Friday, April 27, 2012

Photo Friday 2012 ~ 17 ~

I'm not linking up with my Project 52 group today.  I totally bombed on the theme.  The theme was "green" and  have only taken about 10 photos this week, all in the same day, and none of them involved the color green, or the concept of being environmentally friendly, or being inexperienced at life or even the mood of jealousy.  Oh well...the fact that I am posting a photo this week is practically a miracle in and of itself.  I have been working at my temp job grading standardized tests.  I had the brilliant idea this year that instead of working in the evenings and missing out on time with the kids, I'd work during the day while they were at school.  Problem is, I didn't really think about all that would be required as far as child care was concerned.  My work starts at 8:30 and my daughter has to be at school at 8:25.  Then my son has to get on the bus at 9:05.  Luckily I have an awesome neighbor who is helping out with getting them to school for me.  Having nice neighbors should never be taken for granted!  Then I needed someone to watch my son after school (he's half day) and I had it all planned out that my mom was going to do it, but then my assignment ended up being while she was in Florida.  Not part of plan...  Luckily, Dean made an awesome little friend at school who has an awesome mom that offered to take him.  I love people who will just open their homes to you and do you a giant favor and then act like it's no big deal.  It's great.  My daughter is going home each day with her BFF (yes, she really refers to her that way) whose mom has been equally awesome and she is in heaven so I don't even feel a smidgen of guilt about that.  It's been a crazy week.  It's a great reminder for me that when I start thinking "yeah, I could totally be a working mom and it would all be fine" that it's really not fine.  Not for me or my kids or my husband.  We have been so mean to each other this week.  And snippy, and whiney, and tired, and just plain cranky.  I just need to be home.  That's all there is to it.  I know other women who juggle it all with grace and patience, but that's just not me.  I need to be focused on my family and home or I'm just not happy.  Sure, I can pull off the part time photography thing since I make all my own hours and if I don't feel like doing something, I can just say no.  That doesn't really feel like a job to me.  It's more like a hobby with perks.  : )  But leaving my home and going to a 9 to 5 job is a totally different ball game.  So don't look for me to go job hunting anytime soon.  And if I mention it?  Point me right back to this blog post please.

My daughter found this in the neighbor's tree in a nest after all the baby bird's had flown away.

I was talking to someone the other day about how girls and boys drawings and stories are so completely different.  This boy is always drawing some sort of action scene.  And there is always some sort of elaborate story behind it.  My daughter's pictures are usually of her family, or animals, or objects, and they pretty much are what they are or you can at least figure out the story behind it without too much explanation.  I like that I have a boy and a girl so I can enjoy a little of both.  I didn't get the story behind this one, by the way, but if I had to guess I'd say robots?  Or a car chase?  Or alien invaders?  Your guess is as good as mine!

See you next week!

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Photo Friday 2012 ~ 16 ~

I have been a total blog slacker lately.  I hate it too because I really do enjoy blogging...and even more than the actual act of blogging, I enjoy going back and reading my blog.  I will sometimes sit down and just randomly click on a few posts and they almost always bring a smile to my face.  Mostly because I blog about pleasant things that I want to remember, but also because in the moment I don't always appreciate my life the way I do when I look back on it a year or two later.  I need to be more disciplined about blogging, but sometimes life gets crazy with all of the things you have to do and you don't always have time for those things you want to do.    And why is it that all of the things you have to do are so boring?  Like laundry and cleaning and dishes and running the kids here and there...ugh.  None of that sounds appealing in any way to me.  But then again, some days if you asked me to sit and look at a computer screen for even one more second I'd feel the same way.  And since I need to do that to blog, it has been one of those weeks that I just haven't gotten to it.  Anyway, enough excuses, I need to share with you my favorite photos from the week!  This week the theme was "Things that Grow" and I didn't even have any clue what the theme was until I just now looked it up.  Needless to say, these photos were not planned to go with the theme.  But kids grow so I lucked out. : ) We went to my in-laws last Sunday for a dinner and my mother-in-law had an egg hunt for the kids since she didn't get to see them for Easter.  I snapped a few pics during the hunt.  I decided to change these to black and white.  Sometimes I think it's easier to pick up on the emotion in a photo when you strip away all the distraction of the colors.  And sometimes all the kids are wearing bright colors that clash with one another and the easiest way to fix that is to just convert it to black and white. : )  Here are my favorites.

I love the one on the top right.  

My mother-in-law always puts money in the eggs and this year they appreciated it.  Guess it helps that they are finally realizing the value of money! 

These are all the grandkids of my mother-in-law.  And of course my son is making a weird face!

This next week I am going to be working at my temp job so I'm not gonna promise that I'll post, but I'll try.  Check out more "Things that Grow" photos at the link below.

project 52 p52 weekly photo challenge my3boybarians.com

Friday, April 13, 2012

Photo Friday 2012 ~ 15 ~

The theme this week was sacrifice.  And really, there is no greater sacrifice than Jesus dying for my sins on the cross.  So it's appropriate that my photos this week are from Easter Sunday.  I haven't picked up my camera since then because I have been swamped, and it's only gonna get worse since we are leaving for Florida soon and I am starting that part time temp job I did last year again next week.  I will be in dire need of a vacation by the time it gets here!  Back to this week's photos...they are really just your traditional Easter portraits that I try to get every year while we are busy getting ready for church and dinner and the kids are hyped up on sugar so it's a challenge.  I don't want you to think that getting these is easy though...I was tempted to post all the outtakes because my kids were being ridiculous...but I opted to just show my favorites this time.  I think I need to do a post of just outtakes soon though.  I have a ton.

My sweet boy.  This was taken before the drama of the day, which was when he crashed his bike at full speed into a wood pile.  Apparently they were racing and he was going so fast and he veered off into the neighbors yard which is a huge hill and he thought it was awesome and was saying, "weee!" until he couldn't stop and crashed into the wood pile.  At least that's the most accurate version that we could piece together from the different accounts from the kids.  He had quite the scrape and bruise on his face, but I'm happy to say that today it is looking considerably better.  

I like how he is putting his arm around her instead of vice-versa.  I've been noticing a lot lately how much he just automatically does things the way a man would.  It's too cute.

My girl.  I loved her dress this year.  I didn't have time to curl her hair like I wanted so we went with the trusty side bun.  I still think it's cute though.

My mom took this picture of the four of us for me.  I not doing my 4 People 12 Times project this year so this is the first photo of us all together that we have had taken all year!  I need to get better about that.  But I love this!

I'm posting this for my mom who has been asking me daily if I can send her a picture of all her grandkids.  This is the best I got...I think it's pretty good, especially compared to last year's!

I hope you have a great weekend!  Check out more "sacrifice" photos at the link below.

project 52 p52 weekly photo challenge my3boybarians.com

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

My Girl ~ A Photo Shoot ~

My daughter is my favorite person in the entire world to photograph.  She is definitely my muse.  Check out some of our previous shoots together here, here, here and here.  I have a slight obsession I guess!  I love that she gets what I want her to do and she is so natural about it.  We are totally on the same wavelength when doing a photo shoot.  And she's only 8, so I know that I have many, many years of fun ahead of me.  She still tires of it quickly, but the fact that she is totally into it in the moment is perfect.  She just gets how to pose and she just gets how to tilt her head just right for the light, and she just gets how to change her facial expressions the tiniest bit.  She's basically a photographer's dream.  Not to mention I happen to think she's pretty darn beautiful.  Of course, I am her mother, so I'm completely biased.  I did a photo shoot with her last week.  I picked all her outfits and curled her hair and we started off in my mom's yard.  No fancy locations needed.  You'd be surprised what you can do in just the average backyard.  We did head off to the park for a couple of shots on the front porch of the log cabin there because I seriously love that location...it always has the perfect light and the perfect amount of contrast with the wood in the background.  Here are my favorites.

I love this shot.  It might be my favorite.  It's so hard to pick!

I love her face.  See what I mean about posing?  She just gets it.  On some kids this pose would look way too forced.  On her it looks totally natural.

Rocking her supermodel face.

My pretty baby.

Love the wind in her hair and her sweet, sweet smile.  

In our backyard.  We had to run home for a certain hairbow and I decided to pile her hair up and use  my favorite spot by this fallen log.  I love how these turned out.

I love her smile too!

At the log cabin...see what I mean about the light?!


I will never tire of these fun sessions with my girl.  I hope you enjoyed them a tiny fraction of the amount that I did. : )

Friday, April 6, 2012

Photo Friday 2012 ~ 14 ~

It's Spring Break week!  I thought I would have time to do some posts, but I just never got around to it, what with all the sleeping in and doing fun stuff.  : )  This week's theme was 'Foolin Around'.  We actually did a lot of that since I had all these grandiose plans to go places, but we ended up just hanging around the house most days.  Not that they were complaining though.  We did get out to the park and to have lunch with Papa, and we headed downtown one afternoon where we ate lunch on Fountain Square in the most gorgeous perfect weather.  It was a pretty good week.  My husband is off today too and he's outside playing baseball with my son as I type this, so I better get going so I can join them.   Here are my photos from the week!

He was so excited he found a ladybug.  Then he realized that he killed it on accident.  He always kills ladybugs...every time he picks one up...he's always so disappointed about it too.  I tell him he should just look at them, not pick them up, but he just can't resist!

She was playing house on our playset and this was our "lunch".  I like her plates. : )  She is always so creative.

Me and my boy.  I hate my face in this, but it's so hard to get a photo of me with my kids that I like.  This will have to do.

Me and my girl.  I was thinking that I really need to see if I can find some photos of me with my mom when I was little.  That would be fun to see.

When you fool around all week, this is what happens.  He fell asleep in the chair last night watching golf.  I couldn't even wake him for dinner, he was completely out.  I had to carry him to bed and change him into his jammies and he never woke up the entire time.  He's well rested today though!  I love the shadow in this photo.

Have a great Easter weekend!  Check out some more great photos by clicking the link below...

project 52 p52 weekly photo challenge my3boybarians.com

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