Parry Family Chronicles

Christmas 2011

2012-02-02T13:16:00.000-08:00

I realize I'm posting about Christmas on Ground Hogs Day but hey, at least I'm attempting to catch up! The holidays are a blur for me anyways so any attempt at keeping up with this blog is futile so I don't even try. Keeping up three blogs, one of which requires a daily photo is a lot of work!

This year we managed to get a Christmas tree (last year we didn't...so this is an improvement!) and it was lovely. We enjoyed it for a good two weeks before we took down all the ornaments and passed it on to our neighbors before we left for Idaho. Seriously, we unplugged the lights, threw the cord over the top, and our neighbor's hauled it out the front door stand/lights and all and brought it in their back door and plugged it in. Instant Christmas Tree, just add ornaments.

We spent the weekend before Christmas in Sherwood visiting my Mom and doing our Christmas together. Grace, Mom, and I got all dressed up and went downtown to see The Nutcracker which was a lot of fun. This was the first time we've taken Grace to see the Oregon Ballet version and I think she really enjoyed it.

After a super busy day of cleaning the house and packing we made the long trek to Idaho to visit David's family for 10 days. David and I snuck out a few times to see a movie or two (wahoo!) and even got to go on a coffee date at our favorite coffeeshop The Flying M in Nampa. This was the first year that Christmas Eve was celebrated somewhere other than Opa and Oma's house in Caldwell, and instead we all gathered in Weiser at David's Oom Ray's house. Ethan had an absolute blast following David's youngest cousin Rein around with a Nerf gun. It's a good thing he found one under the tree for him the next day!

The Parry family had the distinct honor of lighting the Advent candle at Christmas morning service at 11am which meant we had to plan out our morning fairly strategically. Concerned about getting five adults and two small children fed/dressed/and ready to leave by 10:30am we arranged a shower schedule to have us all dressed and ready by 7am when we woke the kids up to start opening the pile of presents. Miraculously we managed to be completely done with Christmas, including a sit down breakfast by 9:18am. Next year I'm hoping we don't have to set alarms or shower before 7am!

Bowl of Thankfulness

2011-11-29T12:23:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the late Thanksgiving post, but better late then never right? Just as we have done in years past (2008 and 2009) our family spent the month of November filling our bowl of thankfulness. Every night at dinner we each write down what we are thankful for that day (no repeating!) and read them aloud on Thanksgiving day. Every year the kids understand the concept a little more and I'm so proud that they really thought about what they are thankful for. They came up with things much more meaningful then basketballs (what Ethan was thankful for 99% of the time last year).

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and I'm so glad we started our bowl of thankfulness tradition. We have so many things to be thankful for that dedicating one day to thank God for all our blessings just isn't enough. And hopefully as the Christmas season begins my children will understand that they are already blessed with so many things that giving to others shouldn't be a big stretch. Of course they are six and four so I know that we have awhile before the idea of giving gifts is more appealing then receiving them.

This was my first year officially hosting Thanksgiving. I think we may have had it at our house in 2007 but I have no photographic proof nor do I really remember it (I had a two year old and one month old...cut me some slack!). This was my first time roasting the turkey, that I am sure of. It turned out just lovely, as did the rest of the dinner that everybody contributed to. It's not Thanksgiving without a mound of mashed potatoes, the disgusting sweet potato casserole everbody but me and Brian loves, my favorite cran-raspberry salad with the marshmallow cream topping, and of course plenty of pie. I'm a firm believer in high pie to person ratios, this year we scaled back to four pies to 7 adults and 2 kids. If cherries weren't so expensive I would have added a cherry pie too.

And this year's sampling of thankfulness:

* Paper and Crayons -Ethan

* Rain -Kellie

* Having Friends -Grace

* Lazy Saturdays with Football -David

* "Golden Hour" Sunlight -Kellie

* The Bathroom -Grace

* My Bride finding and doing something she loves -David

* Eating Breakfast -Ethan

* David's Dungeons and Dragons Group -Kellie

* The Earth -Grace

* Chicken Noodle Soup -Ethan

* Mrs. Wagner -Kellie

* Pajamas -Grace

* Good Beer -David

* Quiet -Kellie

* Doughnuts -Ethan

* Summer -Grace

* Netflix Instant Watch on Sick Days -Kellie

* Visiting Friends -David

Christmas Gift Ideas for Photographers

2011-11-01T13:01:00.000-07:00

I'm a part of a women's photography group and we we met this morning and the topic of reasonably priced photography accessories to add to the Christmas list came up. Most of us don't have families who are able or willing to plunk down large chunks of money for dream lenses (wishful thinking!) but there are plenty of budget friendly photography accessories and gear that you have a chance of finding under your Christmas tree! Here's a list of ideas that won't give your husband a heart attack when they see the price:

1. Wireless Remote
Useful for self portraits, or even low light photography when you're using a tripod and slow shutter speed to reduce camera shake. You can also get the wired variety, which I own, just know that wireless would be much easier and you're not tethered to your camera! Make sure to get one that works for your camera make and model. Here is one for the Canon Rebel series.

2. Gray Card
You want your gray card to be 18% gray, you can find it for $5 at Focal Point (our local photography store). Useful for setting custom white balance, and since they're cheap there's really no excuse not to have one!

3. Reflector
I use mine a TON. It's really a staple and something I bring to every photo session I have. I even have a "low tech" one that stays in my kitchen just for on the cuff shots of my kids! You can totally go low tech with this and use a white poster board or silver auto windshade, but having a real reflector is pretty nice. You can find a bazillion of these on Amazon, they come in every size and shape under the sun. I'd stick with a reasonable size to start out with, probably 32" or so. Here's a link to just one of the zillions of options on Amazon.

4. Pop Up Flash Diffuser
There are several low budget alternatives to purchasing a pop up flash diffuser, but there's something to be said for easy and durable! The Lightscoop, Gary Fong, and Lumiquest are all good affordable options.

5. The Lens Pen
Have you noticed any dust or smudges on your lens? Funny spots in the same spot of every photo? Then it may be time to clean your lens. The Lens Pen (or similar knock off) is a good way to do it yourself that's not completely scary.

6. Camera Strap Cover
Sure you can use the functional but not very aesthetically pleasing camera strap that came with your camera and it won't affect the quality of your images one iota. However there's something to be said about using pretty things, so a camera strap cover isn't very necessary but it sure can be fun! They are also fairly easy to make, so you could even make them as Christmas presents to give yourself :) My husband bought me mine from Etsy for my birthday and I love it!

7. Extension Tubes
If you'd love to experiment with macro but a macro lens isn't in the budget (darn!) then add a set of inexpensive extension tubes to your wishlist! I've never experimented with extension tubes but they are similar to my ghetto macro technique, they just allow you to use one lens instead of two lenses with one held backwards. The cheap ones will require manual focus (just like the ghetto macro technique) or you can buy the expensive ones with built in auto focus. Of course if you're going to spend that kind of money you can probably go ahead and just buy a macro lens! Here's a link to an inexpensive set of extension tubes for Canon and Nikon cameras.

8. Filters
There are a lot of different kinds of filters, some that do fun effects (starbursts etc) and others that simply protect your expensive lens! Make sure when you add these to your list to specify the size filter you need (check the back of your lens cap to find the size).

9. Memory Cards
Who doesn't need more CF cards (or whatever memory card your camera takes)? I prefer to use several smaller ones then one or two big ones so that if something happens to my card I still have some images to work with. My preferred card size is 4gb which are pretty cheap!

10. Card Reader
I'm ashamed to say I only recently bought one of these handy devices and it is a lifesaver! It zips the photos off my CF card in no time flat and is soooooo much faster then just plugging my camera in to my computer. Seriously, if you dread pulling images off your camera because it takes forever you will want one of these! I think this is the one I have, it's currently $10.54 which is so worth it.

11. Bokeh Kit
Want to play around with fun shaped bokeh? Sure you can do it yourself by cutting out the shapes in perfectly cut out cardboard circles, or you can ask for this bokeh kit and get started playing right away!

My Baby is FOUR!

2011-10-07T08:54:00.000-07:00

I really can't believe that my baby is turning four today. In fact he turns four in just under two hours...at 10:25 this morning. I remember his birth very well, mostly just how utterly exhausted I was from laboring all night and how much energy I felt the moment I gave birth to him. He was definitely not the cutest baby immediately after birth, he looked pretty beat up and had the scrunchiest old man face but we loved him anyways. Still do in fact. I never knew just how special the mother son relationship could be before I gave birth to my son but I have to say that it's taken me by surprise. I love this boy more than words can say!

It's not a post from me without a thousand pictures, and I tried my darndest to keep it to a minimum but I had a really hard time choosing my favorite photos of Ethan from the past year. I tried to choose some of my favorites that show his personality and some that I haven't shared here before. He's such a boy!

Things Ethan is totally into right now:

Golf

Basketball

Spiderman

Batman

Baseball

Football

Soccer

The Flash

Iron Man

Any sport

Any super hero

Preschool

Cubbies

Dress up

Coloring/Painting

Eating whole apples

Tools

Super Hero capes

Swords

Snuggling with Mommy and Daddy

A Day in the Life: October 1, 2011

2011-10-03T12:55:00.000-07:00

The Momtographers group I am a part of had a "Day in the Life" challenge this week where we photographed an entire day start to finish. I had great intentions to do it all week and kept forgetting until three hours into the day but finally remembered to do it Saturday morning while camping at the coast. So not a regular day, but at least I did it! I'll try again to capture a regular day this week maybe.

7:14am First thing I see waking up in the yurt...the skylight. And then Ethan dropped a pillow on my head.

7:20am Back from the bathroom with the kids and reading a chapter of Feast of Crows on the Kindle while the kids played. Dreaming of hot coffee.

8:06am James and Jessi are on a walk with Vinnie. The kids are still playing and David is up and starting the morning fire. Feels awesome!

8:43am Coffee is finally ready. Rejoice.

9:53am On our way to the beach

10:31am Found a way cool chunk of barnacles that washed up on the beach. The barnacle creatures were still alive and moving and we watched them for quite awhile.

10:51am Still playing on the beach...barely any wind and gorgeous beach weather! (Photo by David Parry who wants you all to know that he can take pretty pictures too)

12:12pm Back to the campsite.

12:23pm Lunch!

1:31pm The girls and Vinnie went on a walk while the boys napped in the yurt.

2:14pm Decision time...which way to go? We chose right because who can say no to a hiker-biker camp?

2:21pm Still walking...this time north along the beach and treeline. Great view.

3:17pm Back to the campsite and Ethan is up from his nap.

3:51pm Hot Chocolate and Apple Cider late afternoon pick me up.

4:48pm Just started the evening fire and hanging out

5:41pm Dinnertime. Turkey hot dog roasted over the fire...hit the spot!

6:32pm The bazillionth bathroom trip of the day. Be glad I spared you the trip with the poopy underwear.

6:36pm Self portrait in the bathroom mirror. Not too bad for no shower all day.

6:45pm S'mores time!

7:55pm The kids played Headbanz with Daddy and James in the yurt. This was the last shot I got for the day because afterwards there wasn't enough light for photos. Mostly we just sat by the fire until we went to bed early :)

August in Photos

2011-09-22T17:26:00.000-07:00

I know I'll never get around to writing everything down that we did this past August but since I finally got the majority of our family photos edited I thought I'd share some favorites. Since I doubt most of you want to peruse all 572 personal pics (that's just the ones that I edited as jpg's and doesn't count client sessions!) I condensed it to a few collages. I can hear all the sighs of relief.

Gracie: Soccer Star?

2011-09-21T13:00:00.000-07:00

Grace's first soccer game was last Saturday and we had typical soccer weather: cool and gray clouds. I was expecting a game similar to last year's hilarious start to the season where the kids had no idea what they were doing and the coaches were on the field telling them what to do the entire time. Not this year! This year we watched a soccer game. As in, the kids knew how to kick off, throw the ball in from out of bounds, how to do a corner or goal kick, etc. What a world of difference. The one thing that stayed the same from last year was the herd mentality where there was no real teamwork in passing the ball but just a big group of kids following the ball around the field. They did try to differentiate between defense and offense by having two kids hang back a little which sort of worked. Grace didn't understand the defense concept at all and kept trying to run after the ball. This year she is a go-getter!

I am so proud of Gracie this year, she really stepped up to the plate and is a fully participating member of the team. Last year she took on the role of looking cute and staying out of everyone else's way as they played the game. This year she is running hard and getting into the action. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw her getting into the middle of the action time after time. She never stopped running and never hung back. She may be the smallest on the field but she is determined not to be the slowest!

I did get Grace to soccer pictures by 8am on Saturday morning, but since I didn't buy anything apart from a team photo I took one quick "nice" photo after her game. Her "small" uniform swims on her and she had to wear last year's shorts because this year's won't stay up even when we cinch them as far as they go. At least the socks aren't as ginormous as last year and fit much better!

Back to School!

2011-09-13T13:12:00.000-07:00

Back to School season is in full swing at our house. Last Tuesday Grace started first grade and today Ethan started preschool. It's a big year of firsts for us, the first year Grace is in school all day and the first year Ethan is enrolled in preschool. For Grace the big deal is eating lunch at school and for Ethan it's the fact that he has a can of crayons with his name on it in his classroom. This year I got smart and took both kids' back to school pictures separately and before the big day. Less stress for Mommy and allows for more creativity! I didn't forget my camera for the actual first day of school either, but I just went with the flow and concentrated more on documenting the experience.

We did Grace's back to school photos the Friday before school started after we dropped off her school supplies in her classroom. She picked out five apples in Safeway before our photo session, one for everybody in our family and one for her teacher. On her first day of school we all walked to school together and got a few snaps of her in her new classroom. She was so excited!

Ethan and I met a few friends at his preschool the week before he started as well. He mostly wanted to play on the playground but we did get a few good ones! This morning we dropped Grace off at school and then Mommy, Daddy, and Ethan swung by Dutch Brothers for a hot drink treat before heading to preschool to play on the playground until it was time for Ethan's class to begin. He was soooo excited and couldn't wait to hang his backpack on his hook. When he got to his desk he found his crayon can with his name on it and was just over the moon happy. He told us that we could go and happily waved goodbye. Such a big boy!

I Heart Faces: Back to School Challenge

2011-09-12T19:41:00.000-07:00

It was a tough call to choose my favorite back to school image from my kids back to school photo sessions, but I think this one of my first grader fits the bill.

Click the logo above for more back to school photo fun!

Mommy and Ethan

2011-09-08T20:50:00.000-07:00

I was challenged to take some photos of me with my kids after reading a blog post about the "missing mom" syndrome when mom is always behind the camera. I'm actually not that camera shy, but taking a self portrait is NOT easy! Especially when you try to do so with a 3 year old!

So tonight Daddy and Gracie went to their first Girl Scout meeting and Ethan and I were left home. That's happened a lot lately since school started and Grace is gone all day. I told Ethan we could make cookies together this evening as a treat and he also wanted to make tea together. While I was steeping the tea and in between batches of shortbread cookies I remembered my camera. So here we are, in the midst of baking cookies in our cluttered kitchen on our dirty floor using natural light from our sliding glass door after 7pm when there's not much to be had. But this is us, and our real life and I love them even though they are far from perfect. The focus is off on some because Ethan was more excited about running to check behind the camera with me then staying put for me to focus on. The first photo is actually one of my favorites and I almost deleted it because it was a mistake. Love it anyways!

Fun in Idaho

2011-08-31T09:54:00.000-07:00

Since I finally finished editing July's photos I've got a bunch to share and catch you all up with our busy summer! Today I'm sharing some more photos from our trip to Idaho. I shared the rodeo photos but this time I'm sharing the other fun stuff we did during rodeo week. We packed a lot into our week trip!

We visited the Boise Zoo with everyone in tow (including Jim!) though David had to dash out early to meet someone at HP so he missed the butterfly exhibit. That was honestly the best part of the zoo trip, the butterflies were beautiful! We stood in there for a long time and all of us had a butterfly land on us at one time or another. Oma seemed to be the most popular with the butterflies! Grace sat so patiently holding her fingers out in hopes that a butterfly would deem her attractive enough to land on, but to no avail. Just before we were ready to leave the butterfly exhibit one landed on her hat which made her happy. She was a little miffed she couldn't see it though!

We spent an hour one afternoon visiting David's grandparents and brought along some entertainment. The adults all sat on the front porch in the shade and watched the kids (and Daddy!) squirt each other with water guns. It was pretty entertaining and we all cooled off so it was a good idea. Grace really loved getting wet, although Ethan was a little less enthused about getting squirted.

We always enjoy rodeo week but it's always a very tiring week and a quiet trip home. This year David flew from San Diego to Boise (work trip) and the kids and I drove by ourselves to meet him there. We left the house at 8am, dropped the cat off at my mom's house is Sherwood (the dog came along for the whole trip), and made it to Nampa at dinner time. We stopped in Portland at the Ferrari dealership for a photo for my scavenger hunt and also took the scenic route to stop at Multnomah Falls for fun. It was a long drive but our kids are awesome travellers. We didn't even pop in a movie, instead we rocked out to Mommy chosen tunes (wahoo!) and chit chatted. I haven't done that long of a trip by myself in a long time and it really wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.

Snake River Stampede Rodeo 2011

2011-08-29T22:11:00.000-07:00

So I'm a little behind. At least I'm working on catching up! Tonight I finished editing all of my personal July photos (other then Grace's 6 year photo session). That was a bunch of photos to go through! I thought I'd share some of my favorite rodeo photos from the Snake River Stampede rodeo this year. If you know us then you know that this isn't my kids first rodeo. In fact even the little guy has been to more rodeos then many adults I know. This year the kids made it to the end of the rodeo almost every night which was a big change from past years. I think the steady supply of sugar from Opa and Oma was a big motivating factor. Having your Opa be in charge of concessions does come with some perks, one of which is sour cotton candy. Haven't tried that particular variety? Well let me just warn you to stay away from the sour watermelon (seriously, heed this warning!) but the sour grape wasn't too bad.

I have many more photos to share from our Idaho trip this year but I'll save that for another post since this one will be long enough. Here's my favorites, bearing in mind that I only took my camera to the rodeo once and that was only to take photos of us watching the rodeo and not the rodeo itself. I realized years ago that attempting to photograph a rodeo with a child or two on your lap is just not a good idea so I've given up trying until my children are old enough to NOT jump up and down on me.

First up is my little cowboy. Why yes he is wearing the exact same outfit (hat was a little snug but we made do!) as last year. It still fits and it's cute! And since I'm not 100% sure I actually blogged last year's rodeo photos you all don't know the difference.

And here's the rodeo princess. Doesn't she look so grown up? I'm still in shock she agreed to smile for me without looking like a cheeseball.

And here we are increasing the difficulty level by attempting a photo of both children at once. Score one for Mommy with eye contact from two hard to pin kiddos!

And here we have the classic Big Sister maneuver as she "helps" me get a photo of her brother. So sweet.

Uncle Sam and his namesake.

Now I'm really getting crazy with the jellybeans. A photo involving two small children, Sam Parry, and an excitable small dog. Somebody make me some Sploosh.

Daddy hanging out with us for a little bit in the stands.

Grace practiced writing her numbers by writing the cowboy's scores on the daily each night.

The kids' first drink in a bar courtesy of Uncle Sam. For the record, it was a Shirley Temple and was in the Rodeo Club right above the arena.

We've been married 10 years? Really? Really!

2011-08-11T08:37:00.000-07:00

Ten years ago this morning I was spending a relaxing morning preparing for our afternoon wedding. I remember I took a bath in my parent's large soaking tub, read a little, and soaked in the quiet before heading to the church. I spotted the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile on the way and I knew it was a good sign. Friends did my hair and makeup and my Mom helped me into my borrowed dress. David and I chose to see each other and do all the posed photos before the wedding (something I encourage every bride to do!) which helped keep our nerves calm. I remember goading each other not to cry and the feel of David's hands holding mine firmly. I am not a person who relishes the spotlight but I don't think I even noticed the rest of the people at the ceremony because I was so focused on David. My good friends Kay and Anna both sang beautifully and we released doves (or tried to, it was sweltering hot and the birds had to be practically thrown out of the basket!) right before we left the church in a cloud of bubbles. Our brothers took us for a spin through the Dairy Queen drive thru where my brother chivalrously bought us a Blizzard that we ate while waiting for everyone else to arrive at our reception location.

10 years.

Looking back I wonder at how young we were and how much growing we each had to do. I had just turned 20 and David was newly 21. We were in the middle of college, we planned our wedding date to be as close to the end of summer as possible (to make as much money working summer jobs as we could!), and also give us time to go on a honeymoon and set up house before school started. By luck we were able to share David's grandparents 55th wedding anniversary (Happy 65th to Delbert and Fern Parry!) which is special to us.

Our first two years of marriage were spent in Moscow, Idaho finishing college. We lived in a tiny 450 square feet "apartment" (I use the term loosely) literally across the street from campus. The Engineering Physics building and David's Computer Science classes were all within sight of our front door. Our home became the hub for many of David's friends to spend time playing video games between classes since we were so convenient. David graduated with his BS in Computer Science and BA in History in December 2002 and I finished my BFA in Interior Design in May 2003.

We moved to Salem , Oregon the week after I graduated with no job prospects but a sense of adventure. David was enrolled to begin classes for his MBA at Willamette University in August but for the first few months we were unable to secure jobs of any kind and so we practiced being retired. We've very good at being retired: we perfected our bocce technique, ate dinner early to watch Jeopardy every night, and went to bed early with nothing to do. We had no cable, no internet, and lived a very spare existence and knew nobody in town.

I finally landed a job the same week David started school and worked three different jobs (some overlapping) to support us while David spent two years at Willamette. I found out I was pregnant with Grace the day after Thanksgiving 2004 and she was born July 30, 2005. David was able to meet us at the Salem Hospital for my midwives appointments because Willamette University is only across the street which worked out well for us since we only had one car. We bought our second vehicle right after David graduated and before he started to work at Hewlett Packard in Corvallis. We shared our Ford Escort station wagon for four years before that point. We couldn't make sharing a car work with David driving to Corvallis every day, a 45 minute drive one way. In the ten years we've been married we have both worked full time regular jobs for six weeks.

We bought our first house in spring of 2006 and moved to Dallas, Oregon which is where we still are. My brother, Brian, lived with us for the first year we lived in our new home. He was attending Western Oregon University at the time which is only 10 minutes from our house. It was actually good timing because I was pregnant with Ethan during six months of his stay with us and I couldn't cook/deal with food for much of that time so Brian fed us all and helped me out with Grace during the day when he wasn't at class.

That brings us to today. We've packed a lot in to the last 10 years and have grown a lot. We've finished 4 college degrees, had 2 kids, bought 1 house, worked 9 jobs, owned 4 vehicles, moved 3 times, and have made countless 7+ hour car trips. I've learned a lot from all those things but the biggest thing I've learned is that marrying David was the best decision I've ever made. He is the kind of man I hope our son grows up to be and I thank God for him every day. I never pictured myself as the kind of girl that gets married young and finds joy in domestic bliss, but meeting him turned my world upside down and I'm the better for it.

And because I don't think I'm capable of not posting a thousand photos, here's a photo walk down memory lane:

First year of dating in Moscow, Idaho 1999

Dancing together at a Scholars Residence Party 2000

Our first apartment (i.e. The Shoebox) and car (white station wagon)

Inside our first apartment. View from the front door, we're standing in the "kitchen".

Setting up our first home the weekend before our wedding

We got married in a beautiful church in Gresham, OR

Our first dance

Our first anniversary Canoe Trip Disaster. Do NOT attempt to canoe Lake Couer d'Alene! 2002

David's graduation from the University of Idaho 2002

My graduation from the University of Idaho 2003

I actually am not quite sure what year this is but I think 2003? At the Rodeo!

Building a sand castle at the beach in 2004

David's MBA graduation in 2005 (I'm pregnant with Grace)

At Dominic & Melinda's wedding with two week old Grace

Our 5th wedding anniversary August 11, 2006

The Super Parry Family just before Ethan was born

Rocking out on Rock Band (what you didn't know I have mad drumming skillz?!) Christmas 2007

Family portrait (by our wedding photographer) in 2008

Our family in 2009 (photo by Alysun Peters)

The four of us (well, three of us plus Thor) Mothers Day 2011

Happy 10th Anniversary Sweet Pea! Looking forward to the next 10!

Grace has a loose tooth!

2011-08-03T19:50:00.000-07:00

So I realize I'm a bit behind on blogging, but July is really a crazy month for us and I'm just now coming up for air. I thought I'd share this little video I just took 30 minutes ago of Grace talking about her loose tooth we just discovered. She is so excited about it she wanted me to call all her friends so she can tell them about her loose tooth. Since I'm sure their Mommies would much rather not have calls about loose tooths just before bedtime I am posting this video for you all instead.

(never mind the cat fight in the background...our cats just looooove each other)

Photo Scavenger Hunt Fun!

2011-07-14T14:39:00.000-07:00

This month I've been participating in a photo scavenger hunt put on by my favorite photography website Clickin Moms. The kids and I have driven all over the place to find oddball and obscure items to cross off our list. As of the writing of this post I am up to 164 items found which is about halfway through the list. I've just about exhausted all my resources so now I'll be bugging all my friends and family between here and Idaho so look out!

Here's a list of some of the items I'm currently on the lookout for. If you have any of the items and you're willing to let me come over and photograph please let me know! If you know where I can find some of these that would also be a big help. Thank you!

"No Shoes No Shirt No Service" Sign
3 Legged Dog
4 Leaf Clover
A "Where's George?" dollar bill
A Tattooed man on a pink bicycle
Adult in footie pjs
Adult on roller skates
Adult twins
~~An acid washed skirt~~
An El Camino
Animal with 2 different colored eyes
Billboard with a camera on it
~~Blooming Cactus~~
Bottle of Dom Perignon 2002
~~Candy Corn~~
Castle
~~Covered Bridge~~
Curling Stone
David Hasslehoff Poster
Delorian (the real car)
Dog with blue eyes
Euro
False Teeth
~~Ferrari~~
Green fire hydrant
Heart shaped swimming pool
~~Log Cabin~~
Man in powder blue tux
~~Man with a handlebar mustache~~
Misspelled Tattoo
Mullet (the hairstyle)
Pachinko Machine
Person with 2 color eyes
Person with a purple cast
~~Pink Suitcase~~
~~Prickly Pear Cactus~~
~~Rubberband Ball~~
Someone wearing false eyelashes
Someone wearing a sumo wrestler suit
~~Stork bite~~
Tadpole
Tarot cards
Triplets
~~Troll Doll~~
Turkey Wishbone
~~Two $2 bills~~
~~Ukulele~~
Unicycle
~~Whoopie cushion~~
~~Windmill~~
Zero candy bar

Amusing Items I've already crossed off my list:
Car with 2004 Election Bumper Sticker
House numbered 123
Worker at a Drive Thru Window
Zebra print thong underwear
Blue lipstick
Someone jumping in a pool with clothes on
Pie Eating Contest
Slurpee
Person with a gold tooth
Ferris Wheel
Grown Man on a pogo stick (my husband must love me!)
Cat on a leash (Boo now hates me)
Adult in a tutu (yep I squeezed in one this morning)

Strawberries!

2011-06-28T15:35:00.000-07:00

The kids and I went strawberry picking yesterday and picked 12 pounds of strawberries. That might sound like a lot, but it really isn't. I made a double batch of strawberry freezer jam (10 cups), put some in the freezer, made strawberry oven pancakes for dinner (my favorite!), and have a bunch leftover for more strawberry goodness. Thinking about making some strawberry ice cream, and maybe freeze some more.

We didn't pick any strawberries last year because we picked so many the year before. In fact we're just now finishing up the last bit of freezer jam from that batch! This year Grace was actually a helper and managed to get more then one or two in the box instead of in her mouth. Ethan took over the taste testing position and left Grace and I to the real work.

I'm excited that the berry farm we found also grows raspberries and marionberries...we'll be back!

I ♥ Faces: Hearts Challenge: Let's Hear It For the Boys

2011-06-20T07:45:00.000-07:00

I couldn't resist entering the Let's Hear It For the Boys theme...I happen to think my boy is just about the cutest thing on the planet! As such I had a terribly difficult time choosing just one photo of my little guy to share, but the fun Rock n Roll session we did awhile back came away the winner. I love that he wanted to listen to All the Single Ladies while we took these photos. How can you resist his charm?

For more adorable boys click on the I Heart Faces link below:

Happy Father's Day Sweetie!

2011-06-19T07:08:00.000-07:00

That's right, we took some silly mustache on a stick photos for our favorite Mustache Man in honor of Fathers Day. Why not? My sweetie is an awesome dad and one of the things that my children love about him is how silly he can be. They are lucky to have a dad who is willing to act like a complete goofball to make them laugh, although they may feel less lucky as they morph into teenagers! Thanks for being such a fabulous father to our children, they are so lucky to have you!

When I asked Ethan what he loves about his Daddy he said he loves that he gives him hugs and plays with him. He also loves Daddy smooches.

Grace told me that she thinks Daddy is handsome (I agree). She loves that he works hard to make dollars for her and loves to snuggle with Daddy in bed in the morning. She likes to play outside while he barbecues or mows the grass.

Yes, I jumped in a shot too. Mustaches on a stick are just too tempting for me to resist. Happy Fathers Day Sweetie!

Little Cowboy and Cowgirl

2011-06-16T15:29:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we enjoyed the Sisters Rodeo as we do every year on the second weekend in June. This year I brought my camera along but only took a few photos of the kids playing around and didn't even bring it to the rodeo. Through the years I've discovered that it's pretty much impossible to do much with a camera at a rodeo when you're a mother of two small children. I have at least one child on my lap at all times, get to make 15 trips from the stands to the portapotties and/or to buy more bottled water or treats. I figure I have plenty of years to photograph rodeos to my heart's content once my children can sit in a seat by themselves and don't require me to take them to the potty constantly. Instead I snuggled with my kids and even got Ethan to nap right as the last few bullriders finished the rodeo for us. So instead of fast paced exciting rodeo action I am sharing sweet photos of my kids in their cowboy hats. Notice Grace's is purple and Ethan refused to wear his cowboy boots (he did consent to wear them to the rodeo though...)

Ethan the Gymnast

2011-06-15T11:06:00.000-07:00

Ethan was enrolled in gymnastics this spring and really loved it. He's watched Grace take the class a couple of times and was so excited that it was his turn! He did such a great job listening to his teachers and sitting in line, I was very impressed. Grace was much less impressive in her sitting still in line skills (and still is!). This was the first activity in which Ethan was the participant and Grace was on the sidelines with me. She didn't like the role reversal very much, but it was good for her.

As a reward for all his hard work (and excellent waiting in line skills!) and for Grace's patience watching her brother twice a week I treated the three of us to a Burgerville milkshake. If you've ever had one you know that they are quite possibly the best milkshakes ever. They had a Timbers Mint Oreo one that we tried that was pretty tasty.

Hello Goodbye

2011-06-03T13:23:00.000-07:00

Remember when I got my first dslr back in May 2008? In my blog post I mentioned that I couldn't wait to get it and post a million photos. I bet I'm close! I posted the very first photos I took with my brand spanking new Rebel and I have to say that taking a million photos has really helped me come a long ways. Yikes! The last blog post on this blog with photos taken with my Rebel was Grace's First Day of Kindergarten. Certainly taking a million photos improved my skills some. My Rebel was good to me and I learned to shoot on the scary Manual mode with it so it will always have a special place in my heart.

When I first started venturing into photography as a business and not just a (very expensive!) hobby David gave me the rule that I couldn't spend family money on photography equipment, only money I earned. It's actually a great rule, even if it is frustrating at times. I really think through all my purchases and spend my money 500 times before ever actually spending a dime. Last fall I had finally made enough to either improve my lenses or upgrade my camera body to full frame. I chose to buy the lenses first and it was a good decision for me. I upgraded my 50mm and bought the 85mm once I realized that I'm really a prime girl. Instead of making a big jump in camera bodies I bought a used 40D and kept my Rebel as my backup. The 40D was a nice jump and a really nice camera, but I knew when I bought it that I still really wanted to go full frame.

This spring I realized that the only time I reached for my Tamron zoom lens was when I needed to go wider then 50mm (mostly indoors studio shoots) and I realized I could sell my Tamron to fund a wide angle prime. When I was researching which wide angle prime to get I realized that if I could find a way to upgrade to the full frame I might not need a super wide lens. So I sold my Tamron and my Rebel and cleaned out my business account to buy a used 5D classic. I realize it's not the newest (the 5D iii is due to come out this fall so I'll be 2 generations behind) but neither was the 40D when I bought it. Most of my equipment has been bought used because saving up for new would take me way too long!

I realize most of you reading this blog post are probably super bored by now and have no idea what I'm talking about. Suffice it to say that as sad as I was to say goodbye to my Rebel I am even more excited to say a great big HELLO! to my 5D! I am not even a little embarrassed to say I screamed with joy when I got back to the car to drive home with it. You can ask the kids, they'll tell you just how happy I was! There wasn't a lot of light left when we got home but I still managed to take a few photos with my new camera and had the kids mimic my excited face.

Goodbye to my Rebel....

And a great big HELLO! to my new 5D!

Watch out world because here I come...full frame camera in tow!

Baseball & Barbecue 2011

2011-06-02T18:26:00.000-07:00

This year's Baseball & Barbecue was a small affair, wondering if maybe next year we should plan it on a non-holiday weekend. Or maybe a sunny one? Ha! In any case, the few of us that braved the elements stayed dry if not a little wind swept. Ethan wouldn't have cared what the weather was like, he was just ecstatic to play ball! He didn't even play on the playground with the other kids, he just kept hitting his tee ball. Thank goodness we bought the Super Duper Can't Break This If You Tried tee ball stand for him last Christmas. That thing weighs a hundred pounds but I think it will withstand constant use and abuse and that's what we need.

Here's Ethan in his element:

And a few of the other brave souls in attendance, sorry I didn't get everybody but I can barely stand to use my cheap long range zoom and didn't want to crawl all over in the dirt with my primes!

Mothers Day 2011

2011-05-09T16:09:00.000-07:00

I started Mothers Day weekend off with a Mothers Day tea with my Mom and daughter at my Mom's church in Sherwood. Grace was entranced by the three sisters that provided musical entertainment and sang Our God is an Awesome God right along with them complete with matching hand gestures. She even wrote them a thank you on her ticket and gave it to them after the tea.

We took pictures in between rain bursts, this one is of my Mom and her hanging fuchsia that my husband and brother picked out for her. They had to call and text me to ask what a fuchsia looked like but they managed to pick out a very pretty plant.

I made sure to get one of me and my Mom since I was looking through old photos to do a Mothers Day blog post and realized that the last decent one of just the two of us was taken in 2003 when I graduated college. David didn't get one of us with my brother, but he was here!

My kids may look back at family photos one day and wonder why on earth they only saw me on Mothers Day. Seems like it's the only time of the year that I make it out from behind the camera! I promise I'm not camera shy, I just need to be better about switching my camera to Auto and handing it over to other people every now and again.

And while we were at it we got a photo of the three of us and Thor. Didn't you know I birthed a Norse God three years ago?

A knight and a fairy princess

2011-04-21T10:26:00.000-07:00

If you've been around my children for any length of time you know that they often exist in their own little world. Grace spins elaborate stories about fairy princesses and knights and Ethan happily plays along. A few days ago the warm spring sunshine got the better of me and I asked the kids if they wanted to go play in the field near our house while I practiced with my 85mm a little. They readily agreed when I told them they could wear dress up to play. Grace wanted to wear her zebra shirt because it matched her new tutu we made last week perfectly. I suggested the boots over Grace's choice of purple sandals because I knew there would still be mud. Ethan was ecstatic to wear his Batman getup in addition to his knight's helmet and sword. It's really impossible not to have a sword if you're a knight afterall.

We hung out for almost an hour in the field behind our house laughing and playing in the sunshine. I didn't really pose the kids since all I wanted to do was practice nailing focus with the 85mm which is very different from my 50mm. With a camera pointed at them so often I don't like to force them to pose for me every time. I told them to play and do whatever they wanted to do and just have fun. Every now and again I'd ask them to look my direction, but otherwise I got my practice in and we all had fun.

My kids are so used to my camera that they don't even pay attention to it anymore. And with the 85mm I am far enough back that I can capture them doing their thing without their getting their attention which makes for fun candid shots.

By the way, the capes were made by my inlaws for the kids for Christmas. The Batman cape is worn pretty much every day. He wore it to Safeway yesterday twice (I went three times for 6 bags of cheap sugar!). I made Grace's new tutu last week with some friends as I showed them how easy they are to make. She picked the colors out for this one because apparently I picked the wrong pink for the one I made her 4 years ago.

Practice Makes Perfect

2011-04-13T18:29:00.000-07:00

What a difference a year makes! While I've downgraded from my ambitious Project 365 to a much more reasonable Project 52 I still find myself picking my camera up pretty often. Almost every day, but not quite. I'm mostly inspired by light so when the lighting is perfect I get itchy fingers and run outside with my camera without paying attention to what I'm wearing or the fact that everybody else is eating dinner. I see the way the light is falling on some leaves or tree blossoms and I am out the door! But since my yard and daily activities are pretty regular I find myself taking similar photos as last year and it's interesting to compare them and see my growth. Turns out that practicing something every day does indeed bring improvement.

Take today for example. Remember this photo from last year's Project 365? I know a lot of people really liked it. It was taken on April 5th last year, just a little over a year ago.

I just took this one 30 minutes ago while my kids ate hotdogs and were watching Mulan. I see improvement.

Here's another one from last year. I took this last March of the lilies on our side yard with the setting sun as backlighting.

And here's one from two weeks ago with a similar subject and lighting. You may confuse this with a jungle or large shrub but it's actually our backyard grass.

Here's one of Boo I took last March:

And here she is again last month:

Here's a photo of both my kids I took at the end of last April:

And here's one I did of the two of them last week:

I'm excited to see where I am a year from now, progress is always exciting!

Doo Doo Doo Batman

2011-04-13T11:05:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's been a month since I've posted here. Apologies! For now I'll just share this fantastic drawing of Batman that Grace made at school today. It's a little hard to see, but she drew white stars in the blue sky because it is night time. She made it for her brother which warms my heart. They really do love each other despite all the usual sibling warfare. I really wanted to share it so I did some Google searching to figure out how to scan with our behemoth all in one printer and now that I've figured it out I'll be going scanning crazy! Hope you're looking forward to that :)

Art and Soul

2011-03-14T20:53:00.000-07:00

According to my Mom I've been drawn to art ever since I was a child. In fact if you look in my school records and read the "What I want to be when I grow up" section several years I listed I wanted to be an Artist. I always knew I was good at art and I have always enjoyed being creative. I took just about every art class available to me in high school (pottery was the exception...not my forte!) and even took a community ed watercolor class outside of school where I was the only person under 18 let alone under 40. I have enjoyed batik, lino block carving/printing, watercolors, drafting, drawing, making paper, calligraphy and more. I even handmade all of my own cards and wrapping paper. Yes, I was that girl.

However when I got to college I learned that talent only gets you so far. If I wanted to succeed I was going to have to actually put the effort into it. If you've ever taken a college level art class you'll know what I mean. At the University of Idaho at the time every BFA major had essentially the same exact schedule the first year as it was mostly a foundation in design principles and was meant to allow students to freely switch art majors without much consequence. I started off as an Architecture major and switched to Interior Design fairly quickly. You can't tell me that Building with Steel sounds more interesting then Color Theory.

My very first semester at school I had two art studio classes, Visual Communication and the Design Process (VCDP) and Drawing. Both of those classes kicked my booty six ways to Sunday. In fact I had an easier time learning HVAC systems and super complex 3-D rendering programs than I did with those two 100 level art classes.

I remember my very first Drawing assignment well. It seemed so simple, just draw a door. Any door. I even asked the MFA student who was my section TA how much time I should expect to put into the drawing. I think I put about 45 minute into the drawing, if that. It looked perfectly acceptable to me, I mean how much time did he really expect me to draw a door?

Here's the grade I got:

That's right, a D. I was in shock. How could I, someone who had always been good at art, get a D on a drawing? Notice the comment. Needs LOTS more effort. Potential is THERE. So for the next drawing I doubled my efforts and spent almost two hours on it and got a C. The next one I doubled again and spent 4 hours and got a B. It wasn't until the very last drawing that I spent 20 hours on that I finally received that coveted A. I was thrilled to get a B in the class at the end of the semester, I spent the first half just hoping I could pass it at all!

What did I learn from that class? A lot. That I can't just skate by with the attitude that "I've always been good at that" because I can always be better. I learned that I actually enjoyed keeping a sketchbook. After a year of enforced sketchbook use (i.e. I was graded on doing one for multiple classes that year) I kept the habit up until I graduated. I'm thinking about taking it back up again.

VCDP was the other booty kicking class. I swear the MFA student TA I had was from Mars, the dude was cracked. But despite his Rastafarian hat loving/doesn't believe in showers attitude he made me grow as an artist and drilled the principles of design into me. We didn't receive grades on our projects for VCDP, you kept doing an assignment until it was satisfactory and you were given the opportunity to go on to the next one. Our final grade was determined by how many projects we were able to complete to a satisfactory level. I can't even count how many times I had to redo some projects. At the time the projects seemed ridiculous and pointless. Now that I know better, I can look back and see what the projects were teaching me. I'm actually really grateful for VCDP because it has been an incredible resource as a photographer. Having the rules of composition drilled into me and knowing how an eye looks at an image and why the eye moves the way it does across said image is pretty fantastic stuff.

Perhaps you're wondering what prompted this trip down memory lane? I was cleaning out the office closet and decided to move my portfolio out of the closet to make more space. While I was at it I consolidated with my other portfolio outside. Grace really enjoyed looking at all my artwork I had saved. I had stuff from high school through college, and quite a smorgasbord of art mediums. We were flipping through my Drawing newsprint pad when we came across some nudes...good thing it was the female first so I could quickly close it and move on!

One of my VCDP projects from my second semester. First semester was only done in black and white.

From a 200 level Architectural Drawing Class. Makes me want to pull out some trace sheets!

The lighthouse is pen on mylar and done in pointellism (zillions of little dots). The pear was done during an Independent Study Watercolor class I took in college. Not sure what I was thinking adding yet another studio class to my schedule!

I ♥ Faces: Sunflare Challenge

2011-03-14T17:38:00.000-07:00

This week's I Heart Faces Challenge is Sunflare which is something I have a bit of a love affair with. Too bad I live in the Pacific Northwest where pretty sunflare is less available during the rainy season (9 months out of the year)! I triumphed over mother nature last month and snuck some photos of my kids at sunset (i.e. 4:30pm) in the empty field behind our house. Take THAT rainy season!

For more pretty sunflare photos check out the link below:

I ♥ Faces: Anything But a Face Challenge

2011-03-01T17:18:00.000-08:00

I'm sharing a recent photo of the week from my Project 52 blog for this week's Anything But a Face Challenge because I still really LOVE it!

For more Anything But a Face photos check out the button below:

Watch out, David's a Blue Belt!

2011-02-28T21:03:00.000-08:00

I've been so busy editing and blogging client photos that I haven't taken the time to share the most important February event for our family and that was David earning his blue belt in jiu jitsu! He's been doing jiu jitsu for awhile now, I posted about David's very first gi in August of 2009. I also posted some photos from a random practice a year ago. In the year and a half that he's been doing jiu jitsu he's earned four white stripes and he finally attended 120 classes (just barely!) and tested for his blue belt on February 5th. He was going down to Corvallis four or five nights a week since Christmas Break in order to have all 120 classes when Rylan Lizare was in town from Hawaii to conduct a seminar and belt test. Three guys from the Corvallis group tested for their blue belt including David's good friend James. My Mom very graciously watched our kids so I could bear witness to David's achievement and also bring my camera. So here's some photos from the blue belt test:

David's reward for all this hard work? A new gi. He ordered a black one which came in the mail on Friday so after we spent some time cleaning out the garage on Saturday I set up my gray seamless paper and we had ourselves a mini photo session. I bribed the kids with fruit snacks to hold my reflector and we opened the garage door and did it all natural light. Grace is getting pretty good at holding a reflector...she may find herself earning some dollars helping Mommy at photo sessions soon! So here's the newly minted blue belt in his new black gi looking as tough as possible.

I ♥ Faces: Hearts Challenge: Red

2011-02-14T22:01:00.000-08:00

And just for the fun of it, sharing a photo from a December session with a friend's girls wearing their pretty red Christmas dresses! This little girl has the most adorable curly head of hair, but her expression in this photo just cracks me up!

For more Red Photos click on the link below:

Happy Valentines Day!

2011-02-14T08:27:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentines Day from the Parry Family! Here's a few more photos from Grace and Ethan's Valentines Session from last week. They are sooooo excited to hand out their Valentines to their friends at their parties today. Grace worked hard to write all her classmates names on her Princess Valentines and Ethan helped me tape on candy for his sports themed Valentines. I went homemade this year and made David's Valentine (thank you MOPS!) and picked up a pen and sketched Batman for Ethan and Cinderella for Grace. It's been awhile since I've done much drawing but it's something I would like to get back in touch with. If I'm brave I'll share pics!

I ♥ Faces: Hearts Challenge

2011-02-07T09:33:00.000-08:00

This week's I Heart Faces theme is hearts so last week's Valentines session with my kids was perfect! For more photos from this session you can check out my photography site.

Click on the button below for more hearts photos!

I Heart Faces: Best Face Photo from January 2011

2011-01-31T18:42:00.000-08:00

I know I shared this photo on here recently, but it's still my favorite "face" photo for the month! If you want to see something new check out my photography blogsite Kellie Parry Photography for some rock star photos of Miss Gracie.

For more beautiful faces check out I Heart Faces by clicking on the button below:

Winter Sunshine

2011-01-19T21:05:00.000-08:00

I know I haven't updated this blog in awhile but I thought I'd share some photos from tonight's impromptu photo session. I was scouting out a location for a maternity session this weekend and found this little gem around the block from us. I will DEFINITELY be coming back to this spot in the future! I had my camera with me to check out the lighting and I bribed my kids to get out of the red wagon to let me take photos of them with the promise of chicken nuggets and chocolate milk. Surprisingly Grace was my more willing model and I got a few nice ones of her with real Grace smiles and not cheesy ones!

These were all taken with my new (to me!) 1.4 50mm which I am LOVING! Gorgeous color and bokeh and it's super sharp. These are all edited in Lightroom and then I used a Paint the Moon freebie action. I've been doing a lot of dual editing these days, it takes a bit longer with the extra step but I'm pretty happy with the results.

Christmas Photos

2010-12-17T14:13:00.000-08:00

I had everything set up for a photo session yesterday so I took the opportunity to snap a few photos of my kids in their Christmas outfits. I'm particularly thrilled with Ethan's, but together they're pretty gosh darn cute!

Grace is wearing a Hanna Andersson See You At Seven holiday dress I scored on Ebay in August for $7. I love buying off season!

Ethan's outfit started with the vest I bought brand new (tags still attached!) from Goodwill this fall. We found the gray slacks and matching hat on super clearance at Gymboree and the white Van Housen dress shirt from Value Village (thrift store). The green chucks were bought this summer for $8 from the Converse Outlet and the red and white polka dot tie came from Etsy. LOVE the tie! Totally using it for Valentines photos in a month or two...

Grace gave herself a hack job....errrr "haircut"

2010-12-15T22:24:00.000-08:00

Today Grace joined the ranks of all the other children in the world who have taken it upon themselves to cut their own hair. Not one to keep the fun to herself, she also politely chopped at Ethan's hair too. Such a kind sister.

I discovered the misdeed when I walked into the kitchen and saw the hair on the ground. And then I saw the scissors. And then I called Grace into the kitchen to survey the damage she did to herself. It really wasn't too bad, she mostly just hacked her half pony tail off. I've seen and heard much worse horror stories of little girls really scalping themselves. And I can bear witness that once upon a time I once decided to cut my own bangs with disastrous results. Cutting half a pony tail off is nothing!

After explaining to Grace the seriousness of the situation and that she would need to say goodbye to her long princess hair and say hello to short hair she was filled with immediate regret. I don't think she had any idea that cutting her hair off was permanent. She also told me she cut it on the advice of Ethan. I told her that next time she should probably think twice before following the beauty advice of a three year old boy.

It was dinner time but instead of eating we jumped in the car to head to the beauty salons in town to find one that might be able to fit us in. Naturally Grace chose the busiest time of year for hair salons but the second one we tried (Envy for locals!) said they could fit us in at 8pm. That gave us time to go home, eat dinner, and try to figure out what on earth to do with Grace's hair. After she was done crying Grace decided that maybe a short rock star haircut wouldn't be so bad. We even looked up some pictures online (God bless Google Image search!) and agreed that a bob might be cute. I've kind of wanted to cut her hair short for awhile but Grace has adamantly refused. I figured that this was the best time to go for it so we did!

The hair stylist was really nice and Grace was enthralled with everything about her. She asked her all about her hair (and whether or not she cut her own hair...a resounding NO) and the hair products next to her. Thirty minutes later and she looked pretty gosh darn cute! As you can see from the following photos, the rock star haircut has received a good reception by the little princess. I might even talk her into keeping it!

Brian's home!

2010-11-23T17:18:00.000-08:00

My brother just finished up his training in Georgia and is home for four weeks. Two weeks of leave and two weeks working with a recruiter (for the extra two weeks home!). We were all excited to find out he'd be home for Thanksgiving! We thought he'd be home on Friday but discovered that was the day he'd get his airplane ticket and instead he got in on Saturday. We found out what time he'd fly in about 24 hours before he landed. The army apparently doesn't think anybody needs to plan ahead.

We wanted to surprise him by meeting him in the airport rather then picking him up at the curb. The kids spent the night with Grandma the night before and made Welcome Home Uncle B signs and they picked up balloons as well. Here he is just after he spotted us waiting for him!

The kids were ecstatic to see him. They told everyone they saw that day that their Uncle B was coming home from the army.

And Mom was pretty much over the moon. Me too :)

I think Mom is going to be floating on Cloud 9 for the next four weeks having her boy home with her! Definitely looking forward to Thanksgiving weekend.

I ♥ Faces Week 46: Silhouette

2010-11-16T09:28:00.000-08:00

I haven't participated in I Heart Faces photo challenges in awhile, but when I saw this week's theme this photo immediately came to mind and I just had to share it :)

This was taken last month when I did family photos for a photographer friend. You can see more photos from the session on my photography blo g.

To see more pretty silhouette photos click on the I Heart Faces link below:

Halloween Costume Photo Session

2010-10-21T20:13:00.000-07:00

The weather is changing from lovely autumn sunshine to blah rain and I am sooooo glad that I took 20 minutes to do the kids' Halloween costume photo shoot this afternoon. I think I beat the nasty gray clouds by only an hour or two. There is only one day without rain in the 10 day forecast so this was probably my last chance for decent photos. Last year I never got decent ones of Ethan in his dragon costume so this year I wanted to be intentional about it. I find it's better to do photos of the kids in holiday garb before the holiday hits so that I can enjoy the holidays without stressing myself (and everybody else!) out about getting perfect photos the day of. Plus Halloween is pretty dark so most of my photos from that night are pretty grainy.

The kids and I had a little discussion before taking these photos. In order to wear their Halloween costumes they had to agree to let me take photos of them AND follow my directions. That's a tough one. They agreed because they both LOVE their costumes and would have agreed to just about anything in order to wear them. Including smiling at the camera.

I started with Grace. Mostly because her entire face lit up the moment we pulled the peacock dress and wings on. She absolutely loves being a Peacock Princess! I was shocked she agreed to the costume since she originally wanted to be a flamingo. We did some looking around for costume ideas to make a flamingo costume and found this Gymboree Peacock one on sale for $30 for the entire thing. Sold. Grace doesn't even care that it's not pink and insists that her $2.99 plastic purple shoes match perfectly. She's in seventh heaven.

Ethan saw this hamburger costume at Old Navy and it was love at first sight. The kid refused to entertain any other costume ideas and insisted that this was the one. Lucky for him Old Navy had a Baby Sale and the cashier was nice enough to give me the 40% off one item even though Ethan lost our coupon. We later found it in the Tonka Truck. It cost me $10 which is well worth the joy and excitement that Ethan has for his costume. Even if I probably would have picked something else. Anything else. What's wrong with Batman?

I'm not sure what Ethan is doing here...does he think he's tasty because he's a cheeseburger?

Do you have any idea how hard it was to get a photo of my children's feet? Ethan wouldn't stop stepping on Grace's toes!

"For heavens sakes just look at mom and give her a cheesy grin so she'll stop taking our picture."

Such willing subjects.

"EEEEEEKKKKKK! There's a bug! I can't work under these conditions!"

Bug crisis averted. How about you give each other a hug?

I said a hug! Not tackle each other!

I give up. Just look in my general direction. Perfect.

The End.

Baking with Kids

2010-10-13T14:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday at MOPS we talked about our mothering styles. It was an interesting discussion and made me think about what my style of mothering is. I think one of my strengths is teaching my children to be independent. Unfortunately, when it comes to messy activities it can be hard to step back and let them have at it. Why? Because I tend to be a perfectionist and it's hard for me to give up control on things like making pretty cookies.

I had some spare time yesterday afternoon so the kids and I baked some sugar cookies to help use up some of the orange frosting leftover from Ethan's birthday cake. They helped me dump the ingredients in the bowl and I even let Ethan help me roll the dough out even though he tended to smash it more then roll it. I let the kids cut all the cookies out which was a great exercise in patience on my part. I resisted the urge to redo all of Ethan's half cut out scraggly looking leaves because he was SO proud to be helping. It helped to remember we would be frosting them which hides a multitude of blemishes.

Once our cookies were baked I did all the frosting (I'm not so good as to allow THAT mess to happen...I get a panic attack just thinking about it!). We did the pumpkins orange and tinted the frosting with more red to get darker orange for the leaves. I did give up all creative control to the kids to decorate with the black gel frosting. Grace did a GREAT job on the pumpkin faces. They really turned out cute! Ethan has a ways to go in the leaf decorating department, but he was so proud of himself that I just let him roll with it.

Baking cookies with my kids is definitely time consuming and messy but I hope it will help them learn to enjoy it. It was a good reminder to me to be better at stepping back and letting them do things their way even if it's less then perfect. Perfection isn't the goal right now, good memories and learning to enjoy time in the kitchen is what I'm after. I hope I'm accomplishing it. At any rate we did accomplish a very dirty kitchen floor and 26 beautifully decorated cookies that taste heavenly. It was worth it.

And here's a link to the sugar cookie recipe that I posted earlier. It's seriously the best sugar cookie EVER!

My baby turns THREE today!

2010-10-07T16:50:00.000-07:00

I can't believe my baby is three. I don't think I'm ready for this. It's definitely bittersweet watching him grow up because he's most definitely our last child which makes me wish I could hit the pause button every now and again but he insists on continuing along his quest to become a Big Boy. I reminded him this morning that now that he's a big Three Year Old Boy he really shouldn't pee or poop in his underwear because that's just not something Big Boys do. He agreed and so far today we're back on track so that's a good thing!

He's sooooo looking forward to his party this weekend. He keeps asking when it is and is pretty disappointed it's not today. He's obsessed with the party decorations we've purchased (Dollar Store and Target's March Madness clearance rack last spring!). He hasn't really had a real party with friends and the whole bit so this is a pretty big deal to him. I'm glad David pushed me to throw him a party because if it was up to me I probably would have called last weekend's Blazer Fan Fest trip good enough and I wouldn't be enjoying his birthday party obsession this week.

We kept with tradition and piled Ethan's birthday presents on the kitchen table for him to find this morning when he woke up. His eyes lit up and he opened them all in no time flat! Grace picked out a Zhu Zhu pet with a basketball outfit for him (so they can play Zhu Zhu together since she got one for her birthday). His big gift from us was a Buzz Lightyear skateboard with the safety pads to go with it. He thinks the pads are uber cool because they make him look like a Skateboard Boy. This is a pretty big deal if you're a three year old boy.

Grace had the day off from school today so the three of us went in to Salem to ride the carousal a few times and hunt down some party stuff for this weekend's birthday party. This was the first time I've shopped for a pinata and I was surprised at how difficult it was to find a boy one. The first party store I stopped at had diddly squat for boys but a TON of overpriced sports themed party goods which we left on the shelves. Walmart had a zillion princess and pink pinatas and only a few Spiderman ones hanging too high for me to reach. I found an employee to climb up a ladder to get me one and I'm calling it good. Ethan held it the whole way home and wanted to know exactly how it worked.

Actually that's something I hear a lot from Ethan. "How does this work?" is something he asks me a hundred times a day. He wants to know!

Another birthday tradition in our house is choosing what you want for dinner and Ethan has chosen Macaroni and Cheese. It will probably be served with hot dogs, the dinner of champions. We might make a trip to Dairy Queen for a birthday cherry dip as well.

The photos I've shared here were taken yesterday during a hastily put together photo session at the park. He's looking so grown up!

Here's a few to look back to see how he's grown...

Ethan as a newborn...

The first birthday cake smash!

As a ball loving two year old...

And finally my happy smiley three year old BIG BOY!

Neglected Ethan

2010-09-29T20:52:00.001-07:00

I realize I've barely posted anything about Ethan in awhile and I thought I'd make up for it a little. He turns three in about a week (!) and I think I may be in denial. That is until he starts acting like a three year old and then I remember how the so-called Terrible Twos have nothing on the Terrifically Awful Threes. Tantrums, hitting, calling me Poopy Mommy, and all around grumpiness has turned my sweet baby boy into an alien. I think I want my baby back!

Of course he's also developing some positive skills and traits so all is not lost. He's halfway potty trained, having the peeing in the potty part down but still skeptical that pooping in the potty is the way to go. I can't wait for him to decide that pooping in his underwear isn't all that fun. He loves to help me and thinks helping to fold the laundry is the most fun thing to do. He can be very loving and tells me "I like you Mommy" about 100 times a day. Makes all the less pleasant parts of the day kind of melt away doesn't it?

By the way I took these photos yesterday to try out my new photography prop I scored for fifty cents at the church rummage sale. It's an old wooden chair from the nursery and I wanted to try it out with a model. Ethan is still my easiest to photograph subject so naturally his photos turned out great. I did photograph Grace but those turned out a little different. Let's just say she has developed a "look" for "why are you taking my picture AGAIN?" and it's not quite as pleasant as Ethan's willing grin.

And yes I know he needs a haircut. David told him he looked like a hippy and Ethan thought that was hilarious.

Soccer Diva

2010-09-16T14:14:00.000-07:00

I brought my long range zoom to Grace's soccer practice on Tuesday and I'm glad I did because I have a feeling we're going to have a lot of gloomy rainy practices from here on out. The clouds and rain have arrived. I took a zillion photos and I'm in the process of uploading 60 to Snapfish as I write this, but for the majority of you that don't want to see all 60 photos I thought I'd do a slightly condensed version. I had a hard time picking favorites so bear with me!

We knew when we signed Grace up for soccer that this was going to be a bit of a stretch for her. For one thing, you can't wear a dress to play. You have to wear scary "too tight" shin guards. You have to run. For a girly girl like Grace these things are terrible. She's been doing a decent job chugging along and seems to enjoy it for the most part. She told the coach she'd rather play with her pink ball but he told her to get used to playing with a white and black one because that's what she'll have to use for games. Tough cookies.

That last image above just cracks me up. I have like 20 more with similar expressions. I kind of doubt Ethan will have that day dreaming look to his soccer photos in a few years. No, I'm pretty sure I'll get way more action shots with him. But with Grace I'll take what I can get.

Like this one where she is actually running.

However most of her running shots look like this one. Yes she runs like a girl. She also walked on her tiptoes 90% of the time until she was 4. I'm pretty sure she still thinks she's a ballerina.

Here's some more semi-action shots. The coach had her practice throwing the ball in one time and I think it may have been one of two times she actually touched the ball the entire time they scrimmaged.

Here's the second. This is an uber-rare shot of Grace attempting to kick the ball.

I'm not sure what she's doing right here. Probably practicing her dance moves.

This is what Grace usually does during the game. She turns her body away from the action in a purely defensive position. Even when her team is playing offense. In fact I don't think she knows the difference between offense and defense.

But look how adorable she is! And paying attention! She may or may not grow up to become a soccer star (highly unlikely but you never know) but at least she's giving it a try. I'm proud of her for that. My hope is that by the end of the season she will think soccer is fun.

Adding to our family brood?

2010-09-14T21:06:00.000-07:00

No I am not pregnant. Just in case you were wondering from the title. Nor are we planning on having any more babies.

Now that we've cleared that up I thought I'd mention the furry four legged creature we brought home from church with us and are contemplating keeping. He's a friendly orange tabby cat who is great with people (even the kids!), seems to be at peace with our dog, but doesn't get along at all with our resident cat Boo. Boo always takes additions to our family the hardest, after all she was here first! She rolled her cat eyes at us when we brought home Zoe as a puppy back in fall of 2003 and eventually forgave us after we left her home for a weekend trip and took the dog with us. Don't ever believe that a cat doesn't care when you leave because Boo most definitely does.

In summer of 2005 we brought home Grace from the hospital and she once again thought we were nuts and refused to sleep in the bedroom with us for a month or two before again forgiving us and moving on. Adding Ethan to the mix in 2007 was a breeze, she barely flinched.

Other cats are a whole other story. We tried to adopt another cat from an animal shelter back in 2003 and that plan failed big time. The cat had to go back in order to keep Boo from eating it alive. In 2004 we temporarily housed a lost cat for a few hours while waiting to hear back from the owners (she had a tag). We gave up when Boo started reaching her claws under the door to the room we had the poor cat sequestered. We let the humane society deal with it.

Now that Boo is middle aged she's not quite the spitfire towards other cats that she once was. She still puffs up and hisses at the outdoor cats that like to wave their tails under her nose from the other side of the glass but doesn't go quite as ballistic as she once did. I'm actually surprised with how well the transition seems to be going. Not that everything is peachy keen in cat world, but at least neither one is intent on killing the other. I'll take that. Surprisingly I think Boo may be losing the battle of Alpha Animal (Zoe just follows along...she's far from the alpha in this house!) because she's actually scared of the new cat. She does her fair share of puffy fur growling and hissing and is most definitely annoyed with me but mostly she seems nervous. I'm wondering if the fact that the new kitty is a non-neutered male might have something to do with it. He hasn't been very aggressive but definitely curious about everything including Boo. I don't think sharing comes naturally to cats so we'll see how this goes. If it's just not going to work I'll be hitting you all up to find him a new home, but I hope it doesn't come to that because I kind of like him!

We've had the cat since Sunday afternoon and still have no name for him so the poor thing goes by the moniker "new cat". It's really kind of sad. Ethan wants to name him Spikey and hasn't changed his vote since the beginning. Grace has suggested Prince and Alladin, though she thought my suggestions of George and Walter were okay. David liked Hobbes, Fritz, and Dutch and I'm a fan of Oliver. Our other two animals both have three letter names (not intentional) and I was thinking of other three letter names to continue the theme like Ryu or Pax.

As friendly as the new cat is I don't think he's ever lived in a house. He's fascinated by rolls of toilet paper and can shred it like nobody's business. He was super interested in the printer when I printed coupons out tonight. He jumps on counters and tables all the time and is learning that is NOT okay in our house. He uses the litter box but throws litter all over the place with his enthusiastic digging.

Any good name suggestions or tips to help our cats learn to coexist?

Grace's First Day of Kingergarten

2010-09-08T09:16:00.000-07:00

It seems like it wasn't that long ago when we were sending Grace off to her first day of preschool last September and today we reached the huge milestone of sending her off to her first day of kindergarten! We've been preparing for today for the last week or two, trying to move our wake up time from 8:30am to before 7am in order to make it to school by 8am. This is going to be a huge adjustment for me since it's been over five years since I've had to be anywhere at a set time on a daily basis!

I made sure to take five minutes this morning for a quick photo session outside in the cold with Grace and her spiffy first day of school outfit and new backpack. It was a little chilly today but we stuck with our planned on outfit anyways and she looked pretty cute if I do say so myself! She hates the denim skirt because it's blue but likes the "silly socks" and the argyle. She chose her hairstyle and princess fairy hair barrette. I also told her she can pick her outfits for the rest of the week, I just really wanted her to wear this one today!

All four of us walked Grace to school this morning and we made it just on time. Daddy helped Grace put her school supplies in the correct bins and then we helped her find a cubby for her coat and backpack and we said goodbye and left. Not surprisingly it was Ethan who cried and had the hardest time leaving. Grace was more then okay for us to leave and David and I are excited for her. Ethan wanted to stay and go to kindergarten too, the poor thing has a long three year wait. I hope those three years last forever because when he starts school I AM going to cry!

Ethan and I picked her up this morning at 10:30 and she told us all about the dinosaur dance and a song she learned. She brought home a picture she colored of me and a ton of paperwork for me to fill out. She seems to have had a good time and is excited to go back tomorrow and meet all of her classmates (only the second half of the alphabet were there today). I hope this is the start of a great 13+ years of school!

Soccer!

2010-08-18T21:24:00.001-07:00

Tonight Grace got to play her very first team sport...soccer. The first practice was actually last Tuesday, the evening of her eye surgery. Obviously we missed that one. We had an appointment with the eye doctor this morning and he cleared her for soccer practice so long as she sat out the scrimmage part until next week. Grace was pretty excited about going and even wore her purple soccer shorts all day long in anticipation. When it came time to get dressed for soccer she balked at wearing her shin guards. She cried and declared them "too scary" and "too tight" and carried on like she was going to die. I told her she either put them on and could play or could leave them off and not play. Her choice. I actually think she thought I was pulling a fast one on her and she was going to be the only child at soccer practice wearing such silly looking legwear and she didn't want to look ridiculous. Once we got there and she spotted her friend Mckenna I didn't hear another peep about the shin guards. In fact she ran right out on the field with her ball and started playing right away and had a great time.

Five year old soccer is pretty hilarious to watch. They did a few practice drills to practice passing the ball (a concept that is pretty foreign to most 5 year olds) and shooting it in the goal. I can't wait for the games to start, it should be pretty fun to watch the chaos! Ethan can't wait until he's big enough to play soccer too. He saw that Grace had to wear shin guards and got out his own "ball" socks to wear with his Crocs and hauled his soccer ball to the practice too. It's going to be a hard three years for him to wait for his turn to play with the "big kids".

Happy Fourth of July!

2010-08-15T15:23:00.001-07:00

Yeah I kind of missed posting our Fourth of July photos by a little over a month. Oops. Eventually I'll also be posting some photos of our trip to Disneyland (sans kids!) and some 30th and 5th birthday photos. And maybe some from the two separate weeks we spent in Idaho. And possibly some "plain old enjoying what little summer we actually spend at home" kind of photos. Who knows!

We spent the Fourth of July in Washington with my Uncle Brad and Aunt Rhonda. We hadn't been to their house since before we had kids so we were definitely due for a visit! My cousin Tyler graduated high school this June and his graduation party was July 3rd so we were able to score two parties in one weekend. We're party animals!

The badminton net was set up for the weekend and saw a lot of action. Mostly from Ethan because as you all know that boy is obsessed with any and all sports. He held a racket in his hand the entire time he wasn't eating/sleeping/throwing fireworks and he slept with the birdie. I'm not sure this child is really mine.

He's pretty cute so I guess I'll keep him even though he keeps making me play sports with him. Leave it to me to have a son that loves sports when I'm as nonathletic as can be.

The Mofield family take fireworks very seriously. The air is smokey from about 10am until the next day and you better like loud booms. For Ethan this didn't pose much of a problem. He eyed the fireworks bonanza on the table with great interest and took to Snaps like a fish to water. He went through I don't know how many boxes with great gusto.

Grace on the other hand does not like loud noises. At all. She refused to participate or watch the fireworks activity all day. Even purple smoke bombs which don't make a noise and feature one of her favorite colors. I did force her outside once in the afternoon to watch a few smoke bombs but she kept her hands over her ears and went back inside after about five minutes. I even handed the camera off to David and not only got a photo of myself that weekend, but a four generation photo! That's me, my daughter, my mom, and my grandma all sitting about fifty feet away from some smoke bombs and snakes action.

When the "real" fireworks show started that evening Ethan was very happy to watch and even tried a sparkler with Daddy's help. Grace holed up in the house with Great Grandma until I convinced her to come outside wrapped in a blanket in Daddy's lap. It didn't take too long for her to decide that the big booms were worth it to see the pretty sparkly fireworks in the sky. By the end of the night she was even dancing around the driveway so there went the timid "too scared to watch fireworks" act.

Grace's Eye Operation

2010-08-12T19:52:00.000-07:00

I have finally finished editing client photos and can work on catching up on my own photos from pretty much all of summer. Expect a massive amount of blog posts updating you all on our summer adventures. I thought I'd start with Grace's eye operation since it just happened and I know lots of people are curious about it and want updates. And the gory photos which you know I'm going to provide. Aren't you all lucky?

I've mentioned Grace's congenital ptosis before in this blog post and shared about our visit to OHSU to meet Dr. Ng last February. Basically Grace's right eyelid is droopy which causes her to have vision problems with her right eye. Her eyelid covered part of her pupil so that she could not simply look up with her eyes, but instead had to tilt her entire head (and then would close her right eye) in order to see. The big risk is developing a lazy eye. The last time she had her vision tested in February her right eye's vision was slightly worse then her left eye which isn't good.

We've known that we would be doing this surgery since she was 6 months old but we didn't tell Grace about it until Sunday night. We put Ethan down to bed and then sat her down to talk about having eye surgery. I was prepared with a few library books and we discussed what was going to happen. She had a few questions that night but had a lot more for me all day Monday. We read the books several times and looked at the pictures to familiarize her with what she might see. We even sat down and did a Google search together for what an IV looks like (I found some non-scary photos of kids with IVs) and hospital beds etc. She was mostly scared about having to get a shot and an IV. Basically anything that hurt. We also played with the toy doctor kit we have and practiced taking each other's blood pressure and listening to our hearts.

Monday evening I took a last photo of our beautiful daughter pre-surgery. The ptosis has always been there and shows up more pronounced in photos a lot of the time. That's half the reason I developed an interest in photography...the "professionals" always managed to capture her ptosis more then they could capture her personality.

With all our preparation it wasn't a big shock to drive up to Portland to drop off Ethan with my Mom (thank you 1000 times for watching him for us!!!) and then it was on to the Casey Eye Institute at OHSU. We were told to be there at 11:30 for pre-op and we were there precisely on time (Grace got to wear a bracelet just like we saw in her books!) and sat down for all of 30 seconds before we were called back. Once we were brought back to the ward we were shown to our "room" and the nurse did all the normal procedures. She checked her temperature, blood pressure, listened to her heart, and all that jazz. Then she gave Grace some medicine to drink that would make her sleepy (and possibly not even remember) the rest of the pre-op process. The best news was that Grace wouldn't have to have a shot at all, and they would insert her IV after she was asleep.

We changed her into the child-sized pajamas they provided and she sat on the bed looking very much out of it. She held on to Mingo and Zoe and eventually wound up on Daddy's lap for a bit while we talked to the anesthesiologist and surgeon about what was going to happen. I really liked the anesthesiologist. She was very upbeat and non-threatening and I felt safe leaving Grace in her hands. Dr. Ng was also very nice and explained the procedure again and talked to use about post-op care. Then it was time to settle Grace on the hospital bed again and wheel her to the Operating Room.

It's pretty hard to leave your child at that point. We could give her a kiss and then we had to watch them wheel her in to the operating room. It was about noon when they started surgery and I was pretty hungry so I hunted up some cafeteria food to eat as a distraction. We sat in the waiting room for awhile before Dr. Ng came out to let us know that the surgery was over and she was doing fine and they would come and get us when she started to wake up. I thought it'd be about 20-30 minutes but apparently Grace was really out because they didn't come and get us for an hour. That is a long time to wait let me tell you.

The scariest thing I've ever seen was walking into the Grace's "room" when they had us come back to see her. We knew that her right eye would be very open but seeing her eye bugged out, her mouth open and drooling, and her so unresponsive was really frightening. While David and I tried to hold it together the nurse showed us how to take care of her eye. Then I went down to the pharmacy on the first floor to get her prescriptions filled and David stayed with Grace as she woke up. When I got back she was definitely awake and not a happy camper. She really liked the cold compress on her eye and it was the only thing that seemed to calm her down. We didn't stay in the hospital for too long before we decided that we'd be more comfortable at home.

Grace was in and out of it the rest of the afternoon and evening. We stayed at my Mom's house for a few hours and she rested in her bed with an ice pack. We stayed for dinner and then drove home and put the kids to bed. Grace was up several times the first night. She sat with Daddy from midnight til 1am and got up again at 4am in pain. Pretty much every 4 hours which amazingly enough, is exactly how often her meds could be taken.

The first day home started off the same as the previous afternoon. Grace was in and out of it and not herself, but by noonish a switch was flipped and the real Grace returned. She was frog hopping on the couch and scaring me by jumping around when I wanted her to take it easy and not do anything to hurt her stitches. She didn't nap but went down for bed super easy and was ok until 4am when she needed medicine again and slept in this morning. She's doing better now but her eye will look scary for awhile. She thinks her eye looks like it has makeup on it. At least it's colors she likes!

The last photo was taken on Wednesday. Her eye looks about the same today, maybe a little darker purple. Her eye can almost close but is still pretty open most of the time. It will be a few weeks until it will be able to close all the way and look normal. Hopefully before kindergarten starts!

Happy 5th Birthday Grace!

2010-07-30T23:10:00.000-07:00

So what is my big five year old girl up to these days? She's very excited to be going to kindergarten next year and is gearing up for her very first soccer season that starts very soon. It could very well be her only soccer season since she was less then pleased when I dropped the "you can't wear a dress to play soccer" bomb after we signed her up. I've tried to make soccer as appealing as possible with suitably girly soccer shorts in black/pink and purple. She's pretty agreeable to wearing a soccer outfit so long as she can play with a pink soccer ball. I know for a fact her wish will come true because Grandma got her a princess soccer ball for her birthday. Thank you Mom!

Grace is absolutely great at entertaining herself and can happily play with her toys by herself for an entire afternoon. This skill has made my life much easier since I can work on photo editing during Ethan's nap while she plays with her princesses. It's fun to listen in on her solo play when she doesn't realize I'm listening. She seems very intent on role playing "getting married" and the poor Little People Prince can spend an entire hour choosing his bride from the bevy of princesses in Grace's collection.

Grace is finally letting on that she knows how to count and is starting to write her letters and will even write words if I help her spell them but her real strength is her creativity. She can spin elaborate tales and tell stories like nobody's business. I'll have to warn her kindergarten teacher not to believe 75% of the stories she tells. The ones involving dragons and princesses are obvious but the ones like "I got stung by a bee" are not.

Grace's eye surgery is set for August 10th and we have two doctor's visits before then. One for her pre-op check up and the other for her 5 year appointment. It is beyond me why we can't do both at the same time but according to our insurance we can't combine them. The pre-op one is first and I'm hoping I can talk to our pediatrician and have her do the normal 5 year old well child visit stuff at the same time so I can cancel the appointment less then a week afterward. We went ahead and did all her pre-kindergarten shots last year so it's just a regular check up.

P.S. I realize I haven't updated this blog in over a month. My father in law pointed that out to me a couple of times when we were visiting last week! We've been in four states in the last month and I've done 3 photo sessions and edited the photos from June's wedding. Let's just say I've been too busy to edit personal photos or write a blog post. Gobs of updates coming eventually!

I ♥ Faces Week 26: "Pets"

2010-06-29T15:45:00.000-07:00

So I'm cheating and sharing a photo I'm recycling from my Project 365. I'm too consumed with editing last Saturday's wedding photos to take a new pet photo! Plus I really like this one of Zoe. She spends a lot of time napping on my pillow just like this. Don't forget to click on the logo below to check out some more pretty pet photos.

"Downtown" Photo Shoot with Grace

2010-06-25T21:10:00.000-07:00

I did a "downtown" photo shoot with Grace this afternoon which was actually a lot of fun. Usually taking photos of Grace really tries my patience but when I get a chance to photograph her one on one she does pretty well. Especially with ice cream as a motivator. Never underestimate the power of Dairy Queen as a bribe.

Grace wore her pretty dress that my mother in law sewed for her last week and I hauled the super heavy 70-200 lens with me downtown. I had a specific alley in mind to use and it happened to have perfect lighting and plenty of space for me to work with a long zoom. I'm not used to posing my kids other then plopping them on a stool to keep them still so it took us a little bit to get in the zone. Once we got going Grace did a great job posing for me and seemed to enjoy herself!

I've had an obsession with mary janes for a long time. I LOVE them! Which probably explains why I really like this photo. It was totally worth laying on the nasty pavement.

After about 20 minutes she was all done so we headed to Dairy Queen and split a small pink blizzard.

Lest you think that I forgot about Ethan this week I thought I'd mention that pretty Ethan photos will hopefully be coming soon. He just got a haircut tonight that he desperately needed. Now that he looks like a little man again I'll attempt some nice photos. In the mean time, here he is in all his shaggy glory. Please note that I did not choose any of his attire today and the cowboy boots were a garage sale score from this morning that he refused to take off. I promise he'll be wearing something that at least matches for his nice photo shoot!

Pink Princess Dress

2010-06-24T20:32:00.000-07:00

Last week when we were in Idaho my mother in law was busy sewing two dresses for a lucky little girl. The easiest one was this pink princess fabric that came pre-smocked and pre-hemmed so all she had to do was sew up the back seam and add some ribbon. I think even I could have managed that, though probably not quite as nicely sewn as my mother in law did! Grace absolutely loves the pink princess dress and has asked to wear it every day this week. Today I finally relented and said yes (it was finally warm enough!) and she happily wore it all day.

Since I have the Canon 70-200 L lens rented this week I wanted to make sure I got a good photo of the dresses before I send it back on Monday. I'll have to take some pictures of the other one tomorrow. It took a lot more work but it was well worth it!

Grace's Homemade Wrapping Paper

2010-06-10T21:00:00.000-07:00

Today we bought and wrapped my husband's Father's Day presents from the kids. Grace decided to color kraft paper and make her own wrapping paper for her present. First she drew our family. Daddy is red, I am blue, Grace is purple, and Ethan is green. You can kind of see Grandma in the yellow to the left. Opa and Oma are over there too. Boo and Zoe were drawn after this photo was taken. Notice that I have orange eyelashes and green shoes. I think I look pretty good.

Then she decided to draw flowers. I admire flowers though I'm not really a gardener. I always point out pretty flowers to the kids as we pass them and share their names so they know the difference between a hydrangea and a daffodil. Hey, I try. So as she drew the flowers Grace matter of factly told me about them. This is a Bodangia flower. I've never heard of this variety either.

This is a Cinderella flower.

This is an Ariel flower. Can't you tell with all the green, red, and purple? So obvious.

She also told me about a Drapes flower but she wasn't sure what color it was. She finally decided it must be yellow, orange, and green but she never drew me one. The finished product looked like this:

I'm pretty sure that Daddy knows exactly what he's getting from the kids because they are the World's Worst Secret Keepers. Good thing he was voted Best Actor Third Period in high school, his acting skills will come in handy!

Baseball & Barbecue 2010

2010-06-02T16:43:00.000-07:00

Did you come to our 4th Annual Baseball & Barbecue that we co-host with our neighbors? If not you missed a good time! This was the first year the weather was less then ideal but we managed to stay dry for the baseball game and since we're all web-footed Oregonians the sprinkle of rain during the barbecue didn't phase us. It did, however, mean we did not partake in the outdoor movie that we had planned.

We had a lot of kids play ball with us and it was cute watching the little guys try to copy the adults. Ethan had a BLAST and soaked it all in. He didn't understand the concept of dropping your bat to run the bases but we have a few years to get that point across. This was the first year we were able to con Grace into playing, mostly because of her Dora bat and ball she got for Christmas. She hit the ball and ran the bases twice. She even played in the field with Katie!

I have a zillion photos I posted in Snapfish but wanted to share some here. I narrowed it down a little bit but probably not enough! If you haven't received an invitation to the Snapfish photo album please post a comment with your email address and I'll make sure you get one.

He's in the Army Now

2010-05-29T09:58:00.000-07:00

Monday evening I drove two sick (one with an earache and one with a fever/puking) children up to Portland in order to give my brother a last hug before he reported for boot camp. He signed the dotted line a couple months ago but he didn't get picked up until last Sunday. He spent the night at a hotel and had a few hours free Monday evening to go out to dinner with us. Since I had two sick kids I met him at the hotel parking lot for five minutes. Totally worth it, I'm going to miss him!

He's starting out with an E4 rank in the Army due to his Masters degree. His goal is to make Officer Candidate School by the time his four years is done. I'm sure he will because he's pretty disciplined and has an excellent work ethic. So long as he gets the hang of doing what he's told with no questions (ha!) he'll probably do just fine. If nothing else he'll have his student loans completely paid for and a good sized savings account at the end of four years which is nothing to sneeze at either.

He's been in "purgatory" this past week waiting for boot camp to start. After boot camp in South Carolina he'll move to Georgia for his individual training in computer networks.

Since this is Memorial Day weekend I thought it'd be a good time to remind everyone to think about those who have or are serving our country. They sacrifice a lot and I know I for one appreciate them. Here's to my Uncles Greg & Brad, Aunt Rhonda, Grandpa Jack, Grandpa Bob, David's Grandpa Delbert, David's cousin Brian (currently in Iraq), and now my brother who have all served. Thank you!

I wanted to share some photos of my brother but when I went through my zillions of photos (seriously...my May 2010 folder has 666 photos in it and the month isn't over yet!) I couldn't pick just one. So I made three collages!

And last but not least...I had to share this I Heart Faces winning photo. The theme was laughter. Brian is convinced it won because of his natural beauty.

Last Day of Preschool

2010-05-28T20:20:00.000-07:00

Can you believe that an entire year of preschool has gone by? Neither can I! It doesn't seem so long ago that she was headed to her first day of preschool. Next up is kindergarten! I attempted to take a few photos today but Grace wasn't being a super cooperative subject (as per usual) so they're not the greatest. Plus her hair looks like a mess which is what happens when we go to Indoor Park and she plays dress up all morning. Oh well. I did think ahead and took some photos of Grace with her teacher on Wednesday after class so we didn't have to wait in line today to do so.

Grace is super excited about going to kindergarten next year. We celebrated her completion of preschool tonight by having her favorite dinner (spaghetti), having Neapolitan ice cream for dessert, and watching Tinkerbell. We talked about her favorite things she learned in preschool and what she's going to learn next year. I'm really glad she's so excited about going to kindergarten next year!

Jiu Jitsu!

2010-05-22T16:43:00.000-07:00

I tagged along with David to his Jiu Jitsu class in Corvallis one night in February and brought my camera along with me by his request. Since the class was in a school gym at night the lighting wasn't super so my photos turned out better in b/w in my opinion. It was fun to watch and see what David has been doing every Wednesday and Thursday night since September. Apparently the guys in his class have been asking to see the photos I took ever since February so today I finally got around to editing them. I thought I'd share some of them here so you can all see what fun can be had in a smelly gym with sweaty guys grappling each other. Or something like that.

Remember when David started last fall? Well he just earned his second stripe and his goal is to be a blue belt by the end of the year.

Here he is watching the action.

Is that a smile? Yeah I think he's having fun.

The guys in the white gis were easier to photograph.

David on top. His hair is getting a bit mussed.

Rolling with each other in practice. I had to keep an eyeball out for body parts flying my way...these guys can move pretty quick!

Ethan's Stomach Bug

2010-05-16T16:50:00.000-07:00

If you have a weak stomach you may not want to read any further. Consider yourself warned.

Yesterday morning I was awoken at 8am by Grace telling me that Ethan threw up in his crib. Indeed he had. I cleaned him up, stripped the bed, started a load of all the icky laundry, and sat down on the couch with Ethan. It didn't take long for him to throw up again. And again. And again. After the first couple hours it was clear that this stomach bug wasn't progressing the same way it usually does. Usually when Ethan wakes up sick he'll throw up several times in a 2-3 hour window and then he's done. Not this time.

He took his nap for about 3 hours which was the only 3 hour block of time in which he wasn't actively throwing up. He woke up by throwing up in his crib again. By dinner time it was clear that it wasn't stopping and I was starting to get worried because there was literally nothing left in his system other then the small amounts of water and Pedialyte he was drinking and promptly refunding. I called the on-call nurse after dinner and we tried their suggestion of giving him 2 Tbsp of sugary soda two to three times 5 minutes apart and then switching to 2 Tbsp of Pedialyte. The nurse said if he couldn't keep that down to go ahead and take him to the Emergency Room since there wasn't much else we could at home. We tried that method three times in ninety minutes without success. By that time we were exhausted and decided to throw in the towel since it was obvious that he couldn't keep anything down.

We quickly packed two bags and I took Ethan to the local Emergency Room at 9pm. There were quite a few people ahead of us so we had a bit of a wait which wasn't fun. Since there were so many people one of the doctors came out to look at everyone quickly (I think to make sure there were no true emergencies) and when she saw Ethan she quietly checked his pulse. Yes he looked pretty bad. He was tired but not sleeping, just staring listlessly off into space which is scary.

Once we got in a room they gave him some Zofran which is an anti-nausea drug and he instantly perked up. We stayed in that room until about 1am giving him Popsicles and little drinks of juice as the doctor monitored him. We were worried we would need to give him an IV but the Zofran made it so he was able to keep the liquids down and we were able to avoid it. I'm glad because I don't think he would have liked that so well. When they first took his vitals he just laid there without moving and let them do whatever they wanted to him. That's when you know your toddler is sick. When they're cooperative because they don't feel good enough to move. They even tried to weigh him on the regular scale but he was at the point where he couldn't even stand up by himself so we made a best guess.

My instructions as we got the paperwork to come home was to put him to bed and then wake him up at 6am to continue the Popsicle and juice every 20-30 minutes routine. Naturally Safeway closed at 1am and we drove by at about 1:19am so I had to get up just before 6am to make a run for Popsicles and more Pedialyte. I was so tired I didn't even remember to buy a Sunday paper! I did however, remember that I had a Pedialyte coupon that was a Buy One Get One Free deal and as a bonus I got a $1.50 off my next Safeway purchase coupon.

So far today Ethan has kept all the liquids and Popsicles that he's eaten down which is a great thing. He's even eaten 1/3 of a banana. He has spent most of the day on the couch or laying on his sleeping bag on the living room floor and has been sleeping a lot. He's definitely not back to normal since he's not interested in playing, but at least he's starting to recover. I just hope that nobody else gets this yucky bug. I absolutely hate to throw up and I think being thrown up on is probably up there in my Top 10 Least Favorite Parts of Motherhood list. Yesterday I think I changed clothes 5 times which has got to earn me some sort of Motherhood Survival Badge.

I didn't have my camera at the hospital with me but I did have my phone so I have some photos to share. The first is of Ethan wearing his ridiculously huge hospital gown and eating his first Popsicle which was the first thing he kept down all day!

There's not a lot of toddler friendly tv programing late at night but I did manage to find a soccer and baseball game on ESPN that kept him happy. I was happy that we didn't have to make use of the puke bucket!

He fell asleep the last hour or so that we were there. Poor little guy earned his rest!

Super Safeway Score!

2010-05-12T19:50:00.001-07:00

I haven't posted much about my couponing on this blog in awhile but I thought that today's second trip to Safeway deserved a post because I made $4.79 by buying $49.92 worth of groceries. Read that again if you didn't get it the first time because it just might blow your mind. I came home with $49.92 worth of groceries for $3.21 out of pocket and catalinas for $8 off my next Safeway purchase (which will be tomorrow for more cereal!) so I actually earned money by shopping. I love it when couponing makes me money!

What did I buy? I bought 4 boxes of Kashi cereal, 2 Scrubbing Bubbles Cleaners, 2 Scrubbing Bubbles Cleaners Refills, and 5 pieces of candy. The candy was a treat for my kids because we made a zillion stops at stores today and I needed a bribe to get them to not scream like banshees because I made them go to Safeway twice today. That was money well spent. It's also why only two candy bars are pictured...the other three were consumed on the way home!

Here's how it broke down:

(4) boxes of Kashi Cereal $2 each when you buy 4 or $8
(3) $1.50/1 Vocal Point coupons (you should definitely look into signing up with Vocal Point for their awesome coupons!)
(1) FREE box of Kashi Vocal Point Coupon (this cashier gave me the full price amount $4.49 back...YMMV!)
(3) Safeway doublers for $1.50
Total: $I made $2.49!

(2) Scrubbing Bubbles Extend-a-Clean Starter Sprayers $6.99 or $13.98
(2) $5/1 Coupon found HERE
(1) Safeway doubler for $.50
Total OOP: $3.48
Earned $3 catalina for buying each one which means I really made $2.52!

(2) Scrubbing Bubbles Extend-a-Clean Refills $3.50 or $7
(2) FREE refill when you buy a starter Coupon found HERE
Total OOP: FREE
Earned $1 catalina for buying each one which means I made $2!

The candy wasn't a super fantastic deal nor did I use a coupon, but it did make the kids happy. The candy cost $2.22 for four candy bars and a box of Nerds (ick).

Mothers Day and a Birthday

2010-05-11T19:52:00.000-07:00

Today is my mother in law's birthday and we had the pleasure of having her visit us the past few days including Mothers Day. On Saturday my mother in law, Grace, and I joined my Mom at her church's Mothers & Others Tea which was a lot of fun. I was pretty lucky to be there with both my moms and daughter! We celebrated both my mother in law's birthday and Mothers Day Sunday evening with a super fantastic barbecued salmon dinner. We even made a lemon cake with lemon frosting that afternoon which we enjoyed after dinner. Grace sprinkled.

I'm pretty fortunate to have a mother in law that I really like and enjoy spending time with. I hear horror stories from other women and I thank my lucky stars that I have such a great mother in law! She raised two pretty nice boys and they both think she's pretty special. So do I. Happy Birthday and we're so glad you were able to visit!

It wouldn't have been Mothers Day without an attempt to get photos with my children. It is after all, the one day a year my husband attempts to take a photo of me and my children. This year it didn't go so well. This photo pretty much sums it up:

He did manage to get a few photos of me with my kids individually though. I'll take what I can get.

Ethan didn't want to sit with me at all and was much happier sitting on Grandma or Oma's lap. Apparently on Mothers Day I'm chopped liver.

Please note that a good majority of this photos were not taken by me but by my darling husband. He will want you all to know that when he was a senior in high school his photography teacher told him to major in Photography because he's very good. He doesn't like to show off his skills very often, and I'm starting to wonder if he's telling me stories. If he's able to get an in focus photo of me looking like a million bucks with two happy smiling children I will humbly bow down to his superior skills.

Parry Family Chronicles Turned 2!

2010-05-05T12:57:00.000-07:00

So I've totally been a slacker on this blog and missed our two year anniversary on April 25th. I can't believe I didn't even remember about it until yesterday! I did remember to post last year on the one year anniversary and I figure that late is better then never so here's the post dedicated to celebrating my two years of blogging about our crazy life.

I've been posting less on this site lately because my time has been consumed by my kids and photography which leaves me less time to chat on here. Do you have any idea how much time it takes to not only take a photo (or over two hundred...) a day and then EDIT them all? A lot I tell you. A lot. It's addicting. I do post my photo of the day on an almost daily basis on my Project 365 blog so if you're looking for more action I suggest you check it out.
Here's the highlights from the last year:

My fabulous father in law and husband made toy bins for the living room and we started to redo the kids' room!
My "Laughter" photo was chosen by The Pioneer Woman as a finalist in the I Heart Faces challenge...Ree actually liked my photo! *Swoon*
David started Jiu Jitsu
We went on our first Family Camping Trip with our friends James & Jessi
Grace started Preschool
Ethan started potty training (though we're very far from being done)

Please tell me I'm not the only one who enjoys this blog! What's been your favorite post this year?

Living it up in Lincoln City

2010-05-03T15:32:00.000-07:00

A little over a week ago our family spent four days in Lincoln City with my Mom and younger brother and had a lot of fun! My brother joined the army and will be shipping off for boot camp in a few weeks so we wanted to have some family time before he leaves. My Mom found an awesome house for us to stay in which worked out really well. We all had a bed except for the kids, but they think sleeping in their sleeping bags on the floor is a treat. We also had a bit of a view which we enjoyed, a hot tub which we really enjoyed, and were able to bring our dog Zoe. Perfect.

We had pretty good weather for our stay but it was absolutely gorgeous Friday morning when we spent several hours on the beach. No wind, lots of sun, warm enough to go without coats...does it get any better? Ethan has finally gotten over his fear of walking on the sand and happily spends hours playing in it. If he had a stick he was over the moon. Grace has always loved playing in the sand and discovered the joy of collecting seashells. We also played our "chase the ocean without getting wet" game with the kids which was a lot of fun. Ethan shrieked with laughter when we held him while running from the waves but wanted absolutely nothing to do with putting his own feet on the cold wet sand. Grace didn't mind it.

We visited the Outlet Mall there three times (once was just to exchange a few things for sizes though...does that really count?) and otherwise stuck to the beach or the beach house. We played a lot of games including the perennial favorite Pass the Pigs. The kids really liked that one. We also hit up the hot tub every night which felt super great. We even brought the kids in with us a few times and they loved it too.

The highlight of the trip for me was going tidepooling with Gracie. Ethan didn't care for walking on the rocks so he stayed on the sand with Grandma and Daddy. Gracie on the other hand loved it! We found a bucketful of shells (only picked up the ones that didn't have a living creature inside!), touched some pink sea anemone, and found some pretty agates. I even handed the camera off to David to get some photos of me to prove I was there.

Mission Impossible: Photographing my children TOGETHER

2010-05-01T15:38:00.000-07:00

If you ask any portrait photographer if it's easy to photograph their children I'll bet most of them say "heck no!" My children are pretty used to the camera by now. My son is a dream child to photograph, he cooperates by looking at me while sitting still and smiling. My daughter on the other hand, has better things to do with her time. Like look anywhere other then at me, only smile with her mouth open as wide as possible, or flapping her arms like a bird. Taking photos of her is probably my biggest challenge. No, scratch that. Taking photos of my children together is my biggest challenge. Why is that? Because my normally cooperative son can't stand to have his sister give him a bear hug or sit within two feet of him. My daughter becomes more cooperative, but only because she can tell how annoyed her brother is when she displays sisterly affection. It drives me nuts.

Yesterday I decided to risk the odds and attempt Mission Impossible. I sat both the kids on the stool in the middle of the soggy grass barefoot so that they weren't tempted to get off. Neither child likes to walk in the mud with bare feet so this forced them to sit next to each other without moving. Yes, I'm a mean mother. Then I tried to get them to interact without killing each other. As per usual Grace was more then happy to smother her little brother in kisses and hugs. And also as usual Ethan detested it. Then my very smart super intelligent husband opened the office window behind me and made the kids laugh. They smiled real smiles and didn't even seem to realize what was happening. I may have to try this trick again!

Here's the outtakes...very minimally edited. For the best of the bunch head over to my Project 365 blog.

Nothing Like Getting a New Washing Machine

2010-04-29T21:13:00.000-07:00

Today has been a beautiful day because today was the day that our new washing machine and dryer were delivered and installed! If you've spent quality time with 25+ year old washing machines and dryers then you'll probably understand my excitement. We've been the proud owners of our old washer and dryer since 2003 when they were passed on to us by David's brother Sam who got them from my inlaws when they upgraded their washing machine sometime around 2001. Sam had them in a house on well water in Moscow, ID which means the inside of the washing machine drum is permanently stained a rust color. Attractive. I can't complain because they were free and they did the job.

It's been our radar that we'd possibly need to replace our washing machine and dryer for the past year or two but when the washing machine all of a sudden stopped during it's regular cycle a month ago my heart almost stopped along with it. Thankfully I was able to restart it but that's when the tax refund got redirected to the oh so glamorous New Washing Machine & Dryer Fund. We made a cursory trip to Best Buy a few weeks ago to get an idea of cost. Then we came home and I did some research on what brands were the best. After all, we only plan on buying a washing machine and dryer once every 20 years and we'd like a good one during this next 20 years that will see the most use!

Going into our search we assumed that Maytag and Whirpool would be the best options. Much to our surprise that wasn't necessarily the case. Brands that we would have never considered 10 years ago for a washing machine are now dominating the field. I would have never guessed that Samsung would make a good washing machine but according to numerous websites, reviews, and the illustrious Consumer Reports they do.

After my research I spent a day in Salem price comparing with both kids in tow. Can't say how much fun it is to try and negotiate with salespeople while my children refuse to stay within my line of sight. I visited Lowes, Kelly's Applicances, Sears, and Best Buy. Out of all four Best Buy had the best deal and I even had a coupon. You know how I love coupons. So the next day I drove back into town and made the big purchase.

Here's the Laundry Room with the old machines:

I find it amusing that the old washing machine is advertised as "energy saving"

And finally the new machines! Look how shiny they are! My husband's favorite part? The fact that the laundry baskets can fit on top so he no longer has to kick laundry baskets out of the way of the door to the garage. If you don't get 6 loads behind in your laundry on a regular basis I don't want to know about it.

On closer inspection the buttons and dials look very much like a complicated computer. Is that a big power button? Good lord I hope I'm tech-savvy enough to run this thing. So far I've done one load of laundry and it seems to have come out okay. I even used my homemade laundry powder and I think it worked just fine. The only surprise so far has been the musical nature of the machines. Looking at them at the store they're not turned on so I didn't get to see/hear the sounds it makes. It sings. I kid you not. Both the washing machine and the dryer play a tune at the end of the cycle instead of beep. And it's not a short tune either. I'm pretty sure I'll be digging through the manual very soon to figure out how to switch from the creepy music to a regular old BUZZ.

This week's Photo Challenge was "Smile!"

2010-04-27T21:45:00.000-07:00

I'm a little too late to enter the I Heart Faces photo challenge this week, but since I have the photo picked out and edited I will share it with you all anyways. I took this photo of Ethan almost a year ago and I love his huge grin! And thank goodness we're no longer teething...

Memorial Day Baseball & Barbecue is coming up!

2010-04-19T14:20:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder to our local friends and family that this year's Memorial Day Baseball & Barbecue is coming up! We're trying to decide what day to have it on and I thought I'd check with you all to see if Saturday, Sunday, or Monday (May 29, 30, or 31st) would be best. Vote in the poll on the right or leave a comment!

We're thinking about A League of Their Own for this year's movie...what do you guys think? Last year we watched The Sandlot which was a perfect end to the day!

Here's some photos from last year:

For more photos you can check out last year's posts on the baseball and barbecue.

I ♥ Faces Week 16: "Collages"

2010-04-19T14:14:00.000-07:00

This week's I Heart Faces Challenge is "Collages". I looked through some old collages I've put together and decided to go ahead and make a new one. I chose last year's Memorial Day Weekend Baseball & Barbecue for my theme because it's time for me to start planning this year's party!

For more fun collages click on the icon below:

Sunflare Progress

2010-04-13T20:39:00.001-07:00

I know you're all wondering how my progress on mastering the art of sunflare in photos is going. I have to say that I'm getting better but I still have room to improve. Maybe by the end of the summer I'll have had enough chances to practice to get the technique down pat! Tonight I practiced on Ethan swinging which was moderately difficult since he was a moving target. Of course he wasn't moving very fast because he's new to the "big boy" swing. The focus on the eyes is what I need to work on, the rest I'm feeling pretty good about!

Gearing up for Kindergarten...Already?!?

2010-04-12T15:19:00.000-07:00

Last week we signed Grace up for kindergarten. I can't believe the tiny baby girl I swear I just gave birth to is turning five this summer and then marching off to kindergarten this September. Where has the time gone? Is she really ready? Am I?

Filling out the mountain of paperwork at registration I came across one form that was fishing for more then just the basic information about my child. It asked how she interacted with other children and asked me to list any concerns I might have. Surely they should know better then to only leave a half inch of space for me to list my concerns! Like most parents sending their first child to school I have a LONG list of concerns. Will she like school? Will she pick up a love of learning? Will she make a friend or two or will she feel lonely? Will her attention span ever improve? Will she get picked on? Will she learn to be confident in herself and not to always follow the crowd? The list could go on and on.

Thankfully I have several months before I have to send her to her first day of kindergarten. I'm mostly excited for her as we prepare to embark on the long road of public education, but it's still a little scary. As I think about how excited I am for Grace I think of how all too quickly my baby boy will be starting kindergarten and that makes me want to cry. I'm pretty sure the day my baby starts school will be super emotional for me. Time flies so fast and I know the three years I have left as a Mom of a Preschooler will be gone before I know it!

Easter 2010

2010-04-08T21:27:00.000-07:00

I finally finished editing photos from last weekend's Easter celebration. We dyed our eggs on Saturday afternoon which the kids really enjoyed. I put down a huge stack of newspapers and made them both wear bibs before we got down and dirty. They were very patient waiting for their eggs to turn bright, though I made the mistake of buying a dye kit that didn't include the color Pink so we just fished a few eggs out of the red dye early in order to have a few pink ones. Ethan did slurp a whole spoonful of orange dye despite my repeated warnings not to. If he turns out kind of weird as a teenager at least I'll know why.

The Easter Bunny visited our house Saturday night while the kids were asleep and left them plenty of art supplies, new place mats, and recycled candy from the previous week's egg hunts. It's not that the Easter Bunny is cheap, she just doesn't think we need more random chocolate candies. They did receive one small package of Peeps and a small chocolate bunny apiece (do you know how hard it is to find a single package of Peeps and not a package of 25?!?). And the Easter Bunny is super brilliant to leave a Mommy and Daddy basket full of Mommy and Daddy candy. Mmmmmmm.

My Mom came down Sunday morning and joined us for the egg hunt and crafts before church. Somehow I forgot my camera so you'll just have to imagine it. Basically a lot of preschool kids and a bazillion plastic eggs covering the sanctuary. We have enough candy to last us until the 4th of July! After church we had a yummy Easter ham dinner and finished it with coconut cream and lemon meringue pie (because I couldn't pick just one!). We eat holiday dinners for lunch so that we don't mess with nap time and also because then we get to eat the leftovers for dinner...who passes up the chance to eat a holiday dinner twice? Not me!

I didn't get a chance to take the kids' Easter pictures before Easter and the weather didn't cooperate/I got too busy to do it this week. We'll see how next week goes, if it doesn't happen I'm not going to sweat it. I did get at least one halfway decent one of Grace, but Ethan's photo shoot was a lost cause. He had just woke up from his nap and was fussy so I bribed him with a blue sucker which he insisted on eating prior to the photos. I did get cute photos of him in his Easter shirt eating a blue sucker, but by the time he was finished it was dark and raining so that was what I got.

I ♥ Faces Week 13: "Dramatic Black & White"

2010-03-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

Once again I'm going back in time for a photo, but this time it's only to January. I promise that Ethan wasn't crying or even sad in this photo. He was sick and just woke up from his nap. Doesn't this photo make you want to just give the poor guy a hug?

To see more dramatic black and white photos click the link below:

I ♥ Faces Week 12: "Focusing on Angles"

2010-03-23T13:28:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd join in the I Heart Faces challenge this week. Since I'm away from home and thus, my external hard drive, I had to pick a photo from my Flickr photostream. I just took this one a week or so ago and it's one of my current favorites. Grace's Ptosis is usually pretty apparent in photos taken of her looking up at me (one eye open and the other closed) but somehow both her eyes are open in this one which I love.

To see more pretty pictures featuring different angles click the link below:

Mustache March

2010-03-16T21:07:00.001-07:00

My husband is very proud of the mustache he grew for Mustache March with his brother. I'm not impressed. I have to say I prefer the clean shaven look and can live with the usual beard growth but the mustache by itself is not my favorite. Especially on the man I like to kiss. Since my darling husband knows my facial hair preferences he was wise enough to shave the mustache off before we attended my friend's wedding last Friday. Thank God! He did ask me to take a photo of the mustache before he shaved it off so here he is in all his mustache glory. Enjoy.

Lest you think the macho pose before is my husband's typical look I thought I'd share this outtake from our room at the bed & breakfast. Notice how he's trying to look manly and tough but he's having a hard time keeping his face straight. That's because I'm practically doubled over laughing as I took these photos. He just looks so silly trying to put on the Tough Guy persona because it's totally not his personality. Isn't he cute?

Unlike my husband my brother in law can actually grow a serious 'stache. It's quite the look. I borrowed this photo from his Facebook profile, hope you don't mind Sam!

I ♥ Faces Week 11: "Bundled Up"

2010-03-15T12:19:00.000-07:00

This week's I Heart Faces theme is "Bundled Up" and I knew I had some photos that would work perfect for this theme. I did a little perusing through past year's winter photos and found this one from December 2008 (remember that big ice storm?) that I thought was cute. Did some different editing and here it is!

For more cute "Bundled Up" photos click on the link below:

Playing with Logos Again

2010-03-10T20:58:00.000-08:00

My name is Kellie and I have a problem. For the life of me I cannot seem to leave well enough alone when it comes to design. I know the logo I've been using for my photography is just fine and dandy. That it probably doesn't even really matter in this stage of the ball game but I'm not happy with it and I insist on changing it much to my husband's chagrin. Right brained people just don't understand.

Part of my problem is that I have a hard time committing to a single design style. I'm an equal opportunity design lover and have a hard time settling on just one. Why do you think I change my blog look every month? Because there's no way I'd ever be satisfied with any one design!

I've been doing a lot of wishing/dreaming/journaling etc. about what kind of photography I'd like to to do and what kind of client I would like to work for. The words that jumped out from my scribbling tend to be in the fun, lighthearted vein. I like to work with people who have a sense of humor and like to have fun. Looking around at other photographer's logos/identities I find myself more attracted to the fun and funky. At this point I don't want to rule anything out so I don't want a logo that immediately pegs me as a certain sort of photographer (i.e. one who only does babies, or weddings, or families etc).

So here's where I'm at. I tried doing two different fonts for my name and the word "photography" but it just doesn't look right. My last name and the word "photography" start and end with the same letters so they look awful similar which bugs me when they're in different fonts next to each other. I'm currently leaning towards the first one. Opinions?

I played around with different watermarks and like that I can switch the colors around so that the watermark would work for both dark and light colored photos. Here's two recent photos from my Project 365 that I used as an example.

And just for the sakes of comparison, here's a photo with my current logo watermark:

I think we're allergic to the Oscars

2010-03-09T21:32:00.000-08:00

The 9th Annual Oscar Party was a success, and I promise I'll write about it later. Like, maybe next week. Why? Because a terrible plague has descended upon our house for the second year in a row following the Oscar Party. I'm starting to think we're allergic. Last year Ethan and I had the stomach bug from hell while David was out of town. Convenient. Well this year David got most of the puke clean up duty so I suppose it all evened out.

This morning when I woke the kids up to get ready for MOPS I discovered that Ethan had dried puke stuck to his face and hair and all over his sheets. Just the sort of thing I love to discover on mornings where I have to be somewhere by 8am. I was 10 minutes late due to the necessity to bathe my puke crusted 2 year old. Since Ethan was acting fine and the puking had obviously happened earlier I decided to leave Ethan at home with David and I took Grace to MOPS. I foolishly gave Ethan applesauce for breakfast which he threw up a little before I left, but I got him changed into clean clothes and left hoping for the best. Unfortunately he threw up four more times for David which required a few more clothing changes and added quite a few blankets and towels to the laundry pile. David can handle watching a sick child while he's working, but an actively puking child is a whole different ball game. So I finished up the ice breaker at MOPS, wolfed down the rest of my breakfast, grabbed Grace from her class, and headed home.

Naturally, Ethan was done puking by the time I got home, but it wasn't too long before I discovered David napping under a blanket on the office futon. Not good. Turns out David rather suddenly started feeling sick right after lunch. I've been feeling slightly under the weather for a few days, kind of that pre-cold feeling but this afternoon it's ramped up to Officially Feeling Yucky. Not nearly as bad as last year, but enough that I'm starting to worry about the trip to Denver that David and I are supposed to be making Friday morning.

If you don't see me before next week you now know why.

I ♥ Faces Week 8: "Hands on Fun"

2010-02-22T13:55:00.001-08:00

Thought I'd join in on this week's i heart faces because the theme is "hands on fun" and I have a bunch of hand shots from the last month or two! This one's my favorite because it's so soft and girly.

To see more pretty pictures click on the link below:

Seeking Sun in the Northwest

2010-02-19T20:29:00.000-08:00

I don't know about anyone else but cold rainy weather is not my favorite. Lucky for me I live in the Pacific Northwest! Oh wait, maybe that's not the best place to be if you don't like cold rainy weather. I do, however, love to live in the Pacific Northwest when the sun is shining because then it makes the gray rainy days incredibly worth it. The grass is so green, the sky is so blue, and it really can't get any prettier. It just takes a lot of rain to make it happen! So I'm willing to live with a little (ok, a lot!) of rain to be here.

Today was one of the rare gorgeous golden sunshine February days and I loved it. More specifically, my camera loved it. I'm trying very hard to conquer sun flare and gray rainy days don't exactly give me much to work with in that department. For that my friends, I need sun. The only place in my yard to find sun for sun flare is in the backyard and by our lilies in the side yard. That's why all my sun flare photos are of the kids in the lilies and on the swing set. That's what I have to work with.

If you live near me and happen to have better late afternoon sun access just let me know and I'll gladly camp out in your yard with my camera. :)

Without further ado my favorite sun flare photo of the day:

Notice the pretty flare at the lower lefthand corner!

And this one doesn't have much flare because Grace was sitting opposite of Ethan and the sun wasn't hitting her quite right. I kind of like this girly action with this photo. Grace is such a pink princess kind of girl it's not even funny. Appropriate is it not?

Happy Valentines Day!

2010-02-13T21:24:00.001-08:00

I snuck some Valentines photos of the kids in on Friday afternoon after their parties. They both received red heart suckers which worked perfectly as a reward/distraction for me to take photos. Grace is always a little more challenging since she rarely looks at me and gives cheesy smiles when I have a camera in my hands. Ethan is always more obliging in my effort to photograph my children. He's quite willing to look at me and smile his easy going grin and even more so when there's candy involved. The secret for getting good photos of him is to do it right after his nap when he's not quite awake (and not moving so fast!) and have him sit on our kitchen stool outside. Sitting keeps him immobile which makes picture taking easier. Just a tip for the rest of you!

I also have a ton of photos of the kids looking at their Valentines but I haven't had a chance to edit them all quite yet. We went to the Indoor Park Valentines Party Friday morning and Grace had her preschooler party Friday afternoon. We've got enough Valentines candy to last us through Easter and then some! Good thing Mommy and Daddy are willing to help eat it.

Grocery Deals 101

2010-02-11T14:39:00.000-08:00

I've been asked by many people to share my grocery shopping secrets so I thought I'd share the nuts and bolts with you all here. I'm by no means an expert but I can certainly point you to the blogs and websites you'll need to add to your bookmarks in order to be a successful couponer. So bear this in mind, and know that you can certainly be more or less hardcore and still save money!

The first thing you'll need to do to begin couponing is to get coupons. Where do you get them? Glad you asked. Start by buying multiple copies of the Sunday newspaper. I buy at least one copy each Sunday and if I know there are coupons I will definitely use I'll buy 2-3. Around these parts you can get the Sunday Statesman Journal at the Dollar Store or Walmart for $1. Sometimes the Oregonian has more/better coupons and I pony up and buy it instead. And don't worry if you don't get to the store on Sunday, I often buy my Sunday paper on Monday or Tuesday!

Aside from the obvious newspaper coupon inserts you can find coupons in a zillion other places. There's a ton that you can find online and print from home. Most online printable coupons can be printed twice per computer, so make sure to print the maximum you can! You can also check out the websites for brands/products you like and find coupons there. Lots of grocery stores give away coupon booklets now and then (Safeway and Albertsons both have one out right now I believe) and when you cruise the aisles keep an eye out for the coupon dispensing machines can take as many as you like. I normally take 3-4, unless it's a really good coupon for something I know I'll buy and then I might just sit there taking coupons from the machine until the cows come home! There are also coupons attached to lots of grocery products (called peelies) and coupons inside the packaging of items you buy. I also sign up for lots of coupon booklets online and have received a multitude of coupons that way. Another trick is to email the companies of products you purchase and ask for coupons. I contacted Tillamook and received a bunch of $.50 off cheese coupons which I never would have gotten otherwise.

Online Sources for Coupons:

So once you have a ginormous stash of coupons how do you store them? I use a binder that zips closed and fill it with plastic baseball card sheets that I bought at Walmart. Then I put my coupons in the baseball card holders and have everything organized by category. I love that I can see all my coupons easily and it's super easy to find what I'm looking for. It is a bit of work to set up but for me it's been totally worth it.

The next variety of coupon I'd like to talk about are e-coupons. Even if you don't want to go through the hassle of cutting coupons you can use these. They are SUPER easy. Basically you sign up and link your store card number to your account and then save the e-coupons to your store card. E-coupons can stack with each other, with the regular paper manufacture's coupons, and also with store coupons. Check out Cellfire, Shortcuts, P&G e-Saver, and Safeway's own E-coupon Program.

Now that you know where to find coupons and how to store them it's time to talk about how to effectively use them! The best deals are usually found by combining a combination of a sale, store coupon, manufacturer's coupon, e-coupons, and/or rebates and then stocking up. It's a lot of work to look through the ads every Sunday but there are so many people out there that do it that you can cut to the chase and read other people's blogs where they've done all the work for you. There are lots of blogs out there that list what's on sale and what coupons to combine to get a good deal.

Here is a list of some of my favorite coupon blogs that do all the work of finding the deals each week:

I have them all in my Google Reader and I check them several times a day. They often post links to online coupons, links to coupon books to be mailed to you, links for freebies (which often come with coupons), as well as grocery/drug store deals.

Once you find a good deal you stock up! Part of how I save money is by buying a lot of something that's a good deal so that I won't have to buy it full price later. There's a sale cycle for just about everything and the longer you coupon the better you'll know how often items go on sale. Some things go on sale frequently (cereal anybody?) and other things go on sale very rarely. If you are brand specific then you really need to pay attention to how often your brand goes on sale and then buy enough to last you until the next sale cycle. Our family is brand specific in shampoo, deodorant, and toothpaste but I still manage to get good deals. I don't pay over $1 for any of it, but if we were not brand specific I would probably never pay for those items. In fact I buy hygiene products for free all the time and donate it to the food bank. We are less brand specific for cereal and now I won't pay over $1 for a box of cereal. It's not hard to do.

I hope this helps some of you out. Later I'll go in detail on what stores I shop and some of the specific strategies for shopping them.

Grace's Eye Appointment

2010-02-10T13:46:00.000-08:00

Grace visited the Casey Eye Institute up at OHSU on Monday morning and we met with the doctor that will be performing her eye surgery this summer. My Mom was gracious enough to let us spend the night with her on Sunday night which got us at least an hour closer. The appointment was at 8:30am which meant that I got the kids up at 6:30am in order to eat and get there without rushing. Mom was a life saver! She drove us up to OHSU and dropped Grace and I off while she kept Ethan for me. That let me concentrate on Grace and her appointment which I sooooooo very much appreciate. That and not having to figure out OHSU parking pretty much made my day!

The doctor met us in the waiting room and was very good with Grace. He's not specifically a pediatric eye surgeon so I wasn't sure how he would handle her. We went back to an exam room and Grace performed the eye exam by reading letters for the first time. Last year I think we used shapes and the times before that they determined her vision by having her look at moving toys across the room while they looked into her eyes with a variety of prisms. He determined that she has 20/40 vision in her right eye (the one with the ptosis) and 20/30 vision in her left eye. This is the first time there's been a difference between the eyes, which makes me feel that the surgery is definitely coming at a good time.

The eye doctor somehow managed to measure her eyelid muscles and determined that Grace does have some muscle in her right eyelid which is a good thing. Then he explained what the surgery would consist of and what the expected outcome will be. The surgery will basically put permanent stitches in her eyelid muscles to help keep the muscle taut. The downside to this is that her right eyelid won't match her left eyelid when she looks down because it will be pulled up. Apparently she's destined to have mismatched eyelids! At least this surgery will give her the ability to look up without moving her entire head. Since there are still a few more years of brain/eye development left she will benefit from doing the surgery now.

OHSU only does pediatric eye surgery on the second Tuesday of the month which gave us three dates to choose from this summer. Both June and July are out due to the rodeos so August it is. The big bummer for Grace will be that she can't put her head under water for a month after the surgery so swimming the second half of the summer will be out. I'll just have to make sure that we do swimming lessons the first half of summer!

I don't plan on really talking about the surgery with Grace until the week prior. I don't want her to dwell on it for six months or have time to get scared of it. Anyone who has experience with a preschooler having a surgery I'd love to hear how you handled it!

A Dress Loving Girl

2010-02-06T21:28:00.000-08:00

Grace loves to wear dresses. She's worn a dress almost every day for a year and a half, only deigning to wear jeans when I insist on such occasions as: camping, going to the pumpkin patch, picking out a Christmas tree, and that's pretty much it. Last year the dress obsession caught me by surprise and I quickly got tired of the five knit dresses she wore in rotation. I was also annoyed that 75% of her closet didn't get worn because she wanted nothing to do with pants. This year I was prepared and I bought one pair of jeans and a multitude of dresses. Lots of dresses. Since this was the first year Grace was entering into preschool I made sure to buy plenty of cheap knit dresses that would survive paint/glue/markers and anything else preschool could throw at us. As it turns out it didn't really matter because Grace is pretty careful and has only come home with something on her dress twice this year.

I shop consignment stores pretty often. While I was in Portland a few weeks ago I decided to stop by a consignment store that I somehow found on Twitter called Mama's and Papa's. Everything was 50% off since they were cleaning out their winter stuff. I didn't find a thing for Ethan but I did find a nice Hanna Andersson coat that will fit Grace next year and this dress. Usually I'm not one for animal prints which is why I passed by it at first. Then I noticed the ruffles. And the bows. I finally pulled it off the rack and Grace took one look at it and immediately wanted to try it on. She was sold hook, line, and sinker and didn't want to take it off. I looked at the tag and decided that for $4 she could have it. The very kind store owner let her wear it out of the store and we did an impromptu photo shoot around the block.

I'm glad I got the dress for her because it's become a favorite. It fits her really well and she obviously loves to wear it! These dancing photos were taken yesterday afternoon when we were taking advantage of the winter sunshine. She wanted me to take pictures of her in her pretty dress. She also wanted to dance. I'd say I killed two birds with one stone.

Cubbies, Popcorn, and Naps

2010-02-05T13:38:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted here in awhile, probably because I've been sharing a photo a day on my Project 365 blog. I don't want to repeat it here and now I've been neglecting sharing what's going on with our family. So here's a small catch up.

Since I've had the camera out more often I've been getting more spontaneous and even more mundane moments. I found myself taking photos of Ethan as he settled down for his afternoon nap one day this week. I figure that the time will come sooner then I'm ready for when afternoon naps will be a thing of the past and I want to remember how sweet he is when he snuggles in with his multitude of stuffed animals and babies. His current crib cohort includes: Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, Eeyore, Baby Boy, Blue Baby, Purple Baby, Pink Baby, Mickie Mouse, two Elmos, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, and Ernie. Oh, and he also insists on having the baby cradle's pillow and blankie in the crib for his babies as well. There's really very little room for Ethan after he stacks his babies up next to him!

And then we have Grace at Cubbies. She's been doing a very good job memorizing her verses this year. We had a difficult start in the fall but now she's got it down pat. They earn patches every month or so and I always ask if she wants Ethan and I to watch the Awards Ceremony and she always says yes. As you can tell by the second photo, she was very happy we were there! I can't believe that I won't have a Cubbie next year. Grace will be a Sparkie (yikes!) and Ethan won't be 3 by September.

And this last photo was taken last night after dinner. Ethan finished his dinner first (actually he inhaled it!) so he got to pick a movie to watch for Movie Night. He chose Veggie Tales. Once Grace finished her dinner (halfway through the movie...it was a struggle!) they earned the right for popcorn. David took a break from his busy work day to watch Veggie Tales with the kids and when they both curled up on his lap with the popcorn bowl I couldn't help but get some photos. Aren't my guys sweet?

Ethan's First Potty Success!

2010-01-28T21:43:00.001-08:00

Late this afternoon Grace came running out of the bathroom exclaiming "Mommy! Mommy! Ethan peed in the potty!" which got me into the kids' bathroom in a hurry to see if she was telling the truth. Grace often lets Ethan in the bathroom with her while she uses the potty and every now and again he practices on the little potty with her. I found him completely naked and sure enough, he had used the potty. Actually he mostly used the floor but he's a two year old boy so I'm not exactly expecting perfection. The intent was obviously there and he was pretty proud of himself! Naturally today was the first day in over two weeks that David was actually working in Corvallis so we called him up on the phone immediately to share the joyous news. Ethan scored a chocolate chip cookie and we grabbed McDonalds hamburgers for dinner to celebrate. Grace was really great about the whole deal. She clapped for him and told me that she was so happy for Ethan that it made her smile. Having such a sweet daughter who is willing to help her little brother potty train makes this Mommy smile!

So now it begins. I won't kid myself into thinking he'll be potty trained overnight because I've been down this road before. Oh boy have I. (See Potty Training 101, Another Round of Potty Training Commences, and Advanced Potty Training) Of course this time I have a helper and Ethan seems much more willing to go potty for Grace then for me and I will take advantage of that with wild abandon. Grace knows that as soon as Ethan is completely potty trained we are going to have a No More Diapers Party complete with cake and presents. It's been in the planning ever since the long, drawn out potty training process we embarked upon when Grace was a toddler. It was David's idea and I have to say I'm fully on board. In fact I already decided that I'm going to gift myself with a new purse when Ethan potty trains because I will no longer need a diaper bag. As much as I love my diaper bag (remember my Ode to my Diaper Bag?) I've been using it ever since 2005 and I'm ready for a change. Something not made of vinyl would be nice.

Playing with Playdough

2010-01-27T22:35:00.000-08:00

I've been picking my camera up a lot more ever since I started the Project 365 and in the 20 days I've been at it I can already tell a difference in photo quality. This past fall I took a bit of a break but now I'm going like gang busters! I've kind of reached the point where I'm feeling limited by my equipment, but have no funds to upgrade. I think I just need to win the lottery.

Anyways, back to the photos at hand. Grace pleaded to play with playdough when she got home from preschool but we had to wait until Ethan woke up from his nap because it's stored on the upper shelf in the kids' closet. Ethan had more fun with the playdough then Grace did! He had a blast rolling it, poking it, and using the cookie cutters. And yes, he also had fun trying to eat it.

And lest you think I only took photos of Ethan today (I can't help it, he's easier) here's one of Grace. I love how the window light makes her little face glow!

Sick Little Boy

2010-01-25T16:34:00.000-08:00

Ethan seems to have a sixth sense for when MOPS is coming up and develops a nasty case of the crud the day before our meeting. This is the second time in a row this has happened and there's a very good chance I'll be leaving him home with Daddy again tomorrow morning. That is, as long as he doesn't have any super important meetings before noon.

My rules for bringing the kids to functions is that a clear runny nose that isn't too bad (i.e. a nose wiper isn't required every 10 seconds) is okay and a stuffy nose with thick snot means we stay home. If we stayed home for every sniffle we would never leave the house. I go nuts if we don't leave the house. Scratch that, we ALL go nuts if we don't leave the house.

Please note that Ethan is not sad in these teary eyed photos. He just woke up from his nap and was actually pretty happy with his special juice (orange flavored Capri Sun) because there was a basketball and a hoop on the front. The teary eyes are due to The Crud or whatever bug he picked up this time.

January Sunset

2010-01-22T19:01:00.000-08:00

Tonight when I let the dog outside I noticed that it was sunset and the sky was turning beautiful shades of pink and purple. I didn't even think twice when I turned around to grab my camera. Unfortunately we don't exactly live in an ideal spot for sunset photos. We have all these scrubby trees behind our row of houses which doesn't exactly make for a very pretty view. I need to take a jaunt around the neighborhood and see if there's anywhere with a halfway decent view within walking distance.

Or I could wake up with sunrise since the view east is clearer (though less pretty with a zillion houses in the view).

On second thought I might just live with the scrubby trees.

Goals

2010-01-20T12:48:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time David was a full time grad student and I worked several remedial jobs. We were no longer poor college students that relied on Winco gift cards from our parents to supplement our $20 a week food budget but we couldn't afford anything beyond rent and utilities either. We had no children yet but were too poor to be footloose and fancy free. We were living in a two bedroom apartment which was about five steps up from the shoebox we lived in when we were newlyweds. In fact at this point in our lives we had been married three years.

I share this to give you some background for this story.

We went on a date to the Baja Fresh in the Lancaster Mall parking lot. We brought a pad of paper and a pen and we spent some time making Life Goals. Things that seemed so far fetched and impossible at the time. Some of it still seems far fetched and impossible but other things seem much more in reach. And we've even crossed some items off the list.

We broke our Goals into categories.

Education:
David wants to get his PhD in History of Science from a university in Minnesota. And possibly get a law degree and work in patent law. He also wants to learn Japanese and how to play the piano.
Kellie wants to get her MAT with a Library Media emphasis. She also wants to learn bookbinding and papermaking.

Travel:
We want to go to Europe (Italy, France, England, Greece, Germany, Ireland, Holland), Hawaii, Japan, Russia, World Cup 2006 (didn't happen), Disney World, and visit every state in the US at least once.

Family:
Have two to four children and have Kellie stay at home for at least a year.

Financial:
Do something really nice for our parents as a thank you. Retire under the age of 60. Make $100,000 collectively. To be comfortable and not have to worry about money (remember we were barey scraping by!). To make giving to charity a priority.

Career Goals:
David wants to get a job working for Nintendo and write a novel. Kellie wants to work for a school district in a famiy friendly career. And possibly own a coffee shop.

Toys/Misc:
Own a house, a cabin, a beach house, a Volkswagon Bug, a Mini Cooper, a surround sound home theater system, have a room dedicated as a library in our home, Kellie to have an art studio, own a Harley, owns a garden, and always have animals for pets.

I would say that some things on this list have changed and others haven't. Obviously we've met a couple and are far from meeting others. It's fun to look at where we were at that time and think about how we're measuring up. David's dream job is still to work at Nintendo and I would still love to have my very own art studio. We need to start planning more road trips around the United States. But most of all I think it's time to update the list. Time for another date to dream some more. It's been five years...

By the way, this fun scrap of paper was found during the Office Remodel Project. More about that later.

Office Remodel Project is Taking Off!

2010-01-15T12:48:00.000-08:00

We are off to a great start on the Office Remodel Project this week. On Wednesday David scored a great deal on a HP Firebird desktop computer and 24" LCD monitor! We haven't owned a desktop since 2001 so this will be a bit of a change for us. The desktop is mostly for me since I'm the only one that uses the computer for anything other then internet browsing and Microsoft Office. Of course David is pretty excited about the possibility of playing a game or two on it. We have an HP Mini netbook that we'll use in the Living Room for internet browsing on the couch or lazy boy. There's just no way we can give up that luxury! The reason we're going with a new desktop is that it's cheaper then a laptop with the same specs, and I really want a decent screen for serious photo editing. Laptop screens are just not the best for photo editing when you want the color you see on the screen to match the color you see when you print.

So now that the new desktop and monitor are on their way it's time to get serious about office furniture. Yesterday I spent the day with my Mom up in Portland and we had a chance to run up to Ikea so I could see some of the desks and sofa beds in person. From measuring the room and pricing file cabinets I think we can get a desk at Ikea for about the same cost as the Door Desk/File Cabinet idea. I'm currently thinking about doing two smaller desks with the file cabinet in the middle. The desk tops are $19.99 each and the legs I like are $20 apiece, though I could probably live with a few of the $10 apiece legs. We'll see. Even if we go with the more expensive table legs we could get two workspaces for $120 which is pretty reasonable.

As for the futon idea, well I have no idea where we're going with that. David seems pretty set on the futon idea and I'm more on board with a sofa bed idea. I may be biased against the futon idea because I remember how terrible the futon was that David had in his dorm room. The mattress pad was constantly sliding down and it wasn't exactly deluxe comfort. I could really pass. I found the Beddinge Sofa Bed at Ikea yesterday and really liked it. I tried it out both as a couch and as a bed and I have to say it was pretty comfortable. The only thing it doesn't have that David will miss are arms. Plus it comes in two colors that I like, a chocolate brown and a pretty green. It's a little spendier then the futon off Craigslist idea, but I honestly think we'd get more use out of it and not hate it. It has actual springs in the mattress pad for heavens sakes!

I even busted out my drafting equipment this afternoon to see how the furniture would fit in the room. I've had that mechanical drafting pencil since I was 14. This isn't exactly an example of my finest work, but when working under the constraints of very cranky toddlers this will have to suffice.

Snow Fun

2010-01-12T15:38:00.001-08:00

I finished editing the photos from our trip to Idaho this afternoon and thought I'd share some photos of the kids playing in the snow. Nampa got snow the day after Portland did so we didn't miss the white stuff while we were gone. Grace and Ethan loved to eat the snow, preferring to lick it off the railing to waiting for a snowflake to fall on their tongue!

David, Grace, and I made a snowman during Ethan's nap one day. David did most of the work, I was manning the camera after all! Grace loved putting the carrot nose and blue bucket hat on the snowman. The eyes are made of leaves and his smile is a twig. Sadly, Frosty did not survive the first night. The wind and rain was too strong and knocked poor Frosty down. He was fun while he lasted.

You may be wondering why Grace is wearing cupcake pajamas to play in the snow. That would be because we didn't bring many pants (she only wears dresses remember?!?) so we did the best we could. I made her wear tights and another pair of pajama pants under them as well. Naturally, the snow pants were left at home.

Project 365 has begun!

2010-01-08T14:20:00.000-08:00

Today I am starting my Project 365! My goal in this endeavor is to improve my photography skills and keep my creative juices flowing. My hope is that by taking a photo every day I will be inspired to try new techniques, angles, genres, etc. and have some fun while I'm at it. I've decided from the get go to not pressure myself unduly to get an edited photo uploaded online every day, it will be hard enough just to remember to grab the camera and snap a shot some days. So I might miss posting a few days here and there but I will take a photo every day. Rather then clutter this blog up every day with a photo I started a new one just for Project 365.

You can find it by clicking HERE or by checking out the "Other Places to Find Us on the Web" tab on the right side column. Bookmark it to check out the daily photo!

Office Remodel 2010

2010-01-07T12:47:00.000-08:00

Remember last year's Home Improvement Goals? I'm proud to say that all three projects were completed in 2009. I'll go ahead and give ourselves a big pat on the back for that.

The 2009 Home Improvement Goals were to pretty up the main bathroom, replace the dilapidated dresser in the kids' room with shelving, and create more toy storage for the living room. Big shout out to my awesome Father in Law for the kids' room shelves and living room toy cubbies. He's definitely been a big blessing!

This year's Big Home Improvement Project is the Office Remodel. We've talked about it for awhile now and this is the year it will happen. Currently our third bedroom functions as an office/guest room/storage room. David works from home at least two days a week and takes a zillion phone calls/meetings and thus needs to be able to shut the door to keep the kids' noise to a dull roar. If you work from home with small children you'll know what I mean. One time David was on a phone meeting with a big wig and was asked if he had a parrot. Actually it was Ethan.

The office function is the room's primary use at the moment. The office furniture includes a desk and two drawer filing cabinet. The wood swivel office chair came from David's grandparents and has sentimental value but could really use some TLC.

The full sized guest bed takes up more then half the available floor space but is only used a few times a year. We would like to be able to accommodate guests, but it seems kind of silly to sacrifice the majority of the space for a guest bed that is used infrequently. The bed frame is an antique, it belonged to my great great grandparents? It's metal and has been painted more times then I can count. It's been painted white ever since I inherited it 20 years ago. I'm not willing to part with the bed frame so we'll probably have to store it in the garage and get rid of the mattresses. In it's place we're envisioning a futon.

The last function of the room is storage, which is what the entire closet and under (ok, and on top of) the bed is for. We also have the Rock Band drums and a banana chair in there as well. The closet could definitely use some more organizing and possibly more shelves. It houses all of my gift wrapping supplies, craft supplies, art supplies (once upon a time I actually enjoyed water colors, batiking, and block printing), sewing supplies (I pretend I can sew), the kids' outgrown clothes in plastic tubs waiting for Ebay, and all my shipping supplies.

I have a vision of what the room could look like if I had no budget and my husband kept his opinions to himself. Since that is not the world I live in I will give up my vision of office/guest room/storage room perfection and work on being practical.

Here's what I'm thinking so far:

*Replace the full sized bed with nice futon (the kind that my Mom won't complain about sleeping on)
*Replace the desk with work surface that will accommodate two people. Thinking about using a solid core door over the filing cabinet with table legs on the other end.
*Buy another office chair
*Buy two long Ikea shelves for the wall
*Buy new desktop computer, or a laptop with docking station and a nice monitor. I am tired of trying to edit photos on a laptop screen!
*Find some cheap storage solutions to hold office supplies on the shelves.

I'd really like to keep our budget for the furniture as low as possible because this is a temporary solution that will hopefully last us 3-4 years. By that time we will either be moving to a larger home or we will be needing to give the room to Ethan. That means recycling what we have, buying used, and finding frugal solutions. David will have a lot more imput on the computer decision since he's much more up to date on such things then I am. We haven't owned a desktop in a long time, the last laptop we bought was when I was pregnant with Grace in spring of 2005 so we're due!

Here's a door desk that looks super cool. The legs came from Ikea. Unfortunately the cool legs take up too much leg room and would make it hard to seat two people at once. Plus they're not the same height as our 29" high filing cabinet.

Since function is more important then form in this case I'm thinking we'll use our ugly filing cabinet (refinished and painted of course!) on one end of the desk and use these boring Ikea table legs on the other side so there's enough room for two chairs at the desk. These are adjustable height and cost $30 apiece. Maybe I can find them cheaper somewhere, I don't know. I'll also need to buy a solid core door and have about 6" cut off to make a 30" deep desktop. That shouldn't cost too much.

If I was designing this room to simply be pretty I'd be buying cute office chairs like this one:

But we'd like to keep the wooden office chair so I'll probably try to refinish it, and David wants one of these soft of ugly but much more comfortable chairs:

I'll probably lose that battle so be prepared for the less cute but more comfortable and mismatching chairs. I'm still working on coming to terms with it myself.

Here's a photo of the type of futon I'll be hunting Craigslist for:

That's all I have figured out so far. As for colors etc. I haven't quite decided. The artwork on the walls at the moment are posters for the rodeos we attend each year and a painting of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's outdoor Elizabethan Theater. They may or may not stay. My husband will probably want the rodeo posters to stay, but they don't really go with the aqua, orange, lime, color scheme I have in my head. The walls are currently painted a light blue which I like and don't really feel like painting.

I'd love to hear any suggestions on how to accomplish this project without breaking the bank!

Morning Has Broken

2010-01-07T09:32:00.000-08:00

Some mornings I just don't want to crawl out of my warm cozy bed.

Scratch that.

Most mornings I don't want to crawl out of my warm cozy bed. But since I am the mother of two small children I am inevitably awoken by my four year old. She's always the first one up. First she uses the potty, leaves the bathroom light on (to aid in my awakening process I am sure), and returns to the room that she shares with her two year old brother. They usually spend 10-15 minutes in their room squealing and throwing stuffed animals and dolls at each other from their respective beds. At some point Grace decides she's ready for breakfast and that's when she happily informs me that it's "seven oh oh" and time to wake up.

I am not a morning person.

Once Grace leaves the bedroom Ethan begins his loud protest at being left in his crib all alone. He does not like to be left behind. While I rescue Ethan from his crib Grace usually sets the table for herself and Ethan and gets out the cereal. They each eat a bowl of cold cereal and a bowl of yogurt for breakfast.

This morning was a little different. This morning while I listened to the kids giggle in their room together I looked out the window above our bed and discovered that the sky was pink and blue. I often see things and wish I had the time/opportunity to take a photograph. And then I realized that I could make the dream become a reality by putting on some slippers and a jacket and running outside with the camera.

So I did.

I stood in the wet grass and hoped the neighbor's didn't look out their kitchen window to see my in my pajamas taking photos of the moon. I'm glad I acted quick enough to get a few photos because like so many beautiful moments in life the pink sky lasted mere minutes.

I'm contemplating starting a 365 Photo Challenge as a challenge to myself and for fun. I've backed off of my camera recently but I think it's time to pick it up again. I really do enjoy photography and want to improve my skills. What better way then to practice every day?

For those who aren't in the know, a 365 Photo Challenge is a challenge to take and post a photo every day for a year. I'm pretty sure I could handle taking a photo every day (as long as I don't forget!), but getting the time to edit and post the photos every day could be a challenge.

Christmas in Idaho

2009-12-30T17:55:00.000-08:00

We're still in Idaho and I have some fantastic photos of the kids playing in the snow this morning but first I want to share our Christmas photos. Christmas in Idaho is always a whirlwind of activity and this year wasn't any different. Christmas Eve found us at David's Opa and Oma's house with all of his aunts, uncles, and cousins. It's a zoo. It's also a lot of fun and always involves plenty of yummy food! Part of the celebration includes a gift exchange. Since there are 22 of us we draw names after Thanksgiving and thankfully only have to shop for four presents. This year we drew three of David's younger cousins and one of his aunts. We open presents starting with the youngest, which is Ethan, and end with Opa and Oma. We started earlier then usual this year and were home by 9:30pm which was pretty good for Christmas Eve. I attempted to put the kids down to bed though I doubt Grace did much sleeping that night. After we got the kids to sleep we helped Santa out by putting out the shoe stuffers (remember we do wooden shoes!) and the Big Santa Presents. This year Santa left Grace a Princess Tiana doll which is what she has been talking about all month. Good thing that Santa remembered to include it in the sleigh because it nearly got forgot! Santa left Ethan a marble run because he knows how much he enjoys the one in the toy store by Grandma's house. That Santa sure is clever.

We actually woke up before the kids Christmas morning but they were stirring by 7:30am so we didn't have to wait long. Grace was ecstatic to find Princess Tiana by her shoe and Ethan was enthralled with his marbles. We spent a few hours opening presents and it was so much fun to watch Grace. Every present was met with such exclamations as "what a wonderful bracelet!" and gasps of delight. She was a very lucky girl. Ethan was slower in opening presents because he likes to enjoy each gift a bit before moving on to the next. He seemed mostly thrilled with a Diego bat and baseball I scored on clearance at Kmart for $1.49 last August. Just goes to show that it's not always the spendiest present that gets the most love! After all the presents were opened we enjoyed our traditional Christmas breakfast of Butterscotch Rolls (two pans worth because David and Sam inhale one all by themselves!) and Breakfast Egg Casserole.

Grandpa and Grandma came over to join us in time for an early Christmas dinner. They both received a Snuggie as a gift (as did my Mother in Law...though hers was tainted with BSU paraphernalia) which I had to get photos of. I still don't get the point of those things. Wouldn't wearing a fleece robe be about the same thing?

Oma helped Grace get beautiful before going to the Christmas Eve gathering. She curled her hair and helped her put on lip gloss which is a super cool thing when you're four. She looked beautiful!

Here's Grace in her Christmas dress on Christmas Eve.

And here is Ethan on Christmas wearing his brand new basketball pajamas and holding onto the new $1.49 baseball bats. He's one happy camper!

Santa Made a House Call!

2009-12-24T13:05:00.000-08:00

We made the long drive to Idaho on Tuesday and on Wednesday morning a special visitor arrived at the front door. Santa made a house call because he heard that Grace and Ethan would be spending Christmas at Opa and Oma's house and he wanted to be sure he could find them on Christmas Eve. Grace was delighted to see Santa and Ethan wasn't very sure. But Santa brought candy and presents which calmed Ethan down pretty quick, and he even smiled at him...from a distance. Before Santa had to leave he got a hug from both kids. They're pretty lucky kids to get a visit from Santa!

If you can't tell from the photos (and the kids didn't catch on either!) Santa is my father in law in disguise. David about died laughing when he asked his Dad how he was going to disguise himself and he said he'd take off his glasses. Now we know that not only does it work for Superman, but also for Santa Claus!

Painted Cookies Recipe

2009-12-12T09:34:00.000-08:00

I've been making Painted Cookies for Christmas for as long as I can remember. Of course when I first started making Painted Cookies my job was to paint. These days my job is roll out the cookies so my kids can do the painting! It's a great recipe to make with little kids. Our cookies turned out beautiful this year thanks to both Grace and Ethan's artistic touch. Grace's cookies were mostly done in solid colors while Ethan was into swirls of color.

Painted Cookies
1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
3 1/2 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Stir in dry ingredients and then chill dough. Roll out dough and cut with cookie cutters. Decorate with Egg Yolk Paint and then bake at 375 degrees for 5-6 minutes.

Egg Yolk Paint
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp water
food coloring

I do the same four colors we've always done but you can use as many colors as you want. Make the Egg Yolk Paint recipe for as many colors as you plan to use. I bought cheap paint brushes from the Dollar Store several years ago for this recipe. It's definitely a kid pleaser!

Holiday Happenings

2009-12-12T09:05:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy week and I'm sure you all can relate. We've been busy trying to keep up with our regular schedule while adding in fun holiday activities and unsuccessfully dodging the stomach bug. Every family has their own holiday traditions and we're no exception. Some traditions started out very purposefully and others just sort of happen on their own accord. Here's how we're doing on my list of "Christmas Stuff I Hope Will Happen This Year".

Accomplished:
*Nightly Devotional & lit candle with dinner
*Christmas Tree set up with lights
*Bake Painted Cookies
*Bake Candy Cane Cookies
*Attend our small town's tree lighting ceremony and visit with Santa
*Decorate the house & put up the nativity
*Attend Indoor Park Christmas Party

Yet to Be Accomplished or Just Plain Not Happening This Year:
*Putting up Christmas lights outside (decided against it this year)
*Putting ornaments on the tree (supposed to happen today...it's hard to get the four of us at home at the same time!)
*Bake Egg Nog Cookies, Gingerbread Boys, and Sugar Cookies
*Bake a rum cake for David
*Finish Christmas shopping (I'm probably 10% done....eeeeek!)
*Wrap all of the gifts
*Christmas Cards...not sure I have the energy to do them this year. Can I just do one on the blog or is that tacky?)
*Attend the Salem Festival of Lights Parade (it's tonight but the weather forecast is looking a little iffy)
*Watch Christmas Vacation
*Take my Mom and Grace to see The Nutcracker (we go next weekend!)

I'm sure there's more to add to both lists but you get the idea. This weekend we're hoping to finally put the ornaments on the tree, take Grace to see the new Disney Princess movie, go to Salem's Festival of Lights parade (depending on weather of course), go to our Church's Christmas Cantata (Grace is singing O Little Town of Bethlehem), and possibly go to our church's Community Christmas Carol Sing. I may need to bake some more Christmas cookies to bring to church on Sunday to share for fellowship time as well. Hmmmm. Maybe we're too ambitious.

This is the only decent picture I have from when we got our tree last Monday. It was FREEZING cold so we were fast. We got our tree from our favorite tree farm in town owned by a couple that attend our church. We found them before we realized they went to our church and were super impressed and will be repeat customers as long as we live in the area!

I almost forgot my camera in our haste to get to Indoor Park Friday morning for our Christmas party. We had a last minute scramble to find a Santa and wound up with a junior high aged Santa. The kids didn't seem to care, and Ethan was super happy to get a candy cane.

I took Grace outside to brave the cold for two minutes to take some pictures because she looked so cute in her Christmas outfit yesterday. Afterwards she bundled up to play on the swingset for 5 minutes before I got too cold and made her come back inside.