she left her legacy.

This morning, my sister told me about a friend of hers. Just this morning her father passed away---completely unexpected. It is tragic. I talked to her a few hours ago, and even still, I am very much affected by our conversation.

I hate hearing sad, real life, true stories. I couldn't help but cry thinking of that family and the agony they must be experiencing as they are dealing with the aftermath. So, with that background, you can see why I remembered something I read a while back.

Right before Cal was born, I found this great blog. It's called Ashley Ann, Under the Sycamore. She is a photographer in Oklahoma and she takes lots of pictures of her crazy life with her 4 cute kids. It's great. She's inspiring.

One day I read this post from her and bookmarked it so I could remember it. The story struck a chord with me. Maybe it will with you too.

In Ashley's post, she found this from another blogger, Emilie Ahren:

“Many scrapbookers knew Aleida Franklin. She was a wonderful wife and mother and a brilliant artist. I didn’t know Aleida personally, but she taught me something I will never forget.

She emailed me last year to tell me she loved my blog and to ask if I liked my short hair-cut. This lead to a series of emails which eventually led me to remark that I really loved how often she posted pictures of herself with her children on her blog. And she replied to me, “Have you ever seen a photograph of your own mother and thought to yourself how fat she looked? Or how she wasn’t wearing make-up? Or wasn’t dressed in a glamorous outfit?” Of course my answer was no.

She then responded with saying that she made it a goal to take a picture of herself with her children at least once every month. And that to use excuses about how we look, as women, is ridiculous, since our children will never care what we looked like, but only that we had physical evidence of the bond between mother and child.

Aleida tragically and unexpectedly passed away in an auto accident in September of 2008, leaving 2 small children and a grieving husband. After she passed I thought of how those children must feel to have those precious photographs. I have made it my personal goal to follow her wise suggestion and I try to take photos of myself with my children….double chins, make-up free, bed-head and all.

I invite Mothers everywhere to take Aleida’s Challenge. To photograph yourself with your children each and every month. And to post them here so that we can see Aleida’s legacy unfolding.”

Don't you think this is a great idea? I feel like, as women, we are so hard on ourselves. We have this assumption that unless we have our hair done, our make up just so, and dressed to the nines that we're not "photo ready".
We are our worst critics. I know. I'm right there with you.

So, I'm going to try my best to include some more shots of myself. Not because I'm in love with myself, but because I am a part of our family history.
Here's to not being so insecure.
Here's to being okay that I have a wonky tooth on my bottom row of teeth.
Here's to the weird way my nose wrinkles up when I smile.
Here's to me being okay that I'm not the same size I was in college. (GASP! I know, weird.)
Here's to taking pictures of me with my children, so that they can remember that I was an active participant in their lives.
Here's to remembering our REAL life.

Here's to Aleida's Challenge.

Feel free to join me. I think you'll be glad you did.