i’m tired.

fo’ real.

it’s after 11.  my feet hurt.  my eyes hurt.  and my head hurts when i think about tomorrow.

i’m assisting for my fabulous friend Kat starting at noon tomorrow and the wedding is about an hour and a half away (south beach, baby!!).  sure i won’t get home until at least 1 AM.  i will be drinking quite a bit of coke.  or coffee.  something with caffeine.

i just spent 2 hours working on a painting and taking a break to fold laundry when it came out of the dryer45 mintues every .  doing it all while listening to my bebo norman pandora station.  pandora seriously makes everything a pleasure.  and i hardly ever have to skip a song on that station (i think it’s a mix of bebo norman, watermark, and audrey assad).

one reason i’m tired:

doesn’t she look like a sulking 14 year old?  this girl is giving me a run for my money lately with her attitude.  it is DRAINING.  she’s started being sneaky and lying and cocking an attitude every 4 seconds.  sometimes when she speaks i swear if i closed my eyes i could easily picture her as a bratty teenager.  i love her fiercely, but man can she rub me the wrong way when she wants to.  (by the way, she WAS sulking in that picture.  she was pouting while we were in the FSU stadium.  a super fun and different place for anyone of any age.  i still don’t know what she was pouting about.)  however, she finished her first week back at school and in a different location (same teacher, most of the same kids) with a huge smile on her face.  girl is definitely a social butterfly.  don’t know where she gets it becuase both ryan and i were extremely shy as small children.

[side note: ryan lies in bed and reads all his RSS feeds (articles and blogs) before he goes to sleep.  he just read me an article that said on this day in 1794, the first Cesearean section was performed in the US where both baby and mother survived.  it was performed by the woman’s HUSBAND on a “table” made out of planks on 2 barrels.  wow.]

been working with layne all week on potty training.  it’s a total roller coaster.  she’s doing okay, i guess.  she’s actually had more pee accidents than poop, which is good.  i’m just glad i don’t have to buy diapers anymore (however she’s still in pull-ups at night)…especially now that Maitland is big into babyfood ($$$…i do make my own every now and then, but it’s alot easier just to take the top off of something).  she redeems herself from the accidents by being HILARIOUS and adorable.

funny story: i was doing dishes for awhile in the kitchen this morning.  maitland was in the playroom playing with a bin that had play dishes and food in it.  layne came into the kitchen carrying a basket with a piece of plastic corn in it.  L: “i got some corn.”  Me: “cool.  where’d you get that?  maitland’s store?”  L: “yeah, maitland’s store.  there were lots of babies there.”  Me: “really?  lots of babies?”  L: “yeah.  and it was really messy.”

ryan took a video yesterday of layne holding a bead from a broken necklace and voluntarily calling it a choking hazard.  it will probably be one of my favorite videos from her at this age.  i should figure out how to post it on here…

i’m done.  if i look at this screen any longer i’ll have to tape my eyelids open.

if anyone’s reading this who hasn’t taken a look at the photo blog this week, do it now!  (please?)

friday favorites: FALL!

our cooler weather has FINALLY arrived!  today was absolutely gorgeous…clear and cool.  i know we’ll have days before christmas where i walk outside and feel immediately sweaty, but i don’t care.  right now my toes are cold without the help of the AC and i love it. 

the weather is always a hindrance to my getting into the spirit of Fall, but this year i spent the month of october unpacking and settling into this house so i never  bothered to get out any of my Fall “decor”, which is the only other thing that gets me in the spirit.  (man am i glad i just typed that sentence instead of trying to say it out loud all in one breath.)  anyway, i’m in the spirit now, thanks to a fun Halloween and some cool weather…thinking i’ll break out said decor tomorrow.

and now, 5 of my favorite Fall photos…not ever, just the ones on my hard drive (’08 til now).

friday favorites

a few years ago i did an alphabetical favorites series of posts.  i’ve decided to revisit my favorite things, but do it through photography and do it every friday.

i’m hoping to post some pics of the new place (or things in the new place) next week, but for today…

jack-in-the-box.  it was mine when i was a kid and i found it in my grandma’s attic when we cleaned it out a few years ago.  the music and “popping” function only works some of the time, and i don’t even really like the way the clown looks (i took a picture of him and even hated that, so you won’t see him), so i’ve thought about filling it with rocks and glueing it shut to use it for a book-end or a doorstop.  every time i have this on my to-do list, i feel like the kids re-discover it and then i feel guilty about destroying it (even though they have another jack-in-the-box).  i just love love love the colors and the graphics on the outside and i love that it’s a tiny bit beat up.  and i love knowing that i played with it as a kid.

7:12 AM

i should probably be waking up the girls right now, but i just wanted to check in quickly.

so, we are moving this week.  literally.  every time ryan or i goes over to the new place we take a box or two or a basket of toys or a metal star from the wall (harper was upset by that one and promptly told me that the wall wasn’t pretty anymore).  our current house is a WRECK and i’ve given up on trying to have it not be.  i’m keeping it clean (wiping the counters, sweeping the floors), but not neat.  reinforcements arrive on thursday night so starting friday morning we should be getting quite a bit done.  hoping that by monday i’ll be almost unpacked and that by the end of next week i’ll be somewhat organized. 

the whole concept of the girls living in a HOUSE for the first time is cool.  yesterday evening i did a little painting and ryan met us over there and brought pizza.  we had a picnic on a dropcloth.  i was so annoyed i didn’t have my camera because it was one of those moments when i thought, “i want this image burned on my brain.”  super special family picture.  anyway, as we were leaving, harper ran out to the mailbox, opened it and said, “no mail today!”  i was thinking how exciting that must be for her….for her entire life we’ve gotten our mail out of a little silver hole with a door.

this whole process is very exciting to me (i swear i have a huge smile on my face every time i’m packing a box), so i’m not in a rush to have it overwith, but there are alot of things that i’m looking forward to in the next 6 months or so, so i won’t mind when the moving in part is done:

• starting up tuesday night Bible study again with some of my favorite women (and we’re reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan, which is a book i’ve been dying to get through)
• assisting my talented friend Kat Braman at several weddings
• shooting one of my own next month
• cooler weather (which feels like it’s already started, although i’m sure i’m being deceived somehow)
• Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas (we’ll get to have lights outside this year!)
• Harper learning to read…i’m expecting to see her doing some probably before Christmas…she is flying through everything she’s being taught right now
• so so so excited to start painting for the Homespun Chic Marketplace i’m participating in in April.  it’s always been a dream of mine to take part in a “craft fair/art show”, and this one seems like it’ll be really good.  i have big plans and in the new house i have an actual workspace.  SO STOKED to get some things on canvas.  (if you want to see some of my past works, you can go to my other blog, scroll to the bottom and click on “paintings”.)  several of my friends who have Etsy shops are doing it too, so that makes it extra fun and exciting.
• watching Maitland learn to sit up and crawl….okay let’s be honest: i’m only excited about the sitting up part.  he can stay on his bottom for 6 months for all i care.  haha

it’s now 7:30 and my girls really need to be up!  gotta run.

the new place

flexing my muscles

i’m trying to get back into shape physically and have decided that i also need to start flexing my photography muscles a little bit.  woke up this morning and decided to do sort-of a “day in the life” kind of thing.  last day in tallahassee…here goes:

woke up around 8:30…4 used diapers next to the clock (the number of diapers in the pile always indicates how many times i’d been up the night before with my Little Buddy).  me in my p.j.’s…honestly bothers me alot that they don’t match.

my Little Buddy watching the ceiling fan…he’s about to outgrow that binky.  i’ll miss it.

staying at nana’s means dessert after breakfast…always popsicles on the front porch.

if you hadn’t figured it out already (red mouths, yellow popsicles), this morning they each had 2!

i noticed this week how TALL all the trees have gotten.  love this sweetgum.

this house holds many many memories for me.  besides the 400 pictures of me, here’s one other piece of evidence that i grew up here:  a height chart on my former-bedroom door.  if my parents’ ever move, they’d better take our doors with them.  i need to get something like this going for my kids before they’re as tall as we are. 

[did you notice that in 1988 i grew 2 inches and gained TEN pounds?!]

this afternoon mom and i took the kids to this place.  zoinks.  it’s a huge room filled with inflateables (slides, obstacle courses, etc) and arcade games.  unbeknownst to us, wednesdays are free afternoon days.  it was total chaos.  i am not a paranoid mom, and i was…well…paranoid.  the place was absolutely packed and it was driving me crazy that at no time did i have all 3 of my kids in my view at once, much less my kids AND my niece and nephew.  mom and i kept looking at each other like, “is this for real?”  i set maitland’s carseat up against one of the toddler inflateables and it was bouncing him around enough that he fell asleep.  this tempted me to just leave him there and walk around with the other two kids, but i kept thinking, “it’s chaos in here.  someone could pick him up and walk out with him and i would never know it.” 

my one consolation was that i’d fed maitland right before we left the house, so i didn’t have to walk around like this poor woman was (however, i should point out that that is about the most modest job of breastfeeding i have ever seen…without someone using a cover):

when we got home it had just been pouring rain.  the kids played in the driveway with the umbrella and jumped in the puddles and rode thier scooters through the water while they waited for thier dinner.  i took alot of fun pictures, but i’m tired, so i’m only posting this one.

my grandma was here for dinner tonight.  she lives in an assisted-living facility here and my dad goes and picks her up all the time.  she is 94 and is sometimes annoyed by loud kids and noise, but tonight she seemed not to mind at all when her great-grandson was a little fussy.  as long as i can remember she has had painted fingernails and lots of jewelry.

headed home tomorrow.  stopping at my sister’s for lunch, so hopefully the drive won’t be bad.

happy happy joy joy

this picture is a representation of what i’ve been feeling lately.  my business website it FINALLY live!  take a look!!   tell your friends!!  i bought and designed the site 6 months ago and then had all kinds of trouble and confusion trying to figure out how to redirect my domain name from the old host.  i was close to giving up, accepting that my $200 had been thrown in the trash, and then i finally talked to the right person.  thank you, sweet samantha.

happy new year!

so, it’s 11:15 and i should really be in bed or unpacking the suitcase, but i really didn’t want the first day of the year to go by without sitting down to do a post.  i continue to look at blogging as a journal and well, a web LOG of my life, so i want to make it a priority.  first, i’ll answer my handy questionnaire to fill in a few of the gaps of what we did on our 10 days away.  then, a few pictures to honor the fun that was had.

something i accomplished [while we were gone]:  not a whole lot, thankfully.  if spending time with family is an acoomplishment, than i did well.  i did some laundry, dishes, and cooking, but it never feels like work when i’m not at home.

something i screwed up [while we were gone]:  i got a text from a client that the CD she’d gotten from me was blank.  OOPS.

something fun i did with the kids [while we were gone]:  we did get out quite a bit, but i think the most fun i had with them was just hanging out at the house[s], playing with new toys, and horsing around.

something funny or cute one of my kids did or said [while we were gone]:  my favorite thing from this Christmas was how genuinely harper showed thankfulness for her gifts.  she said several times on different days, very sincerely, how much she loved all her new presents…and it seemed like she really understood that they were GIFTS, not things that she deserved.

something yummy i ate [while we were gone]:   to name just a few: 2 great steaks, oreo peppermint pie, crumb coffee cake, sweet potato casserole, rutabaga, black-eyed peas, my mom’s spaghetti (reheated, but still DELICIOUS), roasted marshmallows, ETC… 

something i read [while we were gone]:  my sweet sis-in-law gave us several books, but i ended up starting A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which is actually one she’d bought for herself but has already read several times.  i started it today in the car and i really love it so far.  i’m trying to set a goal for myself to be in bed by 9:00 every night to read for awhile….stuck to it last year for several months…hopefully this year it’ll be at least until baby boy is born.

a tv show or movie i watched [while we were gone]:   just watched “Funny People” with ryan on the couch…that’s why this post is so late, but it was worth it for once…actually a pretty good movie.

something i did [while we were gone] that i hardly ever do:  bought a pair of skinny jeans.  i’ve actually never done this before, but i was at goodwill and they fit so i went for it.  they’re not maternity jeans and i never sat down in them when i tried them on, so we’ll see if i actually wear them at all this winter…

something i did [while we were gone] that i do every day:  thank the Lord for my family

something i am thankful for right now:  so very thankful for such a long break from reality…and to be able to spend it with such amazing fun people made it even better.  i am so so blessed.

now for a few pictures…first of 3 Christmases for the kids was at our house…just our little family and a few gifts, but the girls loved it.

ryan took this in orlando when we went to look at a light display.  i just love it.

same night…we did get several shots where all of us were looking, but i thought this one was a little more…uh…honest.  🙂  please pardon the fact that i look like i’m homeless.  i was very comfortable and warm.

Christmas tree bow courtesy of amy at Two Florida Girls…

two shots from New Year’s Eve.  it was good practice for VERY low light…most of my shots turned out blurry, but these two weren’t and they were my favorite…

i posted this one on my photo blog as well, but i love it so much i thought i would put it here too.  my sweet nephew justin was VERY excited about the fireworks.  he jumps when he’s excited.

sofly photo-a-day

okay, guys, for the month of october, i will probably be neglecting this blog in order to meet a challenge on my other blog. the challenge (extended by a photography “club” i’m a part of) is to put up a photo every day for a month. whichever sofly member gets the most total comments gets a prize!! help me out!! bookmark (or google reader) my other blog and leave me comments, please!!

hey y’all

head over to the business blog for my newest posts…

not as much of a slacker as you’d think

yes, it’s been a full week since my last post, but i haven’t been sitting around.

here’s a list of 10 things that have kept me away from wordpress over the past week:

1. drove from tallahassee to orlando with harper (layne stayed in tallahassee)
2. flew from orlando to springfield, MO
3. took harper to her first hibachi dinner (courtesy of my generous brother and sister-in-law)
4. took harper (and my nephew owen) to barnes & noble to meet maisy the mouse
5. photographed a 90 year old’s birthday party
6. photographed a wedding reception for a couple who got married at the top of the Sears tower in April
7. photographed a couple and their sweet baby boy
8. atteneded/photographed an awesome hyms concert  (i took 1131 pictures in 2 days!)
9. flew back to orlando (where we were reunited with layne)
10. drove home. 

WHEW!!