Funny Face — hannah mayo

Welcome.

I'm Hannah: mother, wife, photographer, writer, artist, wellness enthusiast and lover of the simple and beautiful. I live in South Florida with my husband Manny, our three children (Seth, Isaac, and Eaden), and our golden doodle Lily.
This is my journal of motherhood, homeschooling, health, and living with grace & intention

Jan 21

Jan 21 Funny Face

This child has a truly amazing range of facial expressions. We went outside to play earlier today and it turned into a mini photo session.

Of course to keep him from trying to climb all over me I had to give him something to play with- the closest thing was my lens cap. He liked that.

Love this cheesy toothless smile.

Irresistibly adorable, no?

"High five!"

Show 1 comment

Most Recent Posts

Featured

Morning Rituals

Jan 24, 2018

Morning Rituals

Jan 24, 2018

Jan 24, 2018

Slow, Sweet, Sacred, and Intentional

Dec 20, 2017

Slow, Sweet, Sacred, and Intentional

Dec 20, 2017

Dec 20, 2017

Planning a new homeschool year. (K & 3rd)

Nov 11, 2017

Planning a new homeschool year. (K & 3rd)

Nov 11, 2017

Nov 11, 2017

Instagram

Journeying through this wild and wonderful parenthood experience is a thousand times better with you by my side, my love.
Happy Father's Day @mmayophoto - watching you love our kids well will forever melt my heart. 😘😘😘

It makes sense that recurring themes of trust, rest, and surrender in my life would lead me to the Sabbath. I love the way God brings things in front of us again and again, through many different avenues, when he wants us to pay attention. I began feeling led to honor a true Sabbath for our family recently. Since my husband and I both serve many Sundays at our church, I decided to observe it in the traditional Friday evening to Saturday evening fashion. It is imperfect, a work in progress, but so beautiful. Last week, our first week, was so rich and restful, and the kids and I have been looking forward to doing it again this week.
Why though? My thoughts so far are: we were created to require rest, and culturally we have forgotten how to do this. This leads to burnout, stress, illness, and so many negative effects. It was a command in the Old Testament (Hebrew scriptures), not to burden the Lord's people but to help them live in freedom and abundance. We under the new covenant can still learn and benefit so very much from obeying these laws- in freedom and joy, not fear or legalism.
I'm only in the beginning. I am making a study of this, both in Jewish and Christian traditions, so I can understand it better.
But for now this day each week is set apart—without technology and busyness, without the things that feel like work. It's a practice in knowing that I'm not the one who keeps the world spinning, and all does not depend on my constant striving. It's a time for relationships and being truly present. I'm excited to see what else it becomes for our family.
A couple great resources so far in this: @ellegarrels IG feed and blog (look for Sabbath article), and @thebudco podcast.
#hmayo_selah

This has been the boys' first week home from school (after a five-month stint in public education), and we're easing back into homeschooling. It feels like things are as they should be again, although I would not say this week has been entirely smooth and easy. Often the best path is not the easiest one, but I know in my gut that this is the best choice for our family in this season. So I rest in that.
.
.
.
It's been ages since I've done #fridayintroductions, and I took a selfie this week that I don't feel terrible about 😆, so hello!
I'm Hannah. I live in South Florida with my wonderful husband @mmayophoto who makes me laugh and reminds me to have fun (while I remind him that deep conversations are good, too 😘). Our four children are 10, 7, 3 and 1 year old and we've been homeschooling since our oldest was in kindergarten, aside from taking a sabbatical of sorts for the past five months for a time of healing and restoration. My identity as a daughter of God and follower of Christ is the most foundational aspect of my life. Our family, both biological and spiritual, are incredibly important to us.
I spent the first 10 years of my motherhood as a working photographer (@hannahmayophotography) while being home most days with my children, and still do a limited amount of family photography.
I am a writer, and currently a regular contributor to @wildandfree.co. I feel like writing is coming more to the forefront for me lately and I'm excited about it.
I also really enjoy painting, reading, and nature. 🌊 🌿
I have been learning for the past 7 years to manage hashimoto's disease with lifestyle and nutrition. I have always been known as a bit of a "crunchy mama", but I also do things like using paper plates sometimes (because family of six). Other random things:
-I got married at 19, a few months after I finished college.
-I've given up coffee many times and always end up back on it.
-All four of my babies were born at home. I love birth and some of my favorite work I've ever done has been documentary birth photography. -I'm an enneagram 4, and have been fascinated with leaning more about this and how it relates to spiritual growth and relationships!

I've been observing something about myself lately, which has consistently tripped me up for years.
For some reason I've had in my head that life could get to a place where it feels steady, consistent, balanced, and like everything is just "working" at least most of the time. Like, if I just figured out the right systems and routines, if I stayed on top of to-do lists and kept up with the laundry/dishes/etc, if I decluttered and got rid of enough stuff and had a great daily rhythm with the kids, found the perfect homeschool curriculum, read the right book, instituted the right chore chart or meal plan—then we'd get to a place in which home life felt predominantly peaceful and happy and I wasn't overwhelmed so often.
Of course, I would SAY that I never expected to "arrive" and that I knew some chaos was inevitable and that ups and downs are part of being human, etc etc.
But in actuality I've been functioning for a long time with that secret goal in mind, deep down—to figure life out and get to some magical mythical place where children always clean up their messes and no one throws tantrums or boycotts their nap, and where meals are always perfectly planned and shopped for (without going over budget of course, and everyone happily eats them), and mommy never loses her cool.
I'm not saying we should never reach towards better or that we should just give up. This is good and honorable work, to craft a family life and well-functioning home where people feel safe, comfortable and loved.
The problem with my secret fantasy goal is that day after day I would fail at figuring how to make it perfect. So I would feel disappointed, and to be honest, quite sorry for myself. I would lament about it just being so darn hard and keeping searching for that missing piece to make it feel like life was working.
Truth: There is no missing piece. This is real life. (Continued in comments ⬇️)

Real talk mamas. Do you get angry? I think a LOT of us struggle with this, at least at times. It's been a source of guilt, shame, and distress for me for many years of my motherhood. I've been unpacking some of it in therapy. Being distracted by my own emotions was a big source of anger/frustration, so doing that inner work has helped so much, along with learning good tools for coping with the normal stresses of raising four children. I am grateful to say that I now feel angry much less frequently, and that I've learned to manage it in healthy ways. One of the big ways we stay stuck in a pattern of anger is a cycle of shame-anger-guilt, repeat repeat. Breaking shame helps to break the cycle. And do you know what evicts guilt and shame? Grace! And the grace poured out on us by our Savior is limitless, so we need not live under the oppression of ANY shame, ever.
For most of my life I read and heard the fruit of the spirit listed in Galatians 5 as a list of what I should try to do. And inevitably, I fell short time after time. Love? Patience? Self-control? When I'd yell at my kids out of frustration, I'd feel I'd failed yet again. Then a shift in my understanding changed everything. This passage was never intended to be a to-do list. This is an observation and celebration of what comes of a life connected to the Spirit. This is the fruit of abiding in Christ, and fruit doesn't grow on a branch because of how hard the branch tries—it grows because that branch is attached to the tree. As we open our hearts to the grace poured out freely on us, the Spirit abides in us and we abide in Christ, and our lives change. Not that we are ever perfect in this life, but we are being changed more and more into a reflection of the character of our Lord.
#motherhoodissanctifying #fruitofthespirit #savedbygrace #workinprogress

Jan 23 That thing called balance...

Jan 20 My husband rocks.