Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day, Billy!  I always knew you would adore our child and love her with your whole heart.  But since I didn't realize how much of a test motherhood can be, I only now know how much your love and support of me also helps to make sure Nora gets the best from both of us.  Thank you for keeping me balanced and focused on what's really important.  Nora and I both appreciate all the work you do to give us the stability and support we need to be such a happy little family.

One of the things I've learned since my dad died is that you can experience extreme sadness and happiness at the same time.  To say I have "mixed emotions" about Father's Day doesn't really do the feelings justice, because that phrase has a pretty negative connotation and the feelings don't really mix together for me.  I miss my Dad a little more than usual today, and I feel a little more appreciative that Nora has such a loving, supportive, and stable Dad.  My happiness about Billy being a dad doesn't mitigate my sadness about my dad being gone, and my dad's absence doesn't interfere with my happiness about taking a day to celebrate Billy's role as Nora's father.  I feel both of those emotions simultaneously.  Together, they combine to make me feel a great deal of gratitude that I had such a devoted Dad and that my daughter has the good fortune of having the same.

For Nora's gift to Billy, I purchased some wood letters and planned to pose her holding them in some picturesque locations to spell out D-A-D in a triptych frame I purchased.  My plan is to re-take the photos every year and update the frame for Father's Day.  I am in no rush for Nora to grow up, but as I tried to decide on locations to use, it was fun to think that in the future she'll help me decide where to pose.  This was the first location we used to shoot:

But as you can see, Nora was intent on helping me choose the locations from this year onward.  Obviously she was not impressed with this one, no matter how scenic I found it to be.  After trying to get her to smile in this field, I realized I would have to take her picture in familiar environments to get her to act like herself.  This was a helpful suggestion she made, actually, because it occurred to me that Billy wouldn't care where she was sitting in the photos; he would be looking right at her.  So after a few shoots around the house I ended up settling on these three photos for the frame.

Billy liked the gift and agreed that these pictures do a nice job of capturing different aspects of her little personality.  I hope that seeing them in his office each day will remind him how thankful we both are that he works so hard to make sure we have all the things we need.

I also wanted to share some of my favorite out takes from the photo shoots as a way of saying Happy Father's Day to my father-in-law, Chuck, and all the other dads out there, as well!