Daily Habit Tracker | Free Printable

I am so excited to share this free printable with you! I thrive off of lists and when you can visually see and mark off your “daily to do list” even if it’s mundane it will help to motivate you to get it done before the day is over!

Ideas that may be on yours that are on mine:
Exercise
Water
Clean Eating
Photography Tasks
Connect (client care!)
Email
Vitamins

It could be house chores too that you want to mark off the list:
Make Bed
Clean Kitchen
Laundry

The beauty of this list is that you can make it whatever you want it to be, and it your goals can change month to month! I hope this productivity list helps you as much as it does me!


Let’s connect on instagram: instagram.com/meggarrison

Homeschool Schedule | Moms with a plan

Most of the time when people decide to homeschool there is lots of hours of preparation, decisions to be made and well thought out plans. This week we learned due to the coronavirus that our children would not be returning to school until next year (and we are a district that doesn’t get out until mid June!) and I have to be honest I had a little panic set in upon hearing that— which was the first time I’ve really felt uneasy about all of this.

We’ve been told to…
Stay home? I got this. Working from home I knew this wasn’t going to be an adjustment for me.
Don’t eat out? Great, lets save some money that we always say we are going to cut back on.
Sanitize everything and wash your hands all the time? Have you SEEN my stash? We’re good there too.
Don’t go around people. This is probably the hardest thing we’ve come across— I haven’t met a stranger and my kids live for playing with someone other than us all of the time- but we are committed to this because we believe it’s the best thing we can do.

And I was fine with doing work from home for two weeks, I mean.. you can do ANYTHING for two weeks right? But quickly those two weeks turned into months and I began to doubt myself. By last night I had picked myself up and began a plan… and that plan included a schedule! My life revolves around the never ending to do list, but it helps me stay focused— so why would my children who are coming from “specific things on certain days at the same time” be able to adapt to my “we get it done when it happens throughout the day” plan I THOUGHT we would stick to?? It actually was a lot more stress for me to be “stress free” — So here we are :)

I am not going to be rigid with “20 minutes for this, or scheduling a break here” — you can tell when you’re children are going to need to move around. For “science” today- it was literally reading a book about brains and halfway through I saw them fidgeting a little bit so we let our brains show us they could quickly respond to commands, “Skip! Jump! Touch your toes!” They loved it, and quickly were able to sit back down and we finished the “lesson”. — I’m not being too hard on myself here, we are literally at Day 1. Ground Zero. But… I didn’t hate it and i’m excited for tomorrow too.

I struggle a bit with worksheets without seeing the whole plan, so I did invest in some homeschool curriculum and I’m excited for that to arrive, but the school will continue to provide help as well— It’s just hard to print out SO many sheets— my printer is already screaming low ink when I just put a new one in last week! I’d rather buy a book! So we grabbed some things from The Good + Beautiful (highly recommended by most of my homeschool friends!), I found some workbooks and textbooks on Ebay, and believe it or not we have plenty of stuff here! If you’ve ever ordered educational books from Usborne.. you got this! :)

I am excited to see where this will go, and here’s a schedule that I created to help us to mark things off the list feel free to share it, and tag me on IG if you print it off! @meggarrison

So for “TV time” section the kids will get 5 points per line a day, equaling 30 points. If they get all 30 points they automatically double those, equating to 1 hour of TV/Computer free time in the evening. I probably should have labeled the “only asked once” a little better since i’m sharing it, but it’s something we like to say to remind the kids to do something the FIRST time we ask not making us yell and go crazy for something they could have just gotten done quickly.

I LOVE seeing one week at a time because it not only saves paper but lets us gauge how the week is going. And if you are non-religious here’s one without scripture study:

Adoption Hospital Birth Plan

As you know there’s a little baby girl coming soon.. which is craaaaazy!! I am sleeping so light right now checking my phone at every noise.

A few weeks ago we started talking about the hospital and realized that there’s SO much information available out there for birth plans.. but specifically related to adoption there’s not a lot of information… but there are TONS of questions! As prospective adoptive parents we don’t want to step on any toes, and be more of a support system rather than a parent in the hospital.. and truthfully we feel like one big family. We are certainly just thankful for the opportunity to be involved, so we wanted to fully respect Savannah’s wishes with how she saw the hospital going.

Sometimes in this process there can be uncomfortable conversations — but it’s better to ask the harder questions than to have hard feelings on questions not asked when assumptions are made. Not only for those who are living the situation, but during a birth there are lots of doctors and nurses coming in and out that likely need to know this information as well and having a quick 2-page document can really help everyone be on the same page so it’s less stress for all involved.

If you find yourself needing an adoption hospital birth plan or you are a support person to someone in this situation, you can refer to this template, and I hope it helps you as much as it has helped us!

To the hospital staff:
I, _______________________________ have filled out the following adoption pan and would like it to be followed while I am in the hospital (understanding my feelings or plans could change). Please place this in my chart so that all shifts may read it and know my wishes.

I am planning this type of adoption:
Open: Both Parties share all personal information
Closed: No personal information is shared

The adoptive parents will/will not be coming to the hospital.
If yes, the adoptive parents names are: _________________________________________________

My main support person(s) names: _________________________________________________

There are people I do not want allowed to visit while in the hospital. If YES, I request myself and baby to be listed under an alias name. YES/NO.

Names of people I would like in the delivery room ______________________________________

For pain control/positioning during labor and birth I would like to:
Walk in room/hall
Use shower/tub
Use heat/cold massage
Use birth ball
Epidural
Listen to my special music
Use my own pillow

Immediately after delivery
I want this person to cut the cord if approved by doctor ___________________

In addition to the ID band I will be wearing, I would like this person to have a second baby ID band __________________________

I want to see my baby YES or NO
If yes,
Skin to skin / Rooming in
-If baby is stable place skin to skin with me
-If baby is stable, have baby placed skin to skin with adoptive present parent
-Keep the baby in my room as long as he/she is stable
-Keep baby in nursery and out to me when I call
-Keep baby with adoptive family

I want to hold my baby YES or NO
If yes, who would you like to hold the baby first? _______________
-Wrap baby in blanket before holding
-Hand baby to adoptive parent
-Bathe my baby before holding

I want to feed and/or care for my baby while in the hospital YES or NO

I would like my baby to be fed this way:
-Breastfeed my baby
-Use hospital formula
-Have adoptive mother breastfeed
-Use human breastmilk

The postpartum plan
If the adoptive parents will be at the hospital I wish to see them in my room or another location if possible:
_______ My Room _______Another location if possible. ______No Contact

The name I want you to call my baby is: ______________________
Or the name the adoptive family is giving:________________________

Postpartum I would like to:
_____Keep baby in my room
_____Have baby stay in the nursery
_____Have my baby come to my room only when I call
_____Allow adoptive parents to have alone time with the baby
_____Allow the adoptive parents to be given the opportunity to do skin-to-skin with the baby to facilitate bonding
_____Keep baby with the adoptive parents when not with me

I want my baby to receive the Hep B vaccine YES or NO

If I have a boy, I am planning on having him circumcised before discharge YES or NO

I wish to have mementos from my baby’s birth YES or NO
___Baby Bracelet
___Hospital birth certificate with footprints
___Nursery card
___Baby Hat
- Is it okay to give a copy of above documents to adoptive parents YES or NO

Additional concerns or wishes I would like the hospital staff to be aware of:

Richmond VA Photographer | Happy Birthday Luke

Happy 4th Birthday Luke!  I don't know how we got here, it feels like I should still be in the hospital with you recovering from delivery.  You are my 'spitfire' child.  My perfectly crazy middle child.  You are so gifted with sports I am already picking out the tile for the future mansion you will build me when you strike rich. ;) (But if you don't that's totally fine too, I really do love love our current home.

Three was a big year for you! You learned to ride a bike without training wheels.  You've been doing that for months actually, and i'm still impressed with it!  You are SO smart and breeze through 'preschool' work. You are kind and love and protect your baby brother in a way I always dreamed of when I thought of you in a big brother position.  You are fearless. The absolute don't give a hoot what anyone thinks kind of fearless.  Which both excites and terrifies me.  It's only by the grace of God we haven't had to call an ambulance.  Let's keep it that way, okay?  You are determined. To the extent of stubborn but I know it's a quality that will serve you greatly later in life so I let it go.  You are a jokester.  Hiding a plastic snake all around the house and just waiting until someone finds it. 

We had a fun year.  From crab hunting late at night on the beach to our first Disney trip, we have lots of great memories to look back on from your year of three.

And here we are, your year of four.  You were so excited this morning to tell everyone how old you are.  You will grow more this year than before and I am so excited God gave you to me.  I am blessed because of you. 

Love always,
Mommy

Baby Luke! Oh how sweet and tiny you were :)

*Fall + newborn pics by me, Beach pics by Andi + Zoe, and Family brennan newborn pic by Nicole Wingo!

Richmond Virginia Photographer | Raising three Gs

Part of this "new blog" is going to be some personal posts!  I hope you reading more about my life as a mom and business owner raising three young boys.  They are 5 and under and sometimes life is a little crazy, but I think I finally have a good handle on work/life balance and i'd love to be able to share any tips I have with you along the way!

In November we went to Disney and it was the most fun trip we've had as a family!  I had a lot of people ask us about how we did things and while there are SO many ways to do Disney, I probably researched it like it was a thesis that determined whether I would pass or fail something.  We're talking I probably would be embarrassed if I counted how many hours I put in to Disney research.  But it's EXPENSIVE.  We never went on a honeymoon so we have never poured that much money in to something so I wanted to make sure I didn't regret anything.

Here are some things we learned/did while having the best week:

We flew. Spirit Airlines from Baltimore.  It was only $60 per ticket one way and saved us HUNDREDS over flying out of Richmond. It was well worth the 2.5 hour trip up to Maryland. Now the thing with Spirit is they will charge you for any checked bag, but each checked bag you're allowed 40 pounds.  I figured we could fit everything into 2 and we did that just fine!  Everyone is also allowed a "personal" item for free, book bags work great for that, but they have to be under a certain size or you have to pay for them to be 'carry on' items.  Sometimes Jet Blue will offer cheap flights out of Richmond for a non-stop to Orlando, but our experience was at that timeframe it would have been about $300 per person round trip.  The crew was SO sweet and Eli + Luke even got to go in the cockpit at the end of the flight, they LOVED that!  

Amazon Prime Now. So convenient.  Delivers right to your hotel and you don't have to be there to pick it up!  Water is SO expensive at the parks. Like, $4-7 a bottle. We utilized the Prime Now and saved a LOT of money on snacks and water for the park.  I did our first prime order the day we were leaving before we took off, everything was at the hotel for us when we arrived.

Fast Passes, Use them! This saved us SO much time.  We never waited in line for anything.  Except Winnie the Pooh, oh my gosh we will never get those two hours back.  I'm not even sure what took so long but every grown man in line had a 10 minute crying conversation with pooh, we got antsy but chalked it up to the magic of Disney and tried to not get grumpy.  Everyone deserves their magical moments at Disney!  We set up our fast passes back to back in the morning and the attractions were all close to each other so we weren't running around like crazy.  As soon as your third fast past registers you can get a new one so we continually rolled them all day.  I'll blog about our favorite Disney rides soon! 

We have young kids so we didn't exhaust them. We were there 6 days and got park hoppers, next time we go we will skip the park hoppers. It's a lot to travel to a different park and the parks are so huge and offer so much, we never needed to hop.  Because Brennan was only 8 months, when he gets tired he cries until you put him to bed, so we never got to stay late at night and that did mean we sacrificed the night parades but that will be something to look forward to the next trip!  Our six days were 3 at Magic Kingdom and 1 at each of the other parks.

Take a stroller! I've heard people complaining that their stroller was moved by cast members but we never lost ours for more than a minute.  We have a double bob and flew with it.  Easiest thing ever.  It meant the kids were contained at the airport when we needed them to be, and in the crowds at disney when we were going from ride to ride, we never worried about losing anyone.  All 3 of ours fit in the stroller. Brennan and one in the seats and the other child sat at the point where the front wheel is. 

Buy the memory maker!  Would you think I was lying if I said I didn't take many pictures?  Considering it's my 7-day a week job, I remember saying a few times, "wow I haven't taken any pictures today!"  Any photo cast member will snap a picture for you, it's the easiest thing ever!  And usually they are in prime spots so it's very much worth the money.  It drops the photo (usually within 20 minutes!) right to your magic band account.  Now, you CAN get them to shoot on your phone/camera, but this was one less thing to worry about.

Hotel advice: I can't offer much help here, we stayed at Shades of Green because David works for the DOD.  If you are military or DOD you have that option and I definitely recommend it.  It's right across from the poly so you can walk and use their monorail or catch a bus.  The buses run all day and we never had to wait long for them. They have an amazing buffet dinner with a different theme every night that we utilized every day. 

My Disney Experience App.  This is what I used ALL day long at the parks.  Since it was our first time we didn't really know where things are, this app has everything you need.  From walking directions to a ride/restaurant to information about the rides/restaurants.  It lets you know where the photopass photographers are AND wait times for rides!  So if there's something you didn't get a FP for and you want to make sure it's worth walking over to, you just check that baby to see if it's worth it.  This is also where you get all o your cute pictures from.  I actually downloaded and started "using" the app about a month before we went so I would be familiar with it.  I was a little obsessed with tracking wait times too to see what time of day we should ride certain things.. LOL see, I told you I was planning like a crazy person!! 

Speaking of pictures, here are a few of our favorites:

Disney is EXPENSIVE.  But it's soooo worth it.  I made a commitment to leave work at home and go, something i've never done before.  I did chat with ONE bride while I was there, there was an afternoon I did laundry and because brennan was asleep on me I was able to make a quick phone call, but other than that I was 100% devoted to my family.  That alone was worth the trip. 

You CAN go to Disney and not plan it like a crazy person, and the planning CAN be a little overwhelming.  But I know MY kids and we are not the most patient people to stand in line for every. single. ride. for an hour.  Plus, when you do that you are not maximizing your time OR money.  So I wanted to plan it out to make the most of both.  And it totally paid off!  We had the most amazing trip and came away with great memories!

Richmond VA Wedding Photographer | Hi! I'm new here

December 2016 will forever be burned in my head as the year GoDaddy wanted to take down my almost 9 year old business. They somehow deleted the database to my website, AND the backup, and I lost EVERYTHING.  Originally discovered yesterday, but received notification that their restore team couldn't actually restore it (i'm changing their name to bore team, or a few other words I cannot type online!)  By 5 something my amazing friend Liz said, "I'll make you a new website! Just come to Squarespace" and by 7AM we were importing pictures to make my new home on the web all pretty.  It's now noon and I feel like i've lived for 3 weeks ;) 

There's a few things I have learned today:

1. Back things up yourself. Don't expect a server in a far away land to actually do it's job.  I will have to figure this out for this new site.  My old site was automatically emailing me back ups, but somehow that ended in 2012. Oops. 

2. Juggling too many balls only means there's a matter of time before something crashes. As a small business owner (or working mom, or stay at home mom, or teenager, or anyone else reading this blog!) You cannot go through life alone.  I only in the past two months outsourced my blogging.  (Sorry Sarah now we have to do it ALL over again, ha!) But for the past 8+ years I have been a photographer, accountant, tax prep'er, design builder, communication coordinator, IT support, blogger, editor, driver, designer, seamstress (really! Always carry a sewing kit to a wedding, you'd be surprised how many times i've used it) and countless other titles.  The point is, we all need help because it's just too much for one person to run. 

3. If something goes horribly wrong, freak out! But only for a few minutes!  We all have our moments when everything spirals out of control.  Take a second, have a good hard cry that you've "lost everything" and then remember it's just your online presence and you can build it back up.  So chin up, buttercup!  Pull those boot straps up and get to work.  Hard work hasn't stopped you before!

4. Embrace the change. So now I have a new website, new blogging platform, and new EVERYTHING!  But that also means that now I can implement the changes I wanted to do on my last site but dragged my feet on.  My galleries will be updated with only the latest and greatest.  My blog will have the same content AND I will also start a few new series I've been thinking about adding. 

5. Focus on the good. It would have been so easy to go back to bed and sulk the whole day, but with a quick kick from my friend Liz to jumpstart my new website, I am feeling pretty good about where I stand right now!  

So friends, I am glad you are here!  I hope you will keep coming back and leaving comments so I can climb back up that crazy SEO ladder to be where I was as a Richmond VA Wedding Newborn and Family Photographer.  

*Thank you Joanna for the picture!