I Heart Faces Photo Challenge - "Hands On"

I'm a newbie photographer.  Okay.  I'm going to be more honest.  I'm not a "photographer" any more than I'm a "chef".  I'm a Mom with a camera and a Mom with a kitchen.  So... Yeah, I'm not really a photographer in the cool sense of the term... I'm just someone who takes pictures.

You know... cause I have kids and I want to remember stuff.  It's like a hobby to the extent that I can HAVE hobbies with the 3 littles running around.  But I love me some picture-taking.  Good, bad, or ugly, it makes me happy.  And I like to edit the photos because there's a whole new level of beauty that can be uncovered with a simple tweaking of contrast or layer of color.

And you've probably seen me participating in "Black and White Wednesdays" at The Long Road to China ... Which is awesome.  Well, I stumbled upon I Heart Faces Photography a few months ago and fell in love with their weekly contests.  It's so much fun to see how other people interpret a challenge and how they execute their photographs... I was totally itching to join in.  I just always forgot.  I'd think for days about which photo I could use to enter a contest and then just get busy and forget.

Well.  I remembered this week!

The theme was "Hands On" and I instantly knew that I'd be posting a picture I took back in November of Jordan's wee little hand nestled in her great-grandmother's hand.  I captured the moment when Nonni was here visiting us for Thanksgiving.  It was an incredibly sweet moment where generations came together and age and experience meant nothing... there was just love.  Jordan gave her Nonni's hand a squeeze as if to say, "I know you love me. I feel it. I love you too," and I snagged the photo at that exact moment.  I just melt when I look at it and my heart swells when I recall the two of them snuggling contentedly in the sunshine streaming through my living room windows.  Thanks to our Naval career so far, we haven't had many opportunities to spend time with our extended families, let alone holidays.   So this past Thanksgiving was really, really special to us.

So after all of that, I present you with my entry for this week's challenge:

 

It's a picture that means the world to me.  I hope you enjoy it!