“Close the door,” she tells me. “So my mom doesn’t know what I’m doing.”

I have a feeling mom knows exactly what she’s doing — and is letting it happen anyway (at least for my sake). 

Dressed in her black leotard, Winnie, age 4, wraps her bare feet around the white metal of her headboard. She straightens up, bends her knees, and launches herself onto pillows and blankets piled on the mattress below. 

I know her mom is pumping in the other room while catching up on emails. And her dad is sitting in the same room – at the coffee table – sketching out a new design. I’m not sure where the other two kiddos are at that exact moment, but I know this is just a regular afternoon in their cozy intown home. 

They have let me capture them just as they are for the afternoon and I’m feeling so grateful for the honor. It can be difficult to let a stranger in to see your real life. Many of us feel embarrassed about all the stuff piled around – mountains that never seem to shrink, despite our best efforts. Or the wildness of our kids, who are either wearing the most absurd combination of clothing or nothing at all. 

But this is the good stuff right here. These are the things we want to remember — the way Winnie used to jump off her headboard, over and over and over again. The way her sister, Chuck, never seemed to keep her feet on the ground. The way Roland used to be the smallest of the three and still needed snuggles for comfort. The way James chipped away at his endless to-do list on the weekends – knees and hands showing the effort of all his work. And of course the way Kaleen was their rock – the one who kept everyone grounded (yes, even those who kept trying to fly off!). 

I hope they cherish these portraits the most when they look back 10 or 20 years from now — when life feels completely different and they ache a little for these simpler days when smashed fingers were the biggest heartbreak in their home:

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Thank you for letting me capture the real you <3

This shoot was part of a Day-In-The-Life in Atlanta session, where I worked with various photographers to show how different families spent the same day. Follow this link to see how the next part of the day unfolded.