Hi! I'm Erica!
For those of you who are new here, welcome! My name is Erica, and I am a 30+ year old wife and stay at home mama of two boys. When I'm not behind the camera I'm doing all the mom things. My oldest son plays travel soccer and has a pretty demanding schedule for the majority of the year. My youngest is just hitting the age for all the peewee sports and has decided he wants to try them all. As you can probably imagine we practically live in our car.
As if life wasn't crazy enough, I decided we needed our own little hobby farm. We started with ducks and have since grown to have more ducks, chickens, Nigerian Dwarf goats (Willow, Haven, & Winnie), Potbelly/Julianna pigs (Boots & Puddles), a dorky German Shepard named Moose, and a goofy pitbull named Remi. Eventually we will add to the family, but for now we are enjoying each member and learning how to best care for them. It is definitely a lot of work, but it is something I have always wanted and feel it is so important for the boys to be a part of.
2020: The Year of the Great Toilet Paper Crisis
What a year, am I right???
I would have never guessed ringing in the new year in 2020 meant that we would spend months isolated in our homes away from the outside world. Never in a million years did I think I would have to go to war to secure toilet paper. Homeschooling was never in the cards for our family, but virtual schooling just didn't seem right. While having a hobby farm has always been a dream of mine it was only just that: a dream.
But you know what? We did the damn thing, tried new things, survived, and I'd argue that we made it out on the other side better than before.
Willow Haven Photography: Established 2020
Willow Haven Photography was born towards the end of 2020 (what a year to start a business lol), but I have been around photography my whole life. My grandmother has always had a camera in her hand from the day I was born and if I had to guess long before that. I was blessed to get to spend so much time with her and be exposed to the beauty of photography from such a young age. Whether I was in front of her camera or it was one of my lucky days that she let me be behind it, some of my best childhood memories come from the time I spent with her and that camera.
I was lucky enough to be gifted a camera when my oldest was young and I have tried to document EVERYTHING! Once my oldest started playing sports the camera went everywhere with us because I could not stand the thought of him scoring a goal, blocking a goal, or twirling around in the middle of the field and I miss it on camera. I began to notice that not many parents took photos of their kids during the games and that completely baffled me! So I started taking pictures of my son's teammates and emailing the pictures to their parents.
In the fall of 2020 one of the mom's on our team at the time came to me expressing how much she loved all the pictures and asked me if I would take their family pictures. Up until this point I had only taken pictures of my kids running around the house and pictures at their sporting events. I was SO NERVOUS and even tried to convince her that I was not good enough to do something like that. Long story short, I did in fact take photos for her and there was no looking back from that point on.
I really owe all of this to that mom, because had she not convinced me to step out of my comfort zone and take those pictures for her I really have no clue if I would have ever been brave enough to start Willow Haven Photography.
So if you are that mom and you are reading this, THANK YOU!!!
