I just checked, and I officially have 1,648 photos and videos currently on my phone. This is an issue, people. And I’m fairly positive I’m not the only one. As a photographer, the funny thing is – my personal photos rarely get the time and attention they deserve.

When I first began photographing weddings, I took no less than 4,000 photos on a wedding day. Then I sorted them down to around 1,500 to deliver to my client.

Who in the world has the time to do anything with 1,500 photos?!

After being in this business for years, and after being a normal human being with a full schedule and a full life, I wish I knew this one, beautiful truth about photography:

Less is more.

Photo by Elizabeth Tate

That’s why we treasure our grandparents’ photos, right? There are only a few sacred images we get to cling to.

Less is more.

That’s why we never ever do anything with the photos on our phone. It’s just plain overwhelming.

Less is more.

So if you are overwhelmed with all of your photos – remember that simple truth: less is more. You don’t have to document every tiny moment or every tiny thing. Just the highlights will do. Your kids, your spouse, and YOU will appreciate the gift of quality over quantity if you embrace this!

Photo by Elizabeth Tate

The Legacy Photo System is separated into 3 Phases:

1. Your Printed Photos
2. Your Digital Photos
3. Your Photos Moving Forward

In this post, I’ll only be focusing on Phase 2: Your Digital Photos! Here is a brief overview of what needs to happen to organize all of your digital photos:

1. Purchase ONE external Hard Drive (2TB or more) to store all your digital images on. Check out my suggestions in my Hard Drive highlight on Instagram!

2. Put a File Folder System in Place (see images below)

3. Gather ALL of your digital images and put them onto that external hard drive, in order by date and folder

4. Back them up

The most important aspect of this system is the file folder system! If you don’t purchase a Master Hard Drive and follow a Master Filing System for organizing your photos, all of your digital photos will stay on several different computers and laptops, taking up space on your iPhone, old CD’s, USB’s, and scattered hard drives.

So HERE IS MY MAGIC SAUCE!! Take a peek at my File Folder Organization System:

As you can see, everything is organized by Year, then Event (by month).

Now let’s pause and talk about that “Event.” Maybe it’s Father’s Day, maybe it’s a beach trip, maybe it’s Disney World, maybe it’s just life at home. No matter what it is, you still need to organize those photos within that event!

For example, if I take 100 photos at my kid’s birthday party, I’m never going to go back and really enjoy all 100 photos. I’d like to keep and enjoy 10-15 or so. That’s when it’s important to organize your Event Folder into 3 parts:

1. Originals (the place I dump all 100 photos)
2. Picks (the place I drag the 10-15 absolute favorite images)
3. The Event Folder (the FINAL folder of edited and re-named photos)

You can see below my personal event folder for our “Snow Day” a few years ago:

A few KEY tips for you to remember as you organize your digital photos:

• Gather all images from all over the place (laptops, phones, computers, CD’s, USB’s, etc) and put them onto ONE hard drive: your new most prized possession!

• You have to remember to also back those images up! I use Dropbox to back up my Final Event Folders only.

• It’s helpful to create the entire file folder system on the Hard drive first, then drag your images into the properly organized folders.

• You’ll be more likely to enjoy and print your digital images (even the ones on your phone!) when you have them organized!

Happy Organizing! To learn more about organizing your printed photos and establishing a system moving forward (so your phone isn’t so out of control), look into my Legacy Photo System course!

It’s true - Baby Ray #4 is on the way! We are so, so grateful!

I’ve always been open and honest about my journey as a mama. Before I had Milly, I was so scared to get pregnant, to give birth, and to give up so much of my personal time, freedom, and let’s be real - my sleep. :)

Fast forward five years, and I’ve had Milly, Lyndon, and Beaufort… and now I’m pregnant with baby #4! WHAT THE WHAT!

Thank goodness God worked on my heart and finally brought me to the place of surrender, because it has been the wildest ride and one of the greatest joys of my life. A mama to 4 babies. I could have never imagined it if I tried.

Onto the details I’m sure you are curious about!

When are you due / how far along are you?

July 29th - same due date as Lyndon :) at the time of publishing this blogpost in mid February, I’m 16 weeks!

Were you planning on having another baby?

Yes! But not quite this soon. 🥴 It was definitely a surprise to find out we were pregnant in early November of 2020 when we were thinking we would start trying in Jan/Feb 2021. My words to Will : “As long as we don’t get pregnant in 2020, I’ll be good.” HAHAHA. All that to say, I AM GOOD and God’s timing is perfect.

How are you feeling?

T I R E D. My most exhausted pregnancy by far. Thankfully no nausea, but definitely tired beyond anything I’ve ever really felt before, other than the newborn phase! It’s a big reason why I’ve been pretty quiet on Instagram. It’s taken every bit of my energy to just keep myself, my children, and my podcast alive. Also, feeling very thankful. Trying to savor this season as it’s likely our last biological baby.

Are you going to find out the gender?

Nope! HA! I just keep telling everyone “We aren’t meant to know the gender of our babies.” 😂 Plus, if I got an ultrasound and they told me I was having a boy or a girl, I would doubt them the whole time. And being surprised is just so stinkin fun.

If you have any other questions for me, leave them below! I hope to do a podcast episode about Baby #4 soon, and I’d love to cover all of your questions in the episode.

A big thank you to Olivia Suriano for these images we will treasure forever. Love you so much, friend.

We just had the most wonderful time at Great Wolf Lodge! I got lots of questions on Instagram about our experience, so I thought I’d share about it here in detail. I’m grateful to have partnered with GWL for our trip!

What’s it like during COVID?

Here are the quick points that will be helpful if you are planning a trip during the pandemic:

• Masks are required for ages 5 and up

• Social Distancing encouraged throughout the resort, including the water park and game centers

• Extra measures of cleanliness taken everywhere (we always saw people cleaning!)

• Hand sanitizing stations everywhere

• Less crowded

• Lobby bedtime stories, characters, yoga, and activities are spread throughout the resort and have limited capacities with social distancing enforced

We all got Covid tests prior to coming! Don’t necessarily recommend doing this for everyone, but it felt right for us this time. It helped our enjoyment and peace of mind!

What it was like Pre Covid: Besides the obvious “I miss not wearing masks,” the things I miss most are the appearances of the characters all throughout the lobby and hotel. Giving them hugs and high fives were such fun memories for my littles.  Also miss the kids yoga and bedtime stories being at the main lobby with the fireplace and crazy characters.  It had such a sweet feeling when we were all near that giant fireplace together!

Now, with Covid Regulations: They have spread all programming out to different rooms and have limited capacity. Masks are required for ages 5 and up everywhere. Social Distancing is required, but definitely hard to enforce with a ton of families with young kids running around! The staff was helpful and courteous and kind the entire time. 

Extra measures I’ve noticed: They added a sheet on both sides of our comforter on our bed. They sanitized bowling balls and bowling area between every use and blocked off lanes for social distancing. We see people cleaning everywhere, all the time. It’s also not as crowded as it used to be!

With that said, it is a waterpark and resort full of young families! Kids run around and are kids. Kids 4 and under do not wear masks, and no matter what, kids put their mouths on things. (Mine did today, despite my best efforts!) You do your best and just can’t stress about the rest. And if that does stress you out, then it’s not for you! And that’s okay.  If your greatest fear right now is that you or your family would get covid, you probably would not be comfortable in a water park where most people are wearing masks. We personally felt great! Our greatest fear right now is missing out on memories with our kids while they are still little. Each of us have to make the best decisions we can, and for us, GWL was a huge blessing, a relief from all the stress of life, and goodness was it amazing to see the joy on our kids faces. We highly recommend!

What was the Waterpark like?

Let me start by saying IT IS SO FUN. We have been having a ball! The kids LOVED it! Masks are required upon entering, but once you get in the water it’s obviously dangerous to wear one, so I’d say most people in the water park are not wearing masks, unless they just arrived or are leaving or are in the common areas. They have social distancing signs everywhere, but again: KIDS. They run, the cut in line, they crazy!

The greatest news is this: EVERYTHING is drenched in chlorinated water, which is by far the most encouraging! ::

What Lodging / Food Plan is best?

Full disclosure: GWL paid for our trip so that I could share about it with you. (Hence my #ad #partner tags.) With that said, if we were to go back and pay ourselves, we’d definitely do a Paw Pass or Pup Pass to make the most of the experience. There’s a lot more than the waterpark! And our kids have LOVED the variety! Last year they did Build-a-bear and for our kids’ ages, that was the biggest hit, along with the arcade. Here are a few quick examples! (PS. I’d recommend only getting them for the kids!)

For food, there are a variety of prices within the lodge, so you decide what you spend. We did a mix of eating from the lodge restaurants as well as eating our own snacks. But they don’t allow any outside food into the waterpark area, so plan to eat in your room!

Pro tip: You can order pizza to the lodge! We ordered Papa Johns the first night and it was perfect. Also Dunkin Donuts is affordable and fast and open at 6:30am! We did that every morning.

What ages are best?

I got a lot of questions about what ages to bring kids.  Would it be fun to bring my 1 year old? My 5 year old too? What ages are best? What about an okay swimmer?

We almost didn’t come last year because we had a 4 year old, 2 year old, and 11 month old. I was so stressed about the thought of bringing 3 kids to a waterpark that could not swim! Thankfully, even though I was a stressed out breastfeeding mama, my husband convinced me to do it. I am SO glad we did!!

You can read more about our first trip to Great Wolf Lodge HERE.

While these might not the most ideal ages to enjoy the extent of the resort, (If I had to guess, I’d say the most ideal ages would probably be 6-14), I am SO glad my husband talked me into taking our little kids. It was ABSOLUTELY worth it. They have had the BEST time, and the kid area at the waterpark is perfect for them!! They wear puddle jumpers a lot of the time and come with us into the wave pool when they do. There are lifeguards everywhere too, and tons of splash pads. There are tons of little kid slides and activities for them which is great! 

Other things they have LOVED: Build-a-bear, Atomic Rush (a fun family game), Bowling as a family, the Arcade (they are obsessed!!), meeting the Characters, Morning Yoga, their bunkbeds and story time in the evening. There’s a lot to do here other than just the water park!

My Best Tips:

• Bring healthy snacks and your own water bottles and gallon water jugs for your room!

• There is a fridge and microwave in your room. Totally fine to bring a cooler with you (I did this when breastfeeding B last year)

• There is a variety of restaurants and prices within the lodge, so you decide what you spend. (Also you can order pizza to the lodge! We ordered Papa Johns the first night and it was perfect!)

• Bring a reading light so you can put the kids down and still see where you are going, ha! Did this on accident and it was very helpful!

• Bring a Fanny Pack! I wish I had. Your room key and waterpark pass is all part of your wrist band, but I wish I had a smaller spot to put my phone than lugging around the diaper bag!

GWL v. Disney

We love Disney and are hoping to go later this year! But I couldn’t help but think, “Wow there are a lot of really great things about Great Wolf Lodge that is so nice compared to Disney.” Thought I’d share my thoughts, especially with young kids:

1. It’s all indoors! No worrying about your vacation getting rained out or planning around the weather. Also, no sunscreen to deal with! Which is awesome!

2. Everything is SO CLOSE. No transportation needed, very little walking. Will ran out to our car several times to grab things we left - it took him 2 minutes each time. We took the elevator from our room straight down to the Waterpark and back to our room! With small kids, this is GLORIOUS. At Disney, you nap on the go and deal with much more exhausted kids in general bc of all the walking.

3. My kids were crazy about the Arcade and the shallow end of the pool. It just reminded me of how little it really takes to delight children! A smaller resort like GWL is just as grand in the eyes of children as Disney in a lot of ways, and in my opinion it’s less exhausting for the littles. In Milly’s words….
   
   “Mom, I don’t know how to say this, but, can we live here?”

All in all we had the most wonderful time and are so thankful for these family memories!