that's what it's all about :: minneapolis family photographer

It was another one of these gorgeous, unexpectedly warm fall evenings, the ones we Minnesotans cherish so dearly, knowing  what is around the corner. And I was lucky enough to spend the afternoon with this wonderful family... I photographed little Charlie when she was just a wee baby, along with her big brother Jay, and have gotten to know their mom, Deb, through facebook and her witty blog, Missives From Suburbia.

Deb started a project a few weeks ago called The Hokey Pokey Project. A simple concept really, where she and her family create a new public project each week for a year, with the sole purpose of making people smile. That's it. Simple, right? But how beautiful. They started out with the wishing tree, a tree near Lake Harriet where people could write their wish on a colorful tag and hang it from a branch. They collected over 400 wishes. Then they placed little Halloween treats outdoors for people to discover, and encouraged them to pass them along to a friend, fostering more smiles. And they've created a compliment post-it chain, where you write a compliment to someone, and pass it along to them with the pack of post-its and encourage them to forward it on to one of their friends. So flipping awesome.

So not only are Deb and her family creating smiles, she is teaching her kids that they have the great power to better people's lives, one smile at a time.

Won't you check out and follow the Hokey Pokey facebook page? And if you're so inspired, you can undertake your own smile project, right along with Deb. She has deliberately made them easy and inexpensive for other families to reproduce.

I suppose I have my very own Hokey Pokey Project in my photography business. My goal, above all else, is to make parents smile at the joys which are their own children. Smile at the beauty they have created and released into the world. Smile at the love which is their family.

That's what it's all about.

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