time in Germany and my own childhood were real.

Not often do I allow myself to reflect and get sad. My focus is usually on something ahead and I always have something exciting I am working on. But it's been almost a year since I've seen my parents and combined with the fact that my children are growing up too fast and I just looked through 11 years of my life - I guess I am going through a bit of a rough patch here. But artists draw from that, it can't always be sunshine and rainbows.

So, for now I am happy that I made the slide shows, and had a great time celebrating my children's birthdays! It makes me truly appreciate what I have and why I do what I do!

Linus and Malina I love you both so much! I love seeing you both grow up! I treasure each image I have of you and all the memories that go with it! Happy Birthday!

- Your mommy Carmen | CHC-Photography, Inc.