Friday, July 30, 2010

Photo Friday ~ 30 ~

This week I went a little crazy and did a mini photo shoot with my son in our backyard on Monday when it was so gorgeous out.  I've been dying to share some with you (whoever you might be...comment please and let me know!) but I've been holding onto them for Photo Friday.  You'd think I'd learn after mentioning a few times how I always get pictures of my kids in outfits that I don't like to just always put them in things I like...just in case...but I haven't learned.  So, once again, my little spur of the moment shoot is in a less then favorite outfit combo by both my kids.  Forget about them even being close to coordinating.  I think I'm going to just go through their closets and get rid of anything that I don't want a photo of them in.  I'm serious.  They have tons of cute clothes, so this seriously should never happen.  And I know I could take the time to go make them change their clothes before a little photo shoot, but if I did that, then in the 10 seconds it takes to change a shirt the whole cooperative, getting my picture taken is fun vibe might just disappear into thin air and I don't want to risk that.  Okay, I'm done with my little clothing rant...I'm not that shallow, I promise.  On to other more important things, like how my son was in an incredibly cooperative mood for the camera.  He was even posing for me.  Who are you and what did you do with my little wild boy?  My grandma always tells me he's "full of meanness" which is her way of saying he's just a big tease.  That's because he'll walk real close to her like he's going to stop by for a hug and then at the last second he'll run away laughing because he thinks he's funny.  He usually does that when I have my camera out too, which is incredibly cute and frustrating all at the same time.  But this time he was an angel...almost.   Oh, and because I can't have fun with my camera without a little drama, my daughter decided to throw a little jealousy fit because I wasn't taking any pictures of her.  Seriously?  Well, here they are, and there's a bunch.  I just couldn't pick.

I've learned now by photographing other people that they are never going to pick the photos that you think they will.  Like this one.  If you didn't know that when he concentrates (like on buckling his swing) he juts out his bottom jaw like this, you might not understand why I like it so much.

The focus if off on this one, but I like it anyway too.  This is such a genuine smile.


Showing me how old he is.


Cute, sweet, precious little face and dirty knees...love it.


He always makes this face.  He's thinking about doing something "full of meanness".  I can tell.

I've been accused recently of "editing people's eyes to make them look more blue" but I never edit eyes.  It's sort of a pet peeve of mine.  Sometimes you catch the right light with the right reflection (from say a blue sky, like here), add that to a nice blue shirt and they just pop.  But I don't ever want my kids eyes or anyone else's to look fake.  My kids really do have eyes like this in this light.  And I hate that she is wearing a hot pink bow with that shirt...but there I go nitpicking with the wardrobe again.  Let it go, Shawna, let it go...  Other than that, I adore this picture and it's my new desktop background.


A beautiful tree in my neighbor's yard that I've never noticed before.  I love how the camera can make the ordinary stand out when you look through it.

Look, God put bokeh on the side of my house for me.  Had to snap a shot of it.  Beautiful light that I would not have ever appreciated a few years ago.

Eyelash shot of my girl.  I love her dark lashes so much.


I think this might be my favorite.  I love that you can see his dimple!



Have a great weekend, everyone!

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

A Little Mid Week Pampering

A few months back I started up my own little monthly Mom's Night Out.  I was just tired of never being able to get together with my girlfriends and since I have a bunch of friends scattered throughout the city who don't all know each other, I felt like I was losing touch with some of them.  So I just started inviting all of them.  Who cares if they don't know each other, they will get to know each other and they will like it!  Sorry, I have some control issues...  Anyway, I always mean to bring my camera to our little outings, but I always forget.  But not this time.  We had a pedicure party.  My little sister is a certified nail tech, so she came out with all her gear and gave us a little pampering.  It was great!  We sat by the pool in my sister in law's newly painted chairs (that plastic spraypaint really does work) and I finally got the blue spraypaint off my foot with my pedicure.  We swapped stories about our kids (we don't bring them, but of course we can't help but talk about them) and gave each other advice.  And we admired one girl's new Japanese ionic straightened hair (worth every penny).  I got there with intentions of taking lots of pics, but I took about 3 and put my camera away and promptly forgot about it the rest of the night.  So half of the girls are missing from these, but oh well.

See that gorgeous dark straight hair on my friend on the right?  You'd never know she really has naturally curly hair.  I'm still in awe of your hair, although I'd never have the guts to do it myself.

Her first pedicure ever.  I think she liked it.  

Sorry girls, I know you're out of focus, but this is the only other picture I have.

That's me with my feet propped up on my desk this morning admiring my toes. Oh yeah, and I sit like that all the time...

Okay girls, you need to remind me to take more pics next time because these are just pathetic!  Can't wait for the next Mom's Night Out!  Who's up for planning it?

Friday, July 23, 2010

Photo Friday ~ 29 ~

I didn't have any photos this week to post for Photo Friday, so my daughter volunteered to do a mini photo shoot in my bedroom for me.  I think I need to paint a wall in my house white to use for indoor shots like these.  The wall behind her is cream.  And our bedroom is the only room in our house that we haven't painted or wasn't already painted a color when we moved in.  So I have very limited options for indoor shoots.  Oh well, maybe a little studio is in my future...we will have to wait and see.  Here are the many faces of my baby.


That's an authentic 80's slap bracelet that she's playing with.  My mom found it somewhere in her house. I think it's kinda funny that she's wearing the newest fad, silly bandz, while playing with an old fad.

I would've had this post up earlier, but in the middle of putting it together we went to the pool.  It was a crazy day...there was a snake in the pool and a frog!  My mom was there and she is deathly afraid of snakes so she had to go hide in the house while my brother's dog attacked it.  The kids thought it was great.  Now we are off to hang out with my mom under her beautiful deck canopy and enjoy a few drinks.  Have a great weekend everyone!

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Sure, Here's My Card

Yep.  I can say that now when someone asks me for my business card.  Just got them in the mail.  I love them.  And I designed them all myself.  A girl's gotta brag sometimes...  Except for the logo, which was done by Katy of Little Red Flag Designs.  The best designer to work with...ever.  Now I can drop my card in the fishbowl to win free lunches.  Who knew a little piece of paper would make me so excited!

It's kinda hard to tell but the paper they are printed on is called "pearl" and it's sort of iridescent.
The back.

I'm just so excited that I had to show them off!

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

The Lazy Days of Summer

Summer is probably my favorite season.  I love fall too with all the crisp air and changing colors, but I think I really just love it to be hot.  And green.  And lazy.  No plans.  No school bus to catch.  No activities to run to.  Just pure freedom.  It doesn't get better than that for me.  This week is one of those weeks where we don't have much planned.  I'm done editing photo shoots and I don't have any scheduled this week.  We only have one playdate on the calendar.  It's kinda nice.  We can be spur of the moment.  Or we can sit around in our jammies.   Like we are right now!  But if we decide we want to go somewhere later, then we can just go.  Freedom is nice like that.  The kids are enjoying just playing with their toys and going outside and exploring the yard.  It makes me sad that it's going to be over in a few short weeks.  But I'm trying not to think about that right now.  I have to enjoy the moment.  Speaking of moments, my daughter has been wearing her new glasses around for the past couple of days.  She says she can't see to read without them.

She stood like this posing while she patiently waited for me to get out my camera and take her picture.  She did her own fashion styling that day.  I let her do her own hair and pick her own outfit on days we aren't planning on going anywhere.  (I must find a slipcover for that chair!  It's ruining the whole look of my room!)
If you read my blog then you know all about her imaginary horse, Sarah.  She says she looks exactly like the horse on her shirt.  Right down to the flower in her mane.
I just had to include this because he makes the funniest facial expressions.  I'm trying to not delete all of the pictures of them in favor of cute smiles because someday I'll try to remember all of his funny faces and I won't be able to.  And I love his hair and I know he needs a haircut but I'm avoiding it because it's so hard to cut off such beautiful hair.  

Enjoy these lazy days!

Friday, July 16, 2010

Photo Friday ~ 28 ~

Ah, it's Friday...I feel like I can breathe now.  I can't believe I didn't update my blog this week at all.  Actually, I can, because I was babysitting pretty much all week.  It's so nice to just have my two for a change.  I kinda missed them while they were so busy playing with their friends.  I only took 12 photos this week.  Actually, that's not true because I had a photo shoot with the cutest 3 month old, but her dad doesn't want her photos on the internet.  Which I totally get because my husband doesn't want me to use my kids' names on here so that way you won't be able to google them and find out all about them.  But I wish I could show off this baby girl because she is perfect!  I get the feeling her dad will be one of those holding a shotgun across his lap when her dates come over to pick her up.  Not that I blame him!

One of my childhood friends asked me to watch her girls this week overnight for 2 nights.  They are exactly one year older and one year younger than my daughter.  They had a ton of fun together.  They told me my house was  "awesome" which made my day.  I took them to my brother's pool yesterday and got a couple pictures.  The younger one was not cooperating so there are no pics of her, but these make me smile because I have pictures of me and their mom together when we were close to this age.  If I had a scanner I'd show you them.  I hope these girls stay as good of friends as we have.

Here they are showing off in the pool with some interesting poses.  I realize that these are not the most flattering pics of these girls, but in 20 years when they look back at them, I really don't think they're gonna care.  Plus, this is all I got.

Friends.

Here's a picture of my son playing baseball while the girls were swimming.  For some reason he never wants to get in the pool.  Once he gets in he loves it, we just have to coax him in each time.  Oh, and he was totally golfing with the baseball stuff.  When we were cleaning out my mom's desk for me to paint we found some old pictures of my little sisters and realized that my son looks just like one of them.  Which is funny since they are identical twins!  Anyway, I need to get a scanner so I can show you guys the resemblance.

Have a great weekend and I'll try to post again before next Friday!

Friday, July 9, 2010

Photo Friday ~ 27 ~

I was outside with my daughter the other day and she decided to bring out all of her art supplies so she could play with her glitter glue pens.  Along with that she brought out all of our bubbles.  When she took a break from doing her art to blow bubbles, I ran back in the house to get my camera.  I love bubble pictures!

I love the amazing reflections going on in this bubble.  If you look really, really close you can see me in there.

She concentrates so hard while she is blowing bubbles.  It's so cute.  And I love that I caught this long bubble!

Doesn't she just have to sweetest, full kissable lips?!  She lucked out and got that from her dad.  Sometimes I  make her whistle so I can see her pucker like this and then I steal a kiss.  It makes her mad, but I don't care!

My baby came out after his nap and spilled all the bubbles on accident.  No bubble pics of him, but I did get this sweet expression.  I love his eyes.

Have a great weekend, everyone!!

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Distressed

Not me...my furniture.  I got some new (to me) tables and a new desk from my mom who got some new (to her, they're antiques) tables and didn't need her old ones anymore.  I wasn't quite sure that I wanted them at first.  Why, you might ask?  Let me explain...they were ugly.  Yes, Mom, they were ugly.  I know they were cool in the 70's when you got them, but that coolness ran out many, many, many years ago.  So, you see, I wasn't quite sure I wanted them.  Luckily, I'm a girl with a vision.  And a girl who can paint.  I love paint.  It covers many flaws.  And turns ugliness to beauty.  See exhibit A....

This is obviously the before picture.  See?  UGLY.  But with potential...good bones.  This is good, quality furniture.  My parents never bought crap, they always bought the quality stuff that would last.  Of course, that meant my mom was stuck with this for 30 plus years. 
AFTER.  I'm going for a sort of beachy, cottagy look in this room.  I decided to paint it white and distress it...which basically means you make it look already beat up.  Perfect, since that's exactly what my kids are going to do to it anyway.
I made a keyboard tray by banging the front of the drawer off with a hammer and then adding a piano hinge to open and close it.  It works pretty well.
My new desk chair from Ikea.  Only cost me $22 and it's surprisingly comfortable and I like how it accents the blue in the room.  Don't worry, that red chair in the background is getting a slipcover soon.
Here's the coffee table I got out of the deal.  
See those curtains in the background?  Those were the inspiration for the change in this room.  While we were in Florida I fell in love with these same curtains in our condo, so I asked the owner where she got them and she told me and I went and bought them.  I knew they'd look perfect and they do!  And I never, ever, would have bought them if I just saw them at the store, they look so much better in person.  They match my green walls perfectly...and now I don't have to paint.  I had no idea what I was going to do with this hodge podge of a room before that. 
Here's a closeup of the distressing I did.  It was so easy!  All I did was paint the furniture white and then took a piece of sandpaper to all the edges.  
Okay, the walls are not really this dark of a green, but it's kinda dark in that corner and I don't feel like retaking this picture.  I just wanted to show you the end table I got.  The kids like to hide inside it.  I wanted them to store toys in it, but oh well...it's a great hiding spot.

My mom has another end table that coordinates with this one only it's square.  She's still got it though.  I'm waiting for her to get another new antique table so I can have it.  Maybe we need to plan a day to go antiquing!

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

A Parade, Some Fireworks and a Free Dress

We had a great Independence Day weekend complete with fireworks and a parade.  We let our kids stay up late 2 nights in row (practically unheard of around our house) to watch fireworks.  The first night we just let them go outside in their pajamas in our neighborhood, but we weren't really able to see that many due to all the tall trees around us.  We did see a few bats flying around though and plenty of mosquitos which eventually drove us back inside.  The next day we ventured out to a nearby suburb parade complete with high school marching band and fire trucks.  The kids love parades, mostly due to the fact that they throw candy at you.  I don't remember this from my childhood and I'm not sure if that's because they didn't throw candy or my parents never took me to parades.  After a loooong  nap from both the kids that afternoon we went to the fireworks at a nearby amusement park.  They were great, and I tried to take pictures, but they didn't turn out at all.  I guess I should have read up on tips on how to take good fireworks pics, because they are so bad I don't even have any to share.  Maybe next year!

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you about the free dress!  So, our church has an annual "clothing swap" where people bring in their clothing to donate and they sort it out by size and category and then everyone comes to "shop" and they can take whatever they need for free.  It's a great ministry and we've been personally blessed by this ministry.  This last swap I helped set up along with some other moms and we came across an interesting dress.  One of those where you hold it up and go, "Do you think this is cute or not?" and you get a variety of opinions.  We all sort of joked around about this strange dress for a while because the front of it was so different from the back of it.  Anyway, I decided that maybe it would look really cute on and told all the ladies there that they were not allowed to make fun of my daughter if they saw her in that dress!  Well, it turned out to be the perfect 4th of July dress!  We had tons of people commenting at the parade on her cute dress.  So don't be afraid to try that odd looking article of clothing because it might look great when it's on.

I really like the photo in the middle of this collage.  It's just so patriotic.  And I love how my son is covering his ears from the fire trucks.
You can really see the dress in the bottom right corner.  Check out all those cute firemen too!  I thought it was interesting the way they carried axes along with the flags.
One of my favorite new pics of my kids.

Friday, July 2, 2010

Photo Friday ~ 26 ~

Wow, I just realized as I typed the title of this post that the year is officially half way over!  It's going so fast.  I guess it's really true how fast time goes as your children are growing.  I wish I could slow it down a little, especially during the summer.  We've been having a really nice summer so far and the past two days the weather has been amazing.  My husband and I were pondering how that is what it would feel like to live in southern California...gorgeous every day...how could you not be a happy person?  The kids and I were out in the yard most of the day and I took my camera out to capture some of the beautiful sunlight.

You know by now that I love series of similar photos.  Here's her serious face.  She found that lily at the back of our yard and had to pick it so I put it in her hair for her which she thought was great.
Check out that serious face...she is trying not to smile.  You can see it the tiniest bit in her lips.
There she goes...she can't hold it in any longer.
Love, love, love this.  Is there anything better than a kid with their head thrown back in pure happiness?  And I actually love that it's slightly out of focus.  Just makes it seem more magical.
I love her so much.
And just because I have this insane need to be even and show off both my kids, here's my son looking mostly angelic...until you hear that the reason his arm is back like that is because he is getting ready to try to smack the camera out of my hand.  Stinker.  I'm too fast for him though.

Have a great 4th of July weekend, everyone!  I'm gonna try to take some pics of fireworks.  It will be my first attempt, so we'll see how it goes.

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