i may just win world’s worst mom for this one!  poor charlotte.  she’s picked up norah’s cold and has a green drippy nose, and the cranks – big time.  after not sitting down for a while, rocking and bouncing her,  i had to sit down and take a five minute break…. with her on my lap, of course!  the waterworks started right away, and her little sad faces were so cute, i couldn’t help grabbing the camera.

this is has to be my favorite!

now, i swear, i don’t torture her ALL day.  she actually spends most of the day with a smile on her face.

these pictures make me crack up, too.  john’s aunt sent me a gift card to loft for christmas.  i hadn’t spent it yet, since i am still trying to lose the baby weight.  well, i lost a pair of my glasses last week (which i actually found today – oops!), so i bought a couple of pairs of new glasses from LOFT.  they came today and the kids thought they were hilarious!  the one pair is huge – john is going to totally make fun of me… but i love them, lol!

aren’t they a riot?  we had a silly day!  we made pizza (the last two weeks we’ve made naan, and made little pizzas out of those – yum!), and just goofed around all afternoon!  i am excited for more time with my kiddos in a few weeks when school is out!

and look at my little performer!  norah thinks she’s in a pageant most of the day.  she does twirls, and double hand kisses, and LOVES to pretend that little spots all over are a stage.  today’s stage was the cover over our basement windows!  she was doing her princess kisses, and showing off her dress, and most importantly – her new trick – “PLITS!” (straddles, lol!)  lord help me with this one, lol!

i am looking forward to a quiet weekend!  john works a lot this weekend, and i think we’re sticking close to home.  it’s supposed to be chilly out all weekend – perfect opportunity to hang out in pj’s!

john’s grandmother passed away friday, so he flew home for the funeral.  he left with one suitcase, & came home with an extra!  is was full of all sorts of my favorite yummy philly goodies!  redhouse bagels, philly pretzels, stock’s pound cakes, & tastycakes!

and what ethan was most excited for – john’s old legos, from when he was a kid!  ethan seiously did not move from these legos until we forced him to come to the table to eat dinner!

it’s finally been getting warm out again.  after i picked ethan up from school, i took the three littles over to a playground we haven’t been to in a while & we ate lunch, & they ran off some energy!  me and charlotte hung out under a tree!

it was a nice day, & besides ethan not wanting to put the legos down – there was no kid drama, everyone got along pretty well!

charlotte’s been pretty cranky, though.  i think she might be getting a tooth.  i hope not.  i want her little forever!  :P

Oh man, I just learned today that our most favorite park back in virginia was burned down by arsonists earlier this month!!  :(  how horrible is that?  it was a great park, made mostly of wood.  and so much fun for every age!

here are some pictures of my kids in 2007, and 2008  - weeks before we moved enjoying the park.

2007

2008

and this is part of what it looks like now. (ap pic – not my shot).  WHO does this?!

without donations or extra funds, they have said it will not be rebuilt.  please take a minute of your day and vote for fun forest on sears’ website to help them get $30,000 towards rebuilding!!  my kids will thank you, they would love to be able to come back to this park when we move back next year!  you can vote every day, and while they are ahead at the moment – there is still plenty of time for that to change!  They are #3 on the top row.

Sears.com – More Green Across America!

we have had some WILD weather the past couple days.  it is currently raning and snowing at the same time.  yesterday was pretty crazy, though.  it was beautiful early morning, drizzly and chilly when i took ethan to school at 8:30, warm and sunny at 11 when i picked him up, very dark and windy when i went to kayleigh’s earth day ceremony at 2, and then the tornado sirens went off and it started hailing!  i know i say it so often, but colorado’s weather is just crazy!!  norah had fun splashing in some puddles yesterday in kayleigh’s old rainboots while everyone was at school .  she got some pretty good air!

the boots are about two sizes too big – she’ll grow into ‘em, right??  :P

silly charlotte

so yesterday, before the lightning and tornado sirens interruped, there was a big earth day ceremony at kayleigh’s school.  each grade raised enough money (by donating pocket change), to buy a tree!  so each grade helped plant their tree, and they tied a yellow ribbon around it for the parents that are deployed.  the news was there, and they taped the kids all reading some poems.  i’d love to share it, but the school’s name is pretty prominent in the video ….. they also got 10 shade tree from mile high million!  it was a busy day!

about 10 minutes after i took the picture above, we were back home, and this is what it looked like outside!!  crazy, huh?  looks like something out of a scary movie, lol.

and this is just to show you how much changing the way you are taking the picture make a difference.  these are both SOOC (stright out of camera) and were taken within seconds of each other.  in the picture on the picture to the left, the sun was behind norah.  therefore, since i was exposing for her skin, it totally blew out the sky because it was so bright with the sun there.  i walked around to the other side so the sun was behind me – and wow – look at all that color!

we’ve had a nice few days lately.  the weather has started out cruddy (check the gray skies in most of these pics!), but gets pretty nice in the afternoon.  so we’ve been spending a lot of time outside.  this first picture cracks me up.  i was taking a picture of kayleigh’s crazy getup (norah’s jacket, a pettiskirt, an apron, high heels…) when ethan jumped in and stole the show, lol!

i’m a mean mom.  i always buy the big gallon of cheap bubbles at target.  they aren’t the best bubbles, but we go through them like crazy!  the last gallon i bought got knocked over the day we bought it, & was pretty much empty.  i got one of those big no spill big bubble buckets on clearance last year at target for two bucks, so now it is the only way they are allowed to use the bubbles.  anyway, we were at the exchange on base the other day, and i went to grab more, but they didn’t have the cheap gallons.  i got some super bubbles for them and they work so much better.  we’ve made our own bubbles before, but they never seem to work as well.  maybe i need to try a different recipe.  i think i’m going to try to make some nice wands with jewelry making wire for norah’s birthday (LATE, I KNOW!!) pictures when i get to them hopefully this weekend (weather is not looking great!).

see me?

yesterday we were out front riding bikes ( even me – john just bought me  a cute cruiser!), and i laid charlotte down for a minute and squealed when i saw how nice the light was!  i am definitely going to have to give it a shot with my stand and paper tout there in front of the garage one of these days.

we’re still working on convincing kayleigh she will not die without training wheels.  she would rather ride her razor than go anywhere near her bike.  we decided to make her bike into a balance bike.  she did so well that way, but there is no way it will ever be a pedal bike again, lol!  that is okay, we have three other kids that will get to use it.she did so much better “scooting” than when we tried just without training wheels.  hopefully it’ll be a step in the right direction!

this has a lot of motion blur (my shutter speed was 1/25 – it was getting pretty dark), but look at this sneak!  she got a spoon and a jar of nutella while we were outside corralling all the bikes in the garage!!  i keep telling john, she’s going to be the one sneaking out late at night, and getting into trouble.  we need to keep a close eye on this one!!

that sounds wrong, lol.  this is the start of earth day week!  i wish i could say that is why we started our seeds today, but we’re really just late in the game & had a free day to do it finally!  we used organic soil and organic seeds (the seeds are b1g1free at home depot this week!).  we’ll switch to mel’s mix when we plant them outside, but i wanted to get started & didn’t want to search for everything today.  we did square foot gardens a couple years ago with great results, but since we’ve moving next summer, we’re going to stick to containers this year.  it’s too hard to fix the grass under the boxes every time we move!  i am happy to see they sell the mix already mixed now, although not cheap – but we’re not doing big boxes, so it should be fine.   vermiculite was a huge pain to find last time!!  you can see the boxes behind ethan a little here – SUPER OLD PIC.  look how itty bitty ethan was!!  :)

(hey christy – look – the sky is blue!! ha)

kayleigh made one say “rick thick, ted red” … apparently her stuffed animal’s names, lol!

we’re going light this year.  two tomato, two green onion, cucumbers, zucchini (we only need one, we learned last time!  lol), radish, cantaloupe, and two flowers the kids picked.

we are so proud of kayleigh.  she’s has had an awesome year of first grade (only a few more weeks left!!), and has been doing so great.  she genuinely LOVES school.  on monday,  she got a letter home from the mayor.  it was outlining an award she won, and the ceremony that was to take place for it.  she was named an aurora scholar.  there is one child per grade 1-12 for each school that is awarded, and she was the first grader for her school!   how awesome is that?!

from the school’s website:  ”The program, designed to identify students who strongly contribute to the life and community of their school, and was created as a way for the City of Aurora, schools, and families to come together to celebrate the achievements of Aurora’s future leaders.  Selection of students is conducted by school principals, who may receive input from teachers and guidance counselors. The program aims to honor not just those who excel academically, but also those who may be excellent athletes, great citizens, dedicated volunteers or otherwise make significant contributions within the school community.”  she thought it was so cool.  when her her principal gave her the notice from the mayor, she told her that she is one of the smartest kids in the school and i think that really made her day, more than anything else!

she was so excited to go to the ceremony.  she got to sit with her principal, and they were chatting the whole time.  :)  after we left, she was so excited to tell us that everyone in the line on stage told her how cute and smart she was, and that her dress was pretty and they loved her sparkly shoes, lol.  she cracks me up!

they all got gold keys on lanyards for “keys to their future” … or something like that, lol!  we’ve seen a lot of that key the last few days!  it’s her newest prized possession!

she can have her mood swings, but she really is a great kid.  i am so lucky to be her mom!

someone emailed me asing if i had any similar pictures with both lenses.  i didn’t, but i took a couple real quick this afternoon.  both picture were taken at an aperture of 1.8, and at the same distance from the subject.  ignore the crazy exposure and focus.  this is just to show the difference in how much you get in the scene at each focal length.   the 35mm will focus at juuust under a foot from your subject, and the 50mm at 18″.

35mm

50mm

35mm

50mm

i’m in a photography rut.  i think the biggest part of it is that i am holding a baby the better part of the day, so  it’s hard to really shoot more than snapshots.  i know that is what really counts, and i’ll always be glad to have those … but i feel like i am sort of stuck.  i need something to push me to do better, try harder, learn more.  but i also need a nap.