Sesame Street Makes Me Smile

This is one of my favorite clips from my all time favorite show.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to an amazing husband and father. I love you honey.

Normal Day

I really don't feel like I have all the much to say. There's not a whole lot going on around here. I need to get dishes done and I'm hoping to the the car vacuumed and cleaned out. Tonight I'm going to a seminar on turning misbehavior around by a group called the Legacy Foundation. You can check out a good website, www.leadingfamilies.com. I'm not sure if the Legacy Foundation is affiliated with that site or not but it's a good site, what I've seen of it anyway. I am looking forward to the seminar though.

As I pondered on what to post, and not feeling that I have all that much to put out there I remembered a quote that I came upon at Inspiration Peak. As I read it I realized just how true it was. Especially for me. I need to print it out and hang it somewhere in my house. Here it is....

"Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return."

Mary Jean Iron

May you all have your normal days. If not today then tomorrow.

Photo Shoot

A couple of weeks ago my kids had a Monday off from school so I had them brush their hair and teeth and off we went to see if we could get some good pictures of them. I have a pretty good digital camera. I love digital. You can take TONS of shots and then you can print the best ones and you don't have to pay for the ones that are out of focus or half of someone's head cut off. Good stuff like that. I also love that you can play around with digital photos. Make them black and white. Soften them or sharpen them.

My mother gave me her love of photography. That and the fact that having some tangible piece of evidence from the past helps me with the holes that I find all to often in my memory. So I load the kids up in the truck and head out with my trusty, albeit small, digi cam. J. and M were pretty darn cooperative. G finally got into the spirit of things but j was not very into it. I tried a few different things and I thought I had some pretty good shots. Then I got home and pulled them off the camera and looked at them full size. I was highly disappointed. I don't think that there was one that was as crisp and clear as I wanted (or needed) them to be. My camera doesn't have image stabilization nor optical zoom. Two things will be on my next camera.

These are the ones that I was able to save through digital manipulation. They all look o.k. in a smaller size but I couldn't get any of them blown up to 8 x 10's because of the pixelization. I'm going to attempt this again but take each kid out separately for their own shoot and then take them all together to see what I can get for a group shot. Here are the pictures. If you want to see them a bit bigger you can click on them and it will open up to a larger shot.

These first two are G the one by the door I like but his face is kind of blown out. The second one would have been great if it wasn't so out of focus. This is SUCH a typical G shot. He does stuff like this all the time.

M wanted to do this pose with the lamp post and I thought it was a really cute idea. She is without glasses in the picture because she broke hers practicing yoga and was using her sun glasses at the time. I didn't really like that look so I had her take them off. The second picture I want to go back to that place and take some more pictures. I like the idea of this picture but her face was VERY pixelated, I did my best to fix it but it didn't work too well.

These next three I tried to get the kids jumping all at the same time. It was a riot! These are o.k. I wish they were more clear though.

I actually really like this one of J but it too is not as clear and crisp as I would like. I took this in black and white. I had a color one, like the one of G. but disappointingly it was fuzzy. I wish his hands were clearer in this picture because the way that he is holding them is something that is just SO very much J, yk?

This is one of the very few pictures that I got of j. She wanted to run and play and so I let her most of the time. There were a couple of others that I liked more but they were very out of focus. *sigh*

And we also have a new addition to our family. Welcome Zoe May (short for Mayhem) She is a cross between a blue healer and an Australian shepherd. Right now she is pure white but with time will get gray/blue spots on her. She is a very smart dog and is already whining at the door when she needs to go potty. She and Zeke, our first dog, get along famously which is wonderful. So here is her picture. I will hopefully post of this little fur ball later.