I’ve been feeling so down with photography lately. The weather. Too busy. And, really questioning if it’s even worth it. If I’ll ever be where I want to be.

Tonight, I spent some time looking for a particular type of photo in my thousands of photos stored in Lightroom, flipping through them all. For the past 5 months, I’ve been capturing at least one photo a day, and before that, I was still using my camera regularly, weekly at least.

It made me think of that awful cliche that mothers of young children hear often: the days go slow, but the years go by so fast.

But, looking at two years of photos in a matter of minutes really confirmed that for me.

One of my first photos on my DSLR, from August 2012.

This is just a camera phone picture, but this is my life. This was taken in May 2013. I have tons of tabs open, which was totally appropriate for that season. Researching much. Reed had only been out of school for a few days, so he’s still trying to figure out how to spend his days. I love it.

This is from August 2013. Out with my littlest kids in the early morning, on the last day before Lena started kindergarten. We used to do this a lot last year, a walk with the three of us and the dogs. I miss her quiet company on those walks.

This is gone now. The front of the crib has been off since December, when he started climbing out. He’s definitely growing up.

And this, taken just a few months ago. I’m so hard on self portraits. But, his cuddles won’t last forever. I have so many photos of him curled up in my lap and I have a feeling that one day I won’t regret a single one of them.

Seeing my life in retrospect makes me so grateful for all of these captured moments.