My family loves to take walks together. It is one of the family traditions I loved the most from my childhood. It has become a part of our family routine as well, and hopefully my daughter will look back on it with as much fondness as I do.

I see a family walk as an opportunity to get away from the noise and distraction, focusing on nothing but each other.

I love to just walk hand in hand with my daughter and chat about all the things happening in that big beautiful brain of hers. We talk about LEGO and Star Wars. She tells me about the new song she’s working on and her ideas for her next book.

I love to encourage her to do things on her own, independently of my help. But it is equally fun to brainstorm with her and work on projects as a team.

This holiday season, we made a habit of taking walks together, while listening to Sia’s holiday album on repeat. It is really really good, if you haven’t heard it yet.

One particular chilly January day, we took our holiday walk, blasted our music in my pocket, held hands and sang along together. We noticed the Christmas decorations were all in different stages. Some still looking fresh, others half disassembled, and some completely deflated.

We decided together to take some photos.

We talked about exposure, color, shape and leading lines. She made some observations and interpretations of her own like where Santa might be going in that boat and what Frosty is sweeping up in the yard.

You see, no matter how much I think I have in my brain and my heart to teach her, she always seems to end up teaching me even more. Slowing down and taking the time to listen will always be a huge goal of mine.

Dreaming up our next project already!

Anna