Life Before 8AM {Dani}

“See and appreciate the significance in the mundane, in the everyday, in the fleeting. The big moments are important, but some of the best moments are the in-between ones.” – Karen Jacot Photography

I was absolutely stoked from the first moment that our founder told us we’d have the opportunity to do a Before 8AM shoot with Karen. Since the advent of Instagram, I’ve become completely infatuated with the romantic everyday lives of mega bloggers, even if I have been slightly skeptical about their perfectly staged homes… full of toddler level cactus and blown glass lamps….! Still, I’ve pretty much been dreaming about our very own, completely ordinary lifestyle shoot ever since (sans the cacti and fragile things below 48 inches)!

I debated if I wanted to get dressed… cause let’s be honest Saturday mornings before 8am are usually very lazy and brushing teeth and hair don’t happen for hours, for anybody. I’ll save you the suspense… I put on the essentials. No teeth were brushed for the making of this shoot.

Of course our little guy would sleep in this day… so unlike most mornings where he wakes us up, we were both conscious when he came flying out of his room asking, “Mama, are you awake?”

Weekends mean I’m the last one out of bed! Lily our silly standard poodle and I milking just a few more minutes in bed while the boys get things started.

This little boy motivates both directly and indirectly the brewing of coffee in the mornings. Today he decided the grinder was a bit too loud.

My in-laws bought us this portable record player a few years ago, and we brought it out to share some of the oldies that we each grew up with, with our son. Lately it’s been Beach Boys, on this day it was the Beatles.

Our son pretty much came out of the womb smiling…he’s a goofball, when he isn’t terrorizing that kitty behind him.

We recently figured out that making homemade biscuits is super easy (oops!) so we like to fry up chicken and bacon and then cover them in butter and honey on the biscuits. SO GOOD. Plus our son loves our Kitchenaid stand mixer. So it’s fun and delicious!

Bedhead is kind of a way of life around here…for like everyone.

Our first little boy, meet Bastien. He’s basically the best of cat and dog in one beautiful little body. He charms the pants off everyone that meets him. You say you hate cats? Not this one. I promise.

These are our concentration faces.

Our kitchen is easily our favorite space. We renovated last year, so the kitchen was our design baby. We eat, cook and play here — which means most of the life we live is right here. And occasionally we clean… thanks to Dashing Maids for making that possible!

These two are my favorite.

For as fiercely independent as this boy is, he’s also fiercely affectionate. I so admire his fearless approach to life.

Our backyard chicken’s needed some feeding, so we suited up to run out to the coop for a few minutes. These boots were the best birthday gift ever. He lives in them…thank you Target (and granny and papa).

Interested in the hens for only a few minutes, little man quickly happened upon some tools left out in the yard…not a bad discovery for my mini engineer!

Sneaking his way into the biscuits…it’s either him or the dog most mornings.

This guy right here is my best friend. He recently started working form home, which means we get to start more mornings than not with him around. We don’t get his famous fried chicken M-F, which is why Saturdays are the best.

Anyone else have trouble getting your 2-year-old to sit at the table?! Some days we fight for it, other days we let it go. Predictably, he ends up on someone’s lap… and I’m always rooting for daddy’s…

I live for these moments. Another reason we love our weekends. If you look closely you’ll see me in the background, seemingly touched by the sweetness that is my two favorite boys, because I’m about the luckiest girl in the world. What’s actually happening is I’m gagging. And about 12-weeks pregnant. And hoping I don’t throw up in front of Karen. #classy

Thank you, Karen, for coming into our home to capture a completely lazy ordinary morning with me and my two favorite guys. I absolutely cherish this season and these photos capture it perfectly.

For more pictures and a peek into Karen’s perspective of this before 8am shoot, be sure to check out her post here. And don’t forget to check out the rest of the posts within this amazing before 8am series as well!