Friday, March 30, 2012

Photo Friday 2012 ~ 13 ~

Details.  I immediately thought of taking a picture of the two tulips that came up in our yard this year.  Usually we have one red tulip, but it never came up.  Then I noticed these two coming up in the front yard and I could not for the life of me remember planting tulip bulbs.  Then I remembered that they were from my grandma's funeral last year.  They were part of a giant planter basket and they were already blooming when I planted them so I guess I forgot that they would come back every year.  So now they just make me think of her.  I miss her.  I cut them the other day and brought them into the house since it was supposed to frost and I didn't want them to die.  I have one on my desk and one on our kitchen table.  I am reminded of her all day long that way.  And they are perfect and beautiful and brighten my day, just like her.

I love this!  What a happy accident this shot was.  I put the tulip into a ray of sun coming in the window to make the yellow pop and I didn't even realize it, but the camera read the illuminated part of the flower and so the rest of the background was so underexposed that it turned black.  I love the detail of the flower parts.  

I unintentionally captured the detail of the reflection in the vase.  If you look really hard, you can probably see me.  : )

I love the little scallops on the edges of the petals.  

One more with the black background because I just love it!!

Have a great weekend!  I'm looking forward to Palm Sunday and celebrating the start of Easter week!  Check out some more great 'detail' shots by clicking below.

project 52 p52 weekly photo challenge my3boybarians.com

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Photo Friday 2012 ~ 12 ~

These themes are killing me.  They are so hard for me for some reason.  I know they are supposed to push my creativity, but I sometimes feel they are having the opposite effect because I can't just shoot whatever I want.  And I'm starting to think in order to do the themes justice I need to put in way more time and effort, and I just don't have a lot of extra time right now.  So here is another attempt to make my photos fit the theme and while I have to say that I am not super proud of the way they do that, I am proud of them in general because I feel like I am getting better and better at my technical skills.  I find that I don't have to do a ton of editing to get the photos the way I want.  I am consistently getting the soft yet still crisp look that I am going for.  So, here are my "hunger" photos.  I'm sure the theme was a nod to The Hunger Games movie coming out, but since I don't normally encourage my children to fight to the death, we did more of a literal hunger thing.

I told her to do that face that she does when she tells me she's starving to death.  She pretty much nailed it.  Although sometimes she can get even more dramatic with it.  Clearly, she is not starving, but I have noticed that lately she is just getting so long limbed.  She is definitely built like her dad.  

He's not an actor like his sister, so this was actually not a posed face, but is in fact the real face that he makes when he is hungry for a snack.  See why I have a hard time saying no?  He's too cute.  And I know this is gonna sound weird, but I like how you can see his little crooked teeth in the picture.  I seriously have the same exact crooked tooth on the bottom...I even had braces and it went back crooked.  Proof of some  seriously strong genetics at work!

I love this of his smile!  

I just like this for some reason.  He saw a bee about 10 feet away from us and this was his reaction.   Totally made me think of the tracker jacker bees from the book!

This is one of my favorites of him ever!  I love this genuine smile!  

And I'll just end on a Hunger Games quote since we saw the movie last night...May the odds be ever in your favor!

project 52 p52 weekly photo challenge my3boybarians.com

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Ordinary Days

I was just looking through some photos I took this weekend and I thought to myself, what a wonderful simple life I have.  We are so normal.  And if you told me when I was like twenty two that I was going to be so normal I would have balked at the idea.  I was one of those girls that wanted an exciting life.  I wasn't even sure I wanted kids at that point.  I wanted to live in a city and have a cool job and go to cool concerts and trendy restaurants.  I wanted to live in a historic home or building and I wanted to go on exciting vacations.  I certainly would never live in the suburbs and drive a minivan.  My twenty two year old self would have been horrified at the boring ordinariness of it all.  And yet, here I sit in my suburban box of a house, with my minivan in the garage, in the same town I grew up in and I couldn't be happier.  It's kind of ironic.  When I think back to when I was a little girl of about ten years old, my dream would've been much more similar to what it is now.  To be a mom...to live close to my own mother, to stay home with my kids, to be married to a handsome man who loves me, to go to the same church I've gone to my whole life with my same friends from when I was ten.  I guess I was wiser and more true to myself then than when I thought I was so smart and confident and self sufficient in my early twenties.  I look at my daughter and how she wants to be a mom, and maybe a teacher, or an author and an illustrator and I think that sounds like a pretty good plan.  I'm sure she'll go through the same types of things I did on her way there, but that's the beauty of life and experience making you the person that you are.  I'm just enjoying watching my sweet family and loving the simpleness of beautiful spring days and weekends at home doing a bunch of what seems like nothing exciting.  But to me it's perfect.

Daffodils from my front yard.  Is there anything more uplifting than the true sign that spring has arrived?


My son set up this "leprechaun trap" on Saturday to since it was St. Patrick's Day.  He stole the 'gold', but the trap didn't catch him, sneaky leprechaun!

My daughter's trap.  She outdid herself this year.  A path of 'gold' with ramps and ladders up to the trap.

The inside of the trap with yellow paint waiting in the bottom.  He messed with her trap and took her trail of gold too, but he's a sneaky little guy.  :)

My boys.  I love that he fell asleep on his dad's shoulder.  What a sweet sight for me.  I couldn't help but take a picture of it.  I love these two so much.

Here's to more ordinary boring moments.  I look forward to enjoying even more now that spring is finally here!

Friday, March 16, 2012

Photo Friday 2012 ~ 11 ~

I took some photos of my kids yesterday before I remembered to check and see what the theme for the week was.  The theme was "The Eyes of March".  Turns out I had taken a super close up of my son that would work perfect.  I was planning on sharing it anyway.  Of course, I have way more than just one to share.  The weather has been so amazing and crazy this week.  It was almost 80 the other day and then yesterday it hailed.  There are some rumblings of thunder as I type this.  It has made me really excited for spring.  It already feels like spring and the kids have already been in the backyard playing baseball and playing in the creek.  I haven't gotten my camera out much though, I really need to get better about it.  And I feel like I've gotten in a rut with taking pictures of the kids.  I'm tired of posing them and I feel like I need to get more shots of them just doing what they do.  Maybe next week.  Here are my favorite photos from this week.

Here's my boy's baby blues.  He has really light colored blue eyes.  I have always thought that he has the most unique eye shape too.  They look like Asian eyes.  A friend mentioned to me once that her daughter's are similar and she attributed it to her Native American heritage.  And my great-grandmother was Cherokee so I guess it's possible that is where he gets it.  I don't know...neither of our kids look like us, so we are always wondering where they got this or that trait.

My girl's blue eyes.  I think it's interesting that both of my kids have blue eyes but they are totally different.  Hers are so dark.  Sometimes they seem brown because of it, but they are definitely blue as you can tell here.

I have an obsession with shots of my son looking down.  I just love his eyelashes.  

I was trying to get a shot of his eyes open, but he is so sensitive to the light.  He was sitting in the shade and he kept saying it was too bright and was squinting.  I had him close his eyes and then just open them and these are the shots I got.  He looks so intense!  He could totally be a male model someday because he's got that mean / bored face down.

I had him move to a different spot since he was having trouble with the light and I got a real smile.  I love this kid.  I need to try to get a better shot of the scar on his chin because I swear it looks like a lightning bolt.  Isn't that a Harry Potter thing?

She was so excited to wear this new dress to school.  And she requested Laura Ingalls braids to go with it.

I painted my front door this past weekend.  It's still growing on me.  My son thinks it's "hideous" (where does he get these big words?) and my daughter doesn't think it matches our house.  One thing I can say is that her pink dress pops against the blue!  Maybe a new favorite backdrop?

I love this.  I love her profile and the way her dress is blowing.  It's perfect!

I love my sweet girl. 

Check out more photos at the link below!  Have a great weekend!

project 52 p52 weekly photo challenge my3boybarians.com

Friday, March 9, 2012

Photo Friday 2012 ~ 10 ~

This week's theme was "be still".  I find myself saying that a lot to my kids.  They are so completely full of energy about 99% of the time that I am constantly saying stop, or be quiet, or be still, or stop running, or sit down, or some variation of just stop moving.  I enjoy being still.  My husband on the other hand is one of those people who is constantly bouncing his leg and it drives me insane.  Maybe that's where my kids get this constant urge to be moving.  Either way, the still moments are few and far between, but they still happen.  Sometimes I have to help create them with a calm atmosphere and some soft music, and sometimes it's just zoning in front of the tv, but then sometimes, there are the moments that happen outside and those are my favorites.  I think that being outside is calming to them.  Granted there is that initial, hey there's some wide open space let's run around like maniacs thing, but then there is the gradual calming and the exploring that goes along with it.  And when we come in from outside they are always exhausted, but in a nice calm way.  I think it's important for them to be outside without all the distractions of toys and games and television and computers where they can learn to be still and appreciate the beauty around us.  Some of these moments happened a couple days ago when we had a beautiful, warm sunny day and we spent a lot of time soaking up the sun and just enjoying each other.  I took some pictures...I couldn't resist.  Here are my favorites.  There are a bunch, but I just caught so many moments and I love them all.

My girl got home from school and decided to do her homework outside.  I love her tiny, tiny freckles that you can barely see in this picture.  

This is about as still as he gets.  Playing with his truck.  I love little boys with their trucks.  It's just so timeless...I wonder if in another fifty years if little boys will still be playing with them...I imagine so.

He was barefoot because I had let him put on his rain boots and go play in the creek and of course, he went too deep and his boots filled with water and got his socks soaked.  

He is always making crazy faces, so this is just so him.  And I love those bare toes!

Showing off with no hands.  Little daredevil.  And another crazy face...

I love these matching shots of them on the swings!

Cutie.

He swings so high now!  My big kid.

I love the wind blowing her hair in this picture.  It's so soft and creamy.  I love photos like that.

Her eyes are so pretty.  I love the gold rim around her pupil.

I love his sweet expression in this one.

I realize that they aren't actually being still in most of these shots, but it was just something about the feeling of that afternoon that was really pure and I love that.  Check out more shots at the Project 52 link below!  Have a great weekend!

project 52 p52 weekly photo challenge my3boybarians.com

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Saving What's Important

The other day there was a tornado that came through our area.  It actually ended up hitting south of us, but we were still in the tornado warning zone, so my kids were freaking out.  They had cancelled all after school activities at my daughter's school and told the kids to go straight to their cars when they let them out.  So, she came home convinced there was a tornado on it's way that very minute.  It's weird, as scared as my kids are of tornadoes they actually love that they get to go hang out in the basement.  I was just watching the weather on tv and they were gathering things for what they thought would be quite the campout for the evening.  They had snacks, water, and all of the things that were important to them.  It's interesting to see what they took down to save from the storm.  From the looks of it, I could get rid of about 99% of their stuff and they'd be okay with it.  Which is good...at least they realize that it's just stuff and it's replaceable.  Here's what they saved.

Their "guys".  And of course, my son's blankies, and my daughter's art box (on the far right you can see part of it).  They were on a mission to make sure all of their guys were saved.  Then my son started crying because he forgot to save his Steeler bobblehead.  He said if the tornado comes he will be all broken.  I had no idea he liked him so much.

My daughter, all excited to spend the evening hanging out down here.  She remembers when we had that bad hurricane wind a few years ago that knocked out the power for 3 days.  She still talks about how much fun that was.  She loved having the candles lit and cooking everything outside on the grill and cleaning up all the sticks and debris in the yard.  I think she wants it to happen again because she thought it was so fun!

I don't want to make light of the storm though.  I am so thankful it didn't hit near us, but it was a deadly storm and I feel for the families who lost everything including their loved ones.  I hope my children never have to experience the true devastation of a storm like that.  I did take one thing of mine downstairs during the warning.  My camera.  Guess it does kinda make you think about what's really important to you.  Not that my camera is irreplaceable, but if something happened, I'd want to be able to take pictures.  I guess it's in my blood.  What would you save?

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Photo Friday 2012 ~ 9 ~

This theme thing is really throwing me for a loop.  I'm not used to having to plan for what to take photos of.  I've been doing this for so long without any guidelines that it's been hard for me to try to fit the theme into my week.  I usually just made sure I took photos of something throughout the week, but now I have to try to make sure that something fits the theme.  I admit I'm not doing so great at that part of it.  I did take some really cute photos of my son the other day, but they completely didn't fit the theme, so since I was already late posting this I decided to ask the kids to do some leaping for me this afternoon to help me with the "A Great Leap" theme.  I'm sure I could have interpreted this not quite so literally, but hey, I'm short on time and this is the best I could do for now.  Here are my favorites from this week.  Some theme related and some not.

My girl and her friends who live down the street doing their interpretation of leaping.

My crazy girl.

This girl can really jump!

I love the way her hair is flying.

 Yeah, so you probably already guessed, but these are the non-leaping pics.  He built this tower taller than he is and wanted a picture with it.  And yes, he does walk around the house with no shirt in February.  He's always hot!  

Showing off his muscles.  Poor kid, he's so fair skinned!  I actually added some color to this photo because his skin is so fair that sometimes in photos it almost looks grey.

I love this.

Wow, his eyes look so blue!  I can't believe how grown up he looks lately...it makes me sad...

Have a great weekend!

project 52 p52 weekly photo challenge my3boybarians.com

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