She Left Proof – Aleida’s Challenge

I decided to make Matt take pictures of me. And no, not the bad ones :) But just some everyday pictures with my girls. I saw this Flickr group and thought that I should take this challenge. As I am always the one who takes pictures thus I am left out of all of them. There are a lot of pictures of Matt with the girls, but not so much of me. I want to have proof that I was there (wherever it is) too with them and then when the time passes we could all look back at the pictures and remember fun times.

So here is the story written by Emilie Ahren:

“Many scrapbookers knew Aleida Franklin. She was a wonderful wife and mother and a brilliant artist. I didn’t know Aleida personally, but she taught me something I will never forget.

She emailed me last year to tell me she loved my blog and to ask if I liked my short hair-cut. This lead to a series of emails which eventually led me to remark that I really loved how often she posted pictures of herself with her children on her blog. And she replied to me, “Have you ever seen a photograph of your own mother and thought to yourself how fat she looked? Or how she wasn’t wearing make-up? Or wasn’t dressed in a glamorous outfit?” Of course my answer was no.

She then responded with saying that she made it a goal to take a picture of herself with her children at least once every month. And that to use excuses about how we look, as women, is ridiculous, since our children will never care what we looked like, but only that we had physical evidence of the bond between mother and child.

Aleida tragically and unexpectedly passed away in an auto accident in September of 2008, leaving 2 small children and a grieving husband. After she passed I thought of how those children must feel to have those precious photographs. I have made it my personal goal to follow her wise suggestion and I try to take photos of myself with my children….double chins, make-up free, bed-head and all.

I invite Mothers everywhere to take Aleida’s Challenge. To photograph yourself with your children each and every month. And to post them here so that we can see Aleida’s legacy unfolding.”

 So to start it off look at the tired me without any makeup and my home clothes aka pajamas: