Ten GREAT Mother's Day Gift Ideas (Vero Beach, FL Edition)

It’s almost here - Mother’s Day! One more week! This year Mother’s Day is on May 11th!

I know it can be a difficult day for many, for various different reasons, and if that is you, I am so sorry. Just go ahead and skip this post, and instead - whisper a prayer to the One who sees you, knows you and is waiting to comfort you.

I have a few GREAT gift suggestions, so read on if you need some ideas. (These are not affiliated, no links bring me any compensation. Just my real tried and true suggestions.)

Us moms are all very different, and where one might love a blender or another practical gift, another one would way prefer to get something more personal like favorite chocolate - or something they would not get for themselves. I am just going to list a few random ideas in no particular order.

Before we get started, TIP #1: Are you familiar with the Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman? Some moms are gift givers, meaning they will appreciate even the littlest token so much, but your mom may also be a acts of service mom, who would much rather have your help in cleaning her closets. The other love languages are physical touch, quality time and encouraging words. This book is well worth reading to help understand and love our loved ones.

• If Mom loves flowers, I wholeheartedly recommend getting flowers from Pura Vida Flower Farm, they even have weekly flower delivery for the month of May!

• Has mom been rubbing her neck or mentioning how she’s hurting? How about a massage? My go-to local person is Julie. You can also buy essential oils, elderberry syrup, or other products from her.
  

• (Almost) always a win: take mom out to eat! Breakfast at Lemon Tree or lunch at Casey’s Place? I’d love to go for dinner at Taj Mahal Masala (looks like they also have a weekend lunch buffet, yum!). Vero Beach has great ice cream spots, what about a getting a bunch of little gift cards to try different places?
  

• You absolutely can’t go wrong with a hand written card or letter sharing how much mom means to you. This one fits all budgets, too! (Also great for those encouraging words moms - from The Five Love Languages.)
  
  

• Does your mom have a book wish list on Amazon? Can you access it and get her a book? Or a pretty journal? This would be well paired with her favorite chocolate or candy. (Fazer chocolate and salty licorice are my favorites, just saying, haha!) Or nuts! My mother-in-law would prefer some yummy nuts over chocolate. My own mom loves Reese’s and Yorks from USA (go figure with alllllll the amazing Finnish chocolates!).
  
  

• It would be too late now to go to the Painted Frog and make something for mom for this Mother’s Day, but you could plan an outing to go with mom, or get her a gift certificate. I recently went with my younger girls, and we had such a sweet time painting our pottery pieces together.

• How about breakfast in bed? Make sure to get ingredients for something yummy beforehand, or take a quick run out in the morning for donuts, cinnamon buns or something you know mom would enjoy! If you cook something delicious for mom, make sure to clean the kitchen, too!

• Give mom a day off! No dishes, no cooking, no laundry, no cleaning. And this of course, means you do all the things mom usually does - not that she has to do double the next day…! Maybe plan an outing for the day, if you think mom would like to leave home (some of us don’t).

• You knew this one was coming…. Make sure MOM is in the pictures, too!!!!! Both in everyday photos, and also in family portraits. I have a Mini Session coming up this May (maybe early June), how about a Gift Certificate to it?

• If you already have a photo mom loves, go ahead and print and frame it (I can help!). Or make a photo book from a session (or for future: have ME make that book for you). This is such a winner in my mind. I treasure all the photos of my family, and especially our Day In The Life photos that showcase our everyday ordinary days. This is what I want to remember.

What did you think, was that helpful? Please add your suggestions to the comments - especially any local ones. Thank you!

TIP #2: ask mom! Maybe she has a wish list. You won’t know unless you ask!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the Moms and Grandmas!


PS. TIP #3: Moms, some of us have had to help our family a bit. I know I have. You know your family! Here’s your permission to get something you’ll love for Mother’s Day! You can even make sure it’s wrapped pretty for Sunday :-)

TIP #4: When Mother’s Day comes, that means Father’s Day will follow soon after….! Book that Mini Session for Mother’s Day, then order a framed print for Father’s Day from the Session - What a WIN-WIN!!!!

Sign-up for Mommy & Me April Mini Sessions 2021

MOMMY & ME SESSIONS ARE HERE!!!!!!!!

Sunday April 18th in Fellsmere with The Green Vintage Truck (& flowers!)

and

Saturday April 24th on the beach in Vero Beach - no props

These are 15 minute Mini Sessions, and five edited high resolution digital files are included. You can purchase additional images or prints afterward, if you’d like.

• To sign up for the April 18th Mini Sessions, reserve your desired spot with the scheduling tool below. If you’d like one of the April 24th Beach Mini Sessions, please send us a message with your desired time spot here.
  
  We’ll have these times available:
  
  BOOKED 6:15-6:30 pm
  PENDING 6:30-6:45pm
  PENDING 6:45-7:00pm
  BOOKED 7:00-7:15pm
  

PS. Daddy can jump in some of the photos too!

2021 First Family Session at John's Island Club

After spending the Holidays in Maine Abby and I were thrilled to be back in Vero Beach to work with our families. Our first session in January was at a beach house in John’s Island Club with a wonderful small family!

Baby Jack was only three months old, and was the cutest!! He was so chill during our family session, and eventually fell asleep.

Baby Jack, you are SO loved!!!

Mom did a great job coordinating family colors! So Florida and so colorful! Such a fun session!!!

Gift Cards and Thank You!!!

HOLIDAY GIFT CARDS

Purchase a $175 Stories of Joy Photography Gift Card for $150! Physical Gift Cards are available until 12/8, electronic Gift Cards until 12/23.

This Gift Card is priced for a Mini Session with five downloadable edited high resolution digital files, but can also be used toward a regular session or Day In The Life/Year In The Life Session.

A perfect gift for your parent, grandparent, child or friend! Or buy for it yourself!

Message me with your email address for an invoice.


And a Huge Thank You to all my families who have supported me and my business this crazy year of 2020. I am all booked now until January 7th. Some of you I’ll see this weekend at our Mini Sessions, but if not - see you next year, and stay healthy!

Year In The Life Program by Stories of Joy Photography

If you’ve followed along my photography in any length of time, you know my heart is in documenting ordinary family life. My specialty sessions have been Day In The Life Sessions (all day sessions to tell the story of your family’s day), but my new program called Year In The Life is starting to become my favorite. They are kind of the same type of a session, just structured differently.

I am an older mom. My kids are now 21, 14 and almost 7, and looking back at our family life, the special moments in my heart are not the celebration days (even though those are meaningful too). I want to remember the ordinary days in between celebrations. I want to remember the crazy or quiet days when we forgot about school and obligations and spent time together on the beach. And the quiet evenings playing a game, having dinner with everyone still home, being silly at bath time and watching tv shows together.

Even the days when we didn’t get everything done, dinner got burnt on the stove, and I dried tears from my kids’ cheeks - I want to remember all that. I wish I had pictures from the ordinary days, and I wish I had more pictures of me in them. Oh, how I always felt like I needed to lose a few pounds, and I deleted so many pictures with me in them because there was always something in the pictures of me I was critical of. I still do this too often, but I’m learning to give myself more grace, as these pictures are not just for me, they are for my kids and future grandchildren. There is so much beauty in us and our mundane days, in all our messiness and imperfections.

That all is at the core of documentary family photography. It is telling our stories with us as we are. There is no need to dress up or put on cheesy smiles - our families are so beautiful just the way we are, everyday. Sometimes it’s fun to dress up and get special pictures of that too (and I do offer these types of portrait sessions as well), but the heart of documentary sessions are the real, honest, raw moments and feelings of parenthood and childhood. The highs and the lows. Both Day In The Life Sessions and Year In The Life are perfect for documenting the real and honest life you live.

A Day In The Life Session is typically twelve hours long, telling the story of one day. A Year In The Life Session is also twelve hours, but spread over twelve months. Most Year In The Life families will have 2-6 sessions within 12 months that add up to twelve hours, but families with newborns can have more than six sessions.

I love the flexibility of the Year In The Life Program! It is so tailored for each family. My first Year In The Life family had me come for five hours the first day, to document a homeschool morning - including dropping off and picking up a preschooler at a school where Grandma teaches. They still have seven hours to use up (they are thinking a birthday preparation and a session right before Christmas when their house is all decorated for the holidays. The second family had me start with one hour of horseback riding lessons, and then had me come for three hours to document a typical evening in their family’s life. My third family were expecting a baby, so we are doing more shorter sessions to document his growth. And yet another family to sign up for a Year In The Life Session is an extended family gifting Grandma with lots of professional pictures of her children and grandchildren.

Year In The Life Program can be a calendar year, a school year, baby’s first year - or have no special agenda. It doesn’t even have to be twelve months, it can be completed in a couple of months, if that’s what works best for your family. The way I have structured the program is with no hidden fees. You can pay all at once, or we can set up automatic payments. After each session I’ll upload a few sneak peeks (usually the next day), and within 3-4 weeks you’ll see your full gallery from that session. After we have completed twelve hours of coverage, you’ll have an online gallery of all the edited images from the year, and you can heart your favorites - or I can choose the best images, and I’ll make a professional quality photo book for you (like this one).

I have three collections to choose from, and all of them include the book, because I believe that is what has most value for you and your family for years to come. If you’d like to purchase an additional book to gift to a family member, it will be discounted for you.

Because I believe in having family portraits too, we can take more formal portraits at each session, if you’d like. Just make sure to let me know beforehand. It is possible I will include an image of your son licking his little baby brother - after all, I do specialize in the real and honest moments :-)

PS. This program really is designed for my local Florida families, but since we travel so much, please do reach out to me if you’re interested in it in a different part of the world. Let’s chat to see if we can make it work!

As always, stay well, and send me a message with any questions!

xoxo

Sennu