Friday, July 12, 2019

moments at home

So wayyy back in March (I know…), Jordana of Jordana Baker Photography came to our house for the morning and essentially hung out with our family while taking photos of us in our element. I just absolutely love how nothing is staged and kind of shows what our life it really like behind our closed doors (though if you ask me... our door is more of a revolving door respectively speaking). The pictures are truly a depiction of our family dynamics right now – from Nick mostly in the kitchen, to Bennett basically being his little shadow and wanting to do everything his daddy is doing (his standing frame/learning tower was definitely a great investment and turned out to be the perfect birthday/Christmas gift last year). While Evanna is often found playing in the living room, her new found independence has caused her to be more social and want to participate in what the rest of us are doing over in the kitchen. So more often than not, she is also coming over into the kitchen and in the most adorable way, demanding that we pay attention to her (which we are happy to oblige). 

Our life is far from picture perfect, and yes, it does indeed possess many challenges that come with a medically fragile child. But we’ve accepted these circumstances a very long time ago and choose to find happiness in that. My life has more purpose that it ever has before, and while we've continued to experience many hard moments, it’s been filled with just as many blessings too.

While I’ve neglected to share these photos until now (more just due to pure procrastination and laziness), taking a moment to relive this day is exactly what I need right now. These images were taken during a calm and steady time and Evanna was just doing SO WELL both medically and developmentally. 
I’ve been kind of glossing over details in regards to Evanna’s postop recovery from her April California open heart surgery, and while we understood there would be some temporary regression, I guess I underestimated just how hard it would hit her… only to be magnified by the rhino/pneumonia episode that hit her last month when she was already in such a vulnerable position health wise. Truthfully life has been a bit of a whirlwind since April, and I’m just ready to get back to this place of health and stableness, as I wasn’t prepared for this to overtake our entire summer too. I know we’ll get there again, but just have to once again be patient with the process.



xo The Irvine Family