Sitting in the sun flare

Can you believe it? Two weeks in a row that I have submitted a photo to {I heart faces}. I don't even know who I am anymore!


The theme this week was beach fun and what is more fun than a little girl sitting on the beach filling up buckets with sand.

If you have time to spare, head over to the {I heart faces} site and check out some fabulous beach pictures.

Happy Birthday Blog!

I realized this morning that this little blog of mine is three years old today. It started back in 2007 with a post about a lost binky and my three babies who were 7 months, three and six years old.

Today they are 3, 6 and 9. Unbelievable.

Along the way I have learned a little bit about html, recorded the memories and history of my family and found the blogs of some amazing women who make me laugh and cry with their stories on a daily basis.

My blog is not a blockbuster. I can count my "followers" on one hand. But this is what it was intended to be. It was never meant to entertain or to teach or to inspire - it was meant to be the story of us. And that is exactly what it is and I have the books to prove it.

I have had them for a while now but I still get giddy every time I look at them. These are books. Actual books - filled with my photos and more importantly, my words. My thoughts and feelings and anecdotes that my kids will be able to read in the years to come. The story of our life.

There are plenty of gaps. I don't blog everything. Most major events get condensed into a couple of photos. I don't think I have even posted one picture from any of the trips we have taken this summer. But the little stuff is in there. The little things that would be forgotten in the months and years to come. I have hundreds of vacation pictures that can tell their own story. But more often than not it is the little, seemingly insignificant things that really show me day to day who my children are.

And that is what is in these books.

The blog may not be a prize winner, but the books are worthy of a Pulitzer - at least in this Mommy's eyes.

Happy Birthday Blog!

Dog ears

Hailey doesn't let me comb, let alone style, her hair very often. When she saw me with a comb in my hand and a ponytail holder in the other, she freaked out until I told her that I wasn't going to put it in a pony - I was going to give her "dog ears".

She was intrigued by what I said and let me twist her hair into pigtails and only screamed a fraction of the decibel level that she usually screams.

She loved the "dog ears" and she looked so cute I could hardly stand it.

While I was taking pictures of her latest look, I reminded her of the night before when we were playing with her castle and she was showing me the evil queen who had escaped. She told me that she had to "keep an eye on her" and then made the cutest face. I told her that I wanted her to "keep an eye" on me and she did.

Can you look at that picture without smiling? Because I can't.

Painting projects? Check!

This is the summer that we painted the main living areas in our house. It was far less painful than I imagined it would be. My husband is turning into a painting pro. The whole project took way less time than I thought it would - actually picking the colors was the hardest and most time consuming part. The finished rooms look so awesome. Seriously, I couldn't be happier with how it all turned out.

The only problem is that once your walls look all fresh and clean and you feel like you are living in a new house, your old furniture and decor tend to seem extremely dated and worn out.

An example of that would be this table and its twin brother that are nearly thirteen years old and showing every day of those years.

Load yourself up with some sandpaper, an old can of glossy black paint and a couple of cans of spray paint for an even finish and you go from Goodwill....

....to Pottery Barn. I didn't know how these tables would turn out. I didn't have extremely high hopes, but my hopes were blown away. They turned out great!

With new found confidence in spray paint and my ability to turn "trash to treasure", I tackled a few more little projects that I had stored in the basement and garage with intentions of getting to them "someday". That day was upon us.

My old doll crib made for me by my Grandfather. The wood was in excellent shape but needed a bit of girl-i-fying in my taste. On a side note, I am desperately trying to get Hailey into playing with dolls and thought that having her help paint the crib would make her a bit more excited about it. The jury is still out about whether my plot worked or not, but that is a post for another day.

The finished crib. I am thinking I might look for a decal or a rub on to fanci-fy the "bump" part of the crib. Are you totally loving the words I am making up for this post?

Victim number three. The set of shelves that I purchased at a garage sale last summer for one American dollar. These little squares full of potential have been residing in my garage since I brought them in from the car the day I bought them.

A couple cans of black spray paint = instant shelf makeover.

Last but not least was the shelving unit that I got from my Grandmother. It is not my usual style at all. It is very antique-y (there I go again) and ornate. There is just something about it that I love. And trust me when I tell you that something is not the lime green color that it was painted. It has been residing in the finished part of my basement in all its lime green glory since Spencer was a toddler. It has waited for its close-up long enough.

The two holes are for amazing beveled glass mirrors that fit into them. The mirrors have seen better days but since they are completely custom to that shelf, I don't know how we would ever replace them or if it would even be worth it financially since I will probably have pictures or some other sort of tchotchke that can cover the less than stellar parts.

After about four cans of Kona brown....here she is in all her finest.

We managed to get a ton of projects done this summer and as you can see the majority of them involved us inhaling a lot of paint fumes.

I am hoping this fall to get back into my de-cluttering and organization mode. I am thinking that with Hailey in school two mornings a week, I really have no excuse to not make considerable headway.

Famous last words.....

Shades

I haven't entered a photo on the {i heart faces }website in a long time. When I saw the theme for this week was "got to wear shades", I couldn't resist posting this photo.




Head over to the {i heart faces} site and check out some other awesome "shades" photos!

Manual(s)

I finally took the time to look up and order some books on my camera from Amazon. Some instruction "manuals". Nobody around here offers any kind of class that exclusively covers Canon cameras, so I figured the books were my best option.

I don't like the manual that comes with the camera. I find it incredibly boring and hard to understand. I need someone to tell me what I need to know. I hope the authors of the books I bought will help me. I am in the second chapter of book one and already I have learned some things I didn't know how to do with the camera. Yea!

I was sitting outside with Hailey the other day and was messing with the manual setting on the camera. The books haven't gotten that far yet, but I know that if I ever really want to do something with this hobby of mine, eventually I will have to get it off of program mode. At least I am in program mode and have some control (that is what I tell myself anyway), I never shoot in Auto anymore and haven't since I had my Olympus.

So here are the images that I got with my manual experimenting. I haven't edited these in any way. What you see is what I got.

Not too bad huh? I think I have some sort of mental block when it comes to shutter speed and aperture. While I was shooting these, I totally had it down. I knew when to increase and decrease one or the other - now, poof! Totally gone. I couldn't even tell you what aperture and shutter speed I shot these at. I am blaming it on math. How they relate is mathematical and I am not mathematical AT ALL!

When your model gets tired and wants to go in the house what do you do?

You take pictures of your feet.

Time to get the kids ready for bed so I can read some more. And watch Modern Family in peace and quiet. This show has taken the place in my heart that was once reserved for The Office. I was extremely disappointed in the last season of The Office. Aside from the wedding episode (which I LOVED), I can't remember one thing I liked about it. Modern Family has become my can't miss TV.

Summer lists

One of the first few days of summer vacation, I told the boys to write out a list of some of the things that were their hopes and dreams to accomplish this summer. It was interesting to me to see what their expectations were and it was also a way to get them to actually write something even when school was over. Win/Win.

Evan's summer list:


Beach, sparklers, fireworks, zoo, ice cream, go to the yacht club pool, go to the cabin.

He didn't really understand the concept of "checking off things as they are done" he just checked them all off as he wrote them.

In reviewing his list, I see that aside from the zoo, his summer list is complete.


Spencer's summer list:



Get another slip n' slide, go to the Meijer Garden, go to Max's house for a sleep over, Robby comes over here for a sleepover, we go to the museum, we go to the Double JJ water ranch, we go to the Great Wolf Lodge, we go to the Wisconsin to the Dells, go to Brendan's house for a sleepover, spend time with my family at home, play flashlight tag, go to the Fisher's pool, go to Barothy Lodge.

I told them to go crazy. Hold nothing back. List what is your hearts greatest desire for this summer. As you can see, Spencer went a little more crazy and specific than Evan did. Or maybe Evan just didn't feel like writing anymore.

Spencer only has five things crossed off of his list. There are only four more weeks of summer vacation. We had better get crackin'.