08/22/2026
There is such a tiny window of time between little girl and teenage girl.
I think 11 is right in the middle of it.
They’re finishing elementary school and heading into middle school. They still climb trees and laugh until they can’t breathe. They’re silly and loud and completely themselves with their best friends. They hold hands, make up games, eat apples in the sunshine and don’t quite realize yet how quickly all of this is going to change.
But when I look at them, I can already see glimpses of the young women they’re becoming.
And maybe that’s why this season of motherhood feels so incredibly tender to me.
These are my daughter’s best friends. I’ve watched them grow up together, and I realized recently that we take pictures of so many milestones, but we don’t always think to photograph girlhood itself.
Not a birthday. Not graduation. Not because someone accomplished something.
Just because they are eleven.
Because these friendships matter. Because the way they laugh together right now matters. Because their freckles and tangled hair and inside jokes and scraped knees and absolute ridiculousness deserve to be remembered too.
Someday they’ll look back at these photographs and see the little girls they used to be.
And someday, much sooner than I’d like, I will too.
So I think I want to start offering more sessions like this.
Bring me your daughters. Bring me the best friends who are practically sisters. Let them run, climb trees, eat snacks, whisper secrets, laugh too loudly and just be girls.
No milestone required.
Just a little piece of their girlhood, kept forever. 🤍
Evolvebloom.com