Exhibitionists

So you know how you're walking along in life minding your own business and out of the corner of your eye you see a couple being a little more intimate in public than socially acceptable? You want to look away, pretend they are not there, but you also can't help but stand there in shock at what you are seeing?

Well, I had one of those days this weekend. Even more my kids were with me. And then the questions started...

I really wanted to tell those two to get a room, to have some modesty, to think about who might see them. Instead, I took the kids away, distracted them with toys and went on with my life as if I had not seen what I had.

Something tells me they wouldn't have understood anyway...

My Little Girl

This is a shot I took this weekend at our new house. Jason was working on our bathroom and I had been outside squirting the kids with the hose while they pretended to wash the van. LOL

When they were finally soaked through and tired of "working" they started rummaging through all the boxes I'm sorting to get ready for our yard sale. Mia had found a couple of her big sisters old Care Bears and was playing and looked so cute I had to take a pic.

She's growing up too fast, too.

Photojournalism

This week's theme at I Heart Faces is a little bit different. For this challenge, they've defined photojournalism as using an image (or images) to tell a story.

I've spent a lot of time going though picture after picture trying to decide which one to enter. I finally decided on a photo that is not a recent one. In fact it is one I took with my first 35mm camera. I don't expect it to be chosen because, well, it was taken by a 12 year old who knew nothing other than that she loved to take pictures. It's also a little battered and had to be scanned into my computer by my less than stellar scanner/printer.

I have always loved photography. As a kid, my dad was an enthusiast and I caught the bug from him. I received my first camera in second grade (it had Smurfs on it!) and after using that to death, was given my first "real" camera in fifth grade. It was a Canon Sure Shot with a remote and I loved it. I especially loved using the remote to sneak pictures when people least expected it. lol I used that camera for almost 16 years until I got my first digital point and shoot (also Canon!) when I was pregnant with Anakin. I actually still have the 35mm and it's still in perfect working order. :)

Growing up I always had my camera with me and I have hundreds of pictures in boxes from field trips and parties and school days. I'm amazed I didn't send my parents to the poor house from developing all that film but because of my obsession, I have tons of pics of things that I'm so thankful I have.

I took this picture the summer after sixth grade when my Girl Scout troop went to New York for a week. We spent a couple of days in New York City seeing the sights. I have many pictures from that trip and plenty of the famous New York skyline, all featuring the towers, but this has always been my favorite shot. I love the crowd of people, especially the older lady in the corner. I love how it was a very overcast day and how the towers seem to fade into the sky.

Kindergarten

So, today Anakin went to his first day of Kindergarten. Last night I laid out his clothes, packed his lunchbox and backpack, and had a mini panic attack that my little boy was going to be at school all.day.long. LOL

And of course, I had my camera ready this morning. However, the only picture I got where he wasn't wriggling with excitement like the little puppy I've always thought he was was at breakfast.

I don't think he was impressed with me that early in the morning.

Most mornings I will drop him off in the loop at school, but today I walked him into the gym to meet his teacher. Of course Mia was with me and had to give him lots of hugs and loves before he left her all day.

He just wanted me to put the camera down and take him inside so he could start his day. LOL

The first things he told his teacher once we went inside were that "my Nessa bought me this lunchbox and it's a puppy because that's my nickname my mommy calls me". He also told her that he was almost a Jedi but that for now he was just his daddy's padawan. Oh, and he has lots of lightsabers.

That's my boy. <3

First Day of Middle School

This morning, Claudia started sixth grade. First of all, I'd like to know how the heck that happened?! It was easier when Jesse went to middle school because at least then I could say that I didn't give birth to him, so it didn't count. Know what I mean? Never mind the fact that he starts high school (High school?!) on Monday.

But now...now...I have no excuse. Nothing can erase the fact that I just dropped my firstborn off at middle school this morning. And Tuesday is Anakin's first day of Kindergarten. Full day Kindergarten. I will only have Mia from 8am to 3pm every day. I'm not going to know what to do. I guess I could clean the house or something.

You know, after I'm done inspecting my gray hairs and wrinkles.
OK, so not really. I'm mean, I'm only 32.

So, anyway. This morning she was up and ready in no time. I tried to grab a couple of pics before I took her to school.

Can you tell that she was not enthused with the picture taking? She was ready to go and there I was making her smile for the camera. I got that shot of her and then she was "Can we go now?"

She was just a little excited about her first day. That is until we pulled up to the curb to drop her off and then her voice started to crack a little and the nervousness slipped in a bit. I did good though, I didn't shed a single tear.

Until she was out of the van. LOL

How Time Flies

It's hard to believe a year (and summer!) has passed already and it's time for the kids to go back to school. Claudia starts middle school on Friday, Jesse starts HS and Ethan begins his last year of elementary on Monday, and Anakin begins all-day Kindergarten on Tuesday.

Obviously, since none of my kids have returned to school yet, I don't have any new pictures for Trendy Treehouse's FDOS theme this week, but I do have a pic from last year when Anakin went to his first day of PreK.

While we waited outside for the rest of the kids to arrive, Anakin was showing Mia all the "cool" stuff about his new school including the brick with the year the school was built on it. LOL Hard to believe next year it will be Mia's turn.

Beach Fun

This week's theme at I Heart Faces is beach fun. We are lucky enough to live within an hour of many great beaches. This year we've not gone as often as we normally would because we've been renovating our new house but I did get some great shots one evening when we met Jason after work and spent a couple of quiet hours at the beach.

Anakin loves the beach because he loves to play in the sand. He never goes into the water past his feet, but he will dig and build in the sand all day. By the time we're leaving, he's covered head to toe in sand. I still don't know how he does it. LOL

Sew Relaxing

This week's theme at Trendy Treehouse is My Favorite Things and I'm a day late. lol

Partly because it's back to school time and my house is crazy with getting four of the five kids dressed, shoe'd and supplied for the year. But I'm also late because it's a hard choice to make. I think of my kids first when I think of what's most important to me, but they are not things, they are my heart on (multiple pairs of) two feet.

Then I think of what things I have that make me happiest; do I pick the things that are sentimental in value like my rings my father bought my mother, or the quilt my grandma made? Do I pick my camera (obvious choice) or my Nook (also obvious if you know me IRL)? In the end I picked this:

I love to sew and find it very relaxing. I started sewing in high school in home-ec and found that I was good at it. I seldom use patterns; I love taking what is in my head and making it real.

I don't sew as often as I would like to as we don't really have a good space for it all the time and I'm busy with all those kids, but Halloween is coming and that means it's time to start designing costumes! I spend hours every year designing and sewing my kids' costumes; I've done princesses, and fairies, banshees and zombies and Sweeney Todd, a dragonfly, and a pirate.

Also, we're moving and I've promised the kids new bedding and curtains for their rooms which I will sew for them. Even better is that we have a small alcove off of the living room that I'm setting up as the homework/craft area so I'll have more room to sew!

Portraits of Hope

This week at I Heart Faces everyone is posting about their experiences using photography to give back to the community to bring attention to a wonderful group of photographers that are giving back by taking photos for families of children that are ill.

Please click the image above for more information. :)

However, considering that I've just recently started shooting for people other than my family members, I didn't think I had anything to add. But I'd forgotten something.

Last year I worked with a group called Portraits of Hope in my area. Their purpose was to try to get information out to the public about children from our area in the foster care system. These are children that are either in foster homes or in group homes (sadly, all but one of the kids I photographed lived in group homes.) All these kids are ones that need homes and forever families and the hope was that getting their faces out there would help find them homes.

Now, in order for me to do this I had to sign away my rights to the pictures I took because I was working with the foster program. A small thing when you remember that these kids don't have families but I cannot share them here. I can however, link to a news report about Portraits of Hope that was on the local TV station and in it you do see one of my pictures (the girl with the pretty beads in her hair--she was so sweet but shy. She liked trying to pose for me though, and that picture was the one she liked. :) ) You can see a couple of others in the background.

Heart and Soul: Portraits of Hope

Doing this was an experience I will never forget and one I'm glad I did. Of course, I don't get updates on the kids (privacy and all) but I truly hope that they've all found families now. If I didn't already have five kids, I'd probably have been trying to bring them home with me. They were all great kids.

More Newborn pictures

I edited a few more photos yesterday and wanted to share a couple more. I've found editing baby pictures to be a learning process, also.

For this one I was inspired by a pic I'd seen previously. I think I like how it turned out. :)

I also wanted to share this collage I made using some of the pictures I took. I did this just for fun. :)

Night Sky and the Full Moon

Last night was the full moon and the clouds made the sky look really cool last night so I had to snap a quick picture. I didn't have my tripod so it's not very sharp but still wanted to share.

Newborn Photography

Last Friday, I had a chance to try some newborn photography. It wasn't until my babies were much older that I started getting serious with photography so I've never tried to take more than a snapshot of a little baby. Luckily, a girl I went to high school with was kind enough to allow me to come over and take some shots for practice.

He was the sweetest baby, and very alert. I was only able to get a couple of sleepy shots of him, mostly when I was checking my settings and the light. lol He was oh, so calm and good-natured though, and I got a few shots that I am happy with.

I also got some shots that I ended up not liking and no good full body shots. I'm not too disappointed, though because I definitely learned a lot from the experience and feel much more confident than I did at the beginning of the day. And really, learning was what it was all about. :)

I'm still editing and making decisions on the shots that I did get before he got hungry, but thought I'd share some that I've already done.

One of the shots I got while checking my settings.


This was taken when he was starting to get fussy. He had a bright turquoise pacifier in his mouth that shows a bit in the color version. The B&W hides it nicely. :)

Sports!

This week's theme at Trendy Treehouse is sports and since I promised Anakin that I would enter a picture of him next, this was an easy decision.

This is my favorite picture of Anakin from t-ball this year. I love the way he's standing next to first base, how small he looks (he was the smallest on his team), how one sock is falling down and the pants are riding up, and how his bottom is already dirty and it was the top of the first inning. But most of all I love seeing how he was proud to wear his big sister's old helmet, Rainbow Brite stickers and all.

Purple and Periwinkle Princess

This weeks theme at I Heart Faces is the color purple and you would think, having two girls (one that absolutely loves the color), that I would have more pictures featuring it. And then I started going through months and months of pictures and realized how few I really have.

I still wanted to participate though, so I decided to use a picture I took of Mia last month and shared here before.

These were taken one day when Mia was dancing around the yard in her purple and periwinkle tutu I made her. She's such a little ham; she loves to strike a pose. I have a feeling she's going to be the one to make me totally gray. She's already to a great start.

"Hi, my name is Chubby!"

This week's theme at Trendy Treehouse is faces. I love faces, especially those of my children so I started going through some of my favorites to find one to share this week and kept returning to this picture of Mia that I snapped one day when she was being her normal silly-cute self. (No prompting there! She's naturally like that! lol)

Every time I look at it I remember being a kid and smooshing my cheeks like that and saying "Hi, my name is Chubby. I'm chubby. My mom is chubby, my dad is chubby, even my goldfish is chubby." Looking online I've found a few different versions of it, so I guess it's still around even though I haven't heard or seen anyone do it in years.

Fenwick in the Evening

I love living close to the beach. Living in southern Delaware means that we are close to Ocean City, MD and Fenwick Island, Bethany and Rehobeth Beach all in Delaware.

On Wednesday, Jason called me from work and asked if we wanted to meet him after work to go to the beach for a couple of hours. He works close to Fenwick, so I got the kids ready, packed our bag and was there when he got off work.

When we got to the beach it was perfect. Barely any crowd, cool sand, warm breeze and even the water was much warmer than when we first went a couple of weeks ago.

Mia still loves the water more than any kid I've ever seen. She immediately heads for the water's edge and stays there playing in the waves until we drag her out to go home.

The tide was high and there was quite an undertow that evening so Jason made Mia stick close and hold his hands.

Daddy dug them a "pool" to splash in.

Anakin doesn't play in the water as much, still choosing to play in the sand and dig for sand crabs.

Mia did come out of the water long enough to lay in the sand and become a mermaid. :)

My favorite shots of the day:

Independence Day

Well, it only took me five days to upload the pics and then another day to post them, but here I am! lol

This year we went to Laurel's Independence Day celebration again. This year it was on the third due to the fourth falling on a Sunday and Jason had to work so I took the kids for a little while that afternoon. We went back after dinner to enjoy the carnival and fireworks. I took my camera but it's a lot harder to keep track of all the kids in a crowd and take pictures so I gave up and just enjoyed myself.

I did want to attempt pictures of the fireworks again and even remembered to put my tripod in the van this year. However, I never got it out in time. I kept telling Jason that it was probably time to find a good spot to sit and watch them and he kept telling me we had time. Guess who was right?

I did attempt some hand held shots and a few weren't bad but it was incredibly frustrating for me to not be able to get good shots. I also really need to get a wide angle lens. I've been looking at them for months now and can't decide what I want or how wide I want to go.

When we came home we set off a few small fireworks. I did get my tripod out and get a couple of shots.

New fun blog photo contest!

So, I was reading a blog I follow and found another site that does weekly photo contests. I love contests like these because I love seeing others people's entries and I love getting the feedback from others so I decided to join in on the fun.

This week's theme at Trendy Treehouse is summer fun. I have tons and tons of pictures of my kids enjoying summer activities ranging from eating melty-sticky popsicles to playing on slip and slides, or hanging out at the beach which makes my choice a difficult one.

In the end I chose a new edit of a picture I took last summer which still stands as one of my favorite beach shots. This is a picture of my oldest, Jesse heading out into the ocean with the boogie board for his first time.

I Heart Faces "Pets" Week

So, I didn't think I'd enter this week but decided to share an animal picture anyway. We don't have any pets (well, not since Magic the beta died last week) and even then he was very camera shy. I know because he'd always hide behind the plant when I stuck my camera up to the bowl. lol

I really like this squirrel picture and I decided that since I kept him quite fed and happy through the winter of blizzards, that he counted. :)

I actually took this picture one snowy day this winter as he was sneaking down to steal the bird food I'd put out. I guess he was waiting his turn.