practice and eggs

This is one cool kid, isn't it? Alex was good enough to pose for me... a little practice for senior season that's comming up soon.











one of these with the hood up is going to end up on a canvas in our living room. Now if only I could decide WHICH one.... hmmmm, decisions, decisions.

And a one of the aftermath of egg dying to Isabelle's hands. What, me use a silly spoon to scoop them out of they dye? NAAAH, spoons are for wimps! I'll just reach right in there and grab them! Besides, look at all the pretty colors my fingers can turn- it's a rainbow on my hands! The eggs survived rather well- of the 16 we started with, they ALL made it. Untill easter morning, when Daddy taught her how to WACK it on the table to peel them for breakfast that is.

The Adoption is FINAL!!!

Alex is OFFICIALLY Earl's son. That makes him officially his responsibility and in the event of my demise or misplacement, Earl is the ONE. The one who will be held accountable for what the boy does. Yup- I doubt that's how either of them looked at it, but in my head, I got a little chuckle whenever I thought of it that way. LOL. It was funny, when the court appointed investigator came and asked us a TON of questions about just about everything- she asked Alex what was going to change... he said "Nothing really... my last name... but that's really it". Yah, and he's right, that is really all that changed. It's amazing to realise that Earl's been his Dad for 4 years already... time has flown by. SO... this time, in this post, it's all about Alex. My sweet little boy is growing up. And doing a fine job of it (though he really needs to work on that math thing, just ask him, he'll tell you!) Oh, when we were all getting ready to go into court the other day, I had a little talk with him. I told him that this is to be his first and LAST time in a court of law, unless he becomes a Lawyer. He said he just may become a JUDGE... I said that was fine, but you have to be a lawyer first! lol. He's got big aspirations... hey, don't tell him that lawyers and judges probably don't really use a lot of math!

All of us-


And now, some of the boy that I love...

just a few, playing with texture too.

I've been busy snapping away, but I am still behind in processing and getting further behind with every little click of that shutter.I am back at the studio again and I started training for senior sessions last week . I've come to realise- I'm trigger happy. Give me one of those remote triggers and I tend to go nuts. I also did some families and had a blast. I've realised that I'm also capable of acting like a complete buffoon without a second thought as to what the parents are going to think of me, or my coworker whose helping me learn the new equipment etc. It helps that they're both really good at looking like apes right along with me.

The kids are doing well. Isabelle keeps us busy with swimming and our school. At this point, we do it all together. I know I'll be sad next year when she starts nursery school and starts doing things all by herself. I really enjoy getting to be there for all of her activities and excitement. Man, she's a fish too! She's kind of fearless when it comes to water, so we really need to get her competent with swimming. Or at least to where she doesn't sink immediately. She likes to swim with the noodles, but for some reason, neither the coach nor I can figure it out, she still SINKS. Those things will hold ME up, yet she sinks it! I think she's going to be a breast-stroker, she's already got the frog kick down pat... it's pretty funny to see her quasi hopping in the pool. As far as Alex goes, he's got an activity almost every day after school. Karate 2 nights and tutoring 2 nights. Plus his friends that he'd probably spend every minute afterschool with if he could. He actually looks forward to going to school so that he can see them! For anyone that knows him, this is HUGE.

Oh, one little funny story about Alex, then we'll see a few pictures... So he got new sheets for his twin bed recently. They're very cool, because they're black. They go with his beadspread that he got for Christmas, which is also black. He just loves these things. Well, lately he's grown a bit, and also become a more restless sleeper. That bed's getting kind of small. (can you guess where this is going?) Yup. He's taken to falling out of his bed in the middle of the night. We have a queen for him, but since we don't have the black sheets that fit it, he's reluctant to switch. We were going to switch his beds this weekend, but he didn't want to give up the ubercool black sheets quite yet. Ok, well, he haddn't fallen out in about 3 weeks, so we let it go. Well, I went to bed kind of late last night, and guess what I heard about 5 minutes later. THUD. Guess it's time to just switch him. Maybe I'll buy him some black queen sized sheets, so he can have an ubercool queen sized bed.

****disclaimer- I do have pics of Alex, I just haven't gone through them. If I waited untill I had them done it could be next week or next month before I had a minute to do a post... I swear I do take pics of the boy!!****

Ok, now for the pictures!

Catching up, a little at a time.

So I've finally gotten through another session I did in RAW that made me fall so far behind. I'm still not caught up yet, but I'm certainly closer. Today I'm mostly just going to share some pics... and save the ramblings for another post, k?

well, this is how our little session went... if I had to sum it up in one picture.


and the rest... it was just a silly, fun little shoot with both of my kiddos...













And now for the FEET! I adore these stinky little pea toes...






And a little bit of ME... and my mini

So far behind, I think I'm first?

So my weekly posts haven't been happening, but it's not 3 months later, so that's somehting, right? I've been shooting RAW and since the process is so new it takes me alot longer to process a single image, and don't get me started on batch processing! I haven't quite figured that one out yet. I did find out that I can process RAW with an Adobe plug in. That's great, and now that it's "on" my computer I am one step closer to shortening my process time... I just need to figure out what went wrong when I downloaded the plug in and why my computer isn't seeing it AT ALL. Hmmm. SO- I'll shoot in jpeg again untill I figure that one out. I have been pretty good about my pic a day goal, but between me, E and the boy all getting seriously sick this past week, I did slack off a couple of days.
Iz has been bussy talking up a storm and once I break out the rosetta stone I can usually figure out what she's saying. Most of the time it's really great- full sentences great. However, occasionally she can't quite find the words for what she wants to say and will babble a bunch of stuff and throw in a recognizable word or two. She gets so mad when we can't figure out what she's saying, she repeats it untill we get it (or are able to distract her with such things as candy and trips to the pet store to see puppies). She also thinks she's quite funny and sneaky. Her favorite thing to do lately is "suprise" us by tiptoeing up to one of us and screaming "BOO" over and over again, untill we act suprised. Doesn't matter if she knows we just watched her walk across the room right infront of us, we MUST be suprised. LOL. A is loving the 3 day weekend and didn't complain once when I had him help me clean the kitchen and livingroom... you know a kid doesn't want to go to school when he's happy to clean on his day off.
Anyway, I guess I should get to the pictures, huh? I swear I take pictures of A, it's just he's not home most of the time and poor Iz gets to be my guinnea pig... she'd rather I took pics of A and left her alone!





Goofing around:

New Year, New Resolutions

Well, to say it's been a while would be an understatement. I'm not working right now, so I don't have that as an excuse anymore. I WILL post more often. In fact one of my many goals for the year is to do a photo project. The 365 project is one where you take one picture a day for a year (minimum). I plan to post my pictures here- to keep me honest and on track with the project, and to keep me posting on here! I will not be posting every day, but hopefully once a week (or more) I'll do a 365 post. I have been feeling a tad uninspired lately, mostly due to the fact that it's winter, too cold out for pics and very little light. That all makes for alot of pictures done in my living room. BORING.

The Holidays are over (thank god!) and we're all trying to settle back into our routines again. I have alot of new goals for the year, I refuse to call them resolutions though. Resolutions are arbitraty things that I abandon as soon as the newness of the idea has worn off, goals are things that I need to accomplish in order to set new goals and continue to grow.

Some of my goals are personal (loose 20 lbs is one of them) some are family oriented (potty train Isabelle- that is going to be one big challange) and some are professional (get myself out there and do some PBing shoots). Well, the photo project is one other personal one that will hopefully affect my professional life.

Ok, this post is rambling on enough. Lets get to the pics />