Some young moms with new babies crossed my path. Nothing in their lives were simple. They owned none of the fancy baby items that all my friends register for. Most of them had no family to lend a hand. And no baby daddies were in the picture. In the moments I chatted with these girls, it felt like a punch in the stomach reminding me of what actually matters in life. Not my clothes or makeup or cute accessories. Not where I live or what I do. All that matters are the people in your life. Whether your kids are who you have, or you’re surrounded by love, that’s what matters. <\/p>\n

So I circled back with these girls to share something I have with them, which did so happen to be pictures. For some of them, these were the first images they had with their kids (I mean seriously, can you imagine?!?). While I don’t plan to stop shopping or make changes like that, I did make change in a small way, with a gift of pictures. These two pretty ladies came along to share their time by doing makeup and babysitting. It was a sweet few hours that I’m thankful for. It’s an honor to share what ya got. Whatever that may be, pass it around. There’s someone out there who needs it.When I met her the first time, she said she was scared she wouldn’t make it to 90 days of sobriety. She made it. This pretty pregnant mama from the Orange County Women’s Shelter wanted so badly for her other babies to be in these pictures. Unfortunately life isn’t that simple for these women. When she said there was no point in taking maternity pics without them, I told her to do it anyways because her kids love her and will cherish this image of their gorgeous mama.  This single mama from the OC Women’s Shelter I spent time at yesterday, said she’s having a hard time getting a job because she’s been to jail. She served some time for stealing baby food from Target. It’s easy to forget how different life looks outside our own worlds sometimes. I don’t know their story but I know I love this pic. Last family from the women’s shelter. I’ve loved this project so much. It made me really happy for no particular reason. I can’t wait to give these women their prints. Thank you for joining me and listening to their stories!  This is the director from the women’s shelter I was at this week. She said “God sure answers prayers because I’ve been wanting a professional picture of my baby and I. I’ve never had one before.” Done and done! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some young moms with new babies crossed my path. Nothing in their lives were simple. They owned none of the fancy baby items that all my friends register for. Most of them had no family to lend a hand. And no baby daddies were in the picture. In the moments I chatted with these girls, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13637,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[621],"tags":[1305,1306,1307],"class_list":{"0":"post-13612","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-stories-of-hope","8":"tag-oc-womens-shelter-pics","9":"tag-womens-shelter-oc","10":"tag-womens-shelter-of-orange-county","11":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennifergarciacreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennifergarciacreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennifergarciacreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennifergarciacreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennifergarciacreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jennifergarciacreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21553,"href":"https:\/\/jennifergarciacreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13612\/revisions\/21553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennifergarciacreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennifergarciacreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennifergarciacreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennifergarciacreative.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}