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Monday, June 29, 2009

little friend

Naomi had a fun time at "BBS" today. The only thing I could really understand that she did is eat goldfish crackers for her snack and she said she built a house. Who knows?! But I did capture this super sweet photo of Naomi and Sophia right before VBS. Amy and I dressed them alike without knowing it...pink with white polka dots! How cute. I think this is the best photo of these two little girls to date!

hiding and vbs

Naomi was hiding the other day. She thinks that if she just covers/hides her eyes that she's hiding. So, she hid in this box. Funny girl. She's starting to understand the hide and seek game, although she's no good at it, it's fun to play with her!

Isn't she cute?

She's going to VBS this week. She's excited. I know that she'll do great, I just hope she listens. The last few weeks when I drop her off in the nursery while I go to Bible class she tells me, "you can go mom" so I'm pretty sure she won't be heartbroken when I drop her off. Plus, Sarah is teaching her class and Sophia will be in there as well. I'm excited for her to have this experience and I'm also excited to have some one on one time with Micah all week. Tonight when I was putting her to bed she asked if the have little Bibles at Bible school? Ha! I'll let you know how she does!

Sunday, June 28, 2009

miniatures

My sister used to collect miniatures when we were young...maybe she still does I don't know. I always loved looking at the details that they got so small but never felt the need to collect them myself...maybe because Tracey already had them, who knows. Anyway, through my blog surfing I found this fun website that allows you to make the things in your photographs look like miniatures. It works better on some photographs than others...but it's pretty cool.

Check it out. Do you think it works? Do these things look like miniatures? I really like the one of Busch Stadium, I think that one turned out the best. The Alamo is pretty good too. Just another thing to waste some time on.





Saturday, June 27, 2009

1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th of all

First of all, I want to thank those of you who have gone over to Give Away Today and entered my give away. . . it's open all weekend so please don't feel as though you've missed it!
go. enter. now.
Second of all, my tutorial on the neck travel pillows is up on my creative blog. Check that out here.
Third of all, I wanted to share with you my beautiful friend Kari. You may remember her from the engagement photos I took of her and Jason. Well, tonight I had a chance to do her bridal portraits! You can check out a few more here. Let me know what you think! Fourth of all, I hope you have a great night. I'm off to bed!
PS....Naomi is very excited about vacation...and so am I! She can't stop asking when she'll get to play with more people! ha! she's hilarious!

Friday, June 26, 2009

today is the give away


Click on the button above to be taken to the site for the give away. Again, feel free to enter even if you don't live in San Antonio. I will also be traveling to the Indy and Milwaukee areas sometime next summer and you could use it then if you don't live here. Also, if you know of someone who lives in this area you can enter for them! It's TRANSFERABLE!!!

When you enter if you'd leave a little comment about my photography that would be awesome! I need all the publicity and positive feedback that I can get. So, please just go to Give Away Today and enter to win!!!! I'd really appreciate it!!!! Thanks so much for supporting me and my passion to capture memories for people through the medium of photography!

Here is the direct link to my give away!

Thursday, June 25, 2009

another installment

of kids say the darndest things...

We have a little swinging guy hanging from our rear view mirror in the car (thanks Lisa) and Naomi and I took the car on Monday to the museum. She asked what it was and when I told her this was the conversation that came about...

"can I swing on that swing?"
"No, honey, you're too big"
"well, when I get little I will swing on that swing"

Her newest phrase or word is: yesternight. As in, "I did that yesternight" Is this the same as "back in the day"? or "in the yesteryears"?

A week ago we went to Costco to get some groceries and we were going through the computer/electronic section first. They have a video camera connected to a TV so you can see yourself on TV...the kids thought this was awesome. We went to Costco again tonight for a quick diaper run. In the car on the way there Naomi says...

"They have red carts at Costco and Micah and I can ride in them together" to which she got really excited. Then she says, "Can we go by the computer where I can see myself on TV?" seriously this kid does NOT have my memory (or lack thereof).

I had some other stories but I can't remember them. I need to write them down.
And here are three random images. The first two are from our PALS gathering. This is Mikaela...she babysits our kids while we do the PALS stuff and then Connie is with Micah, she is Mikaela's mom...awesome people!!!! If Mikaela looks familiar, it might be because I did her senior photos!
This is a photo that I took when I was messing around with the different settings on my camera. I have more to show but want to do something with them first. It's nice to be able to just play and see what my camera can all do!

ha ha

If you know Greg well and you know what he jokes about, about himself...you will find this card that Naomi colored for him for Father's Day pretty funny!

swimmy swammy samsonite

We got a pool on Monday. It's not a big pool by any means, but it holds water and the kids love it...Naomi more than Micah. Micah loves to climb in and climb out over and over again. I keeps them entertained and cool. I like it because I am getting lots of felt crafting and book reading done! It's nice now that Micah is walking and a little older, I don't have to "hold his hand" while we play outside anymore! They've been swimming a little bit everyday! Makes for a longer nap for Naomi!!!We had some good friends over for swimming today! Anna and the kids came over and they all seemed to enjoy the company and the cool pool! No one drowned or even got hurt!
How do you get five kids under 3 to look at the camera at the same time?Almost...I guess you don't. Anna, at least your kids look normal in this one!!!!Here's to many more summer days "at the pool."

noisy taggie square

I saw this tutorial at Joy's Hope and thought this would make a great little toy for Micah to play with during our 10 hour road trip! It was very simple to make and I can't wait for him to see it...I hope he plays with it for a long time! It's hard to keep one year olds occupied in the car, since he can't have crayons (he just eats them) or books (he just eats them) and since he throws most of his toys anyway. We'll see what he thinks!
These will make great baby gifts in the future too!

neck pillow tutorial

The second week in July we are going on vacation! I am SOO excited! Now that we live in Texas we fly to most of our vacation destinations...but not this time. This time we are doing a good old fashioned road trip and I am excited...sorta! I love going on road trips with Greg...the open road, singing along to old-school DCTalk, talking, reading books, taking random photos of the side of the road. Ahh....memories! We used to make lots of trips from St. Louis to Milwaukee and Indy.

But alas, a LOT has changed since those days of care free road-tripping. We added two kids to the mix. The longest road trip we took these kids on was driving back to San Antonio from Milwakee via two days in St. Louis, but my mom was with us...and Micah was pretty little...so he slept most of the way. As I said before, things are different now. I know the kids will do great and we're going to have a great time but I'm planning a lot of things for the trip and planning on making it successful.

One thing in my plans to make the trip successful was to make little neck pillows so that if and WHEN the kids fall asleep they don't break their necks in the process. I figured, how hard can it really be to make a little curved pillow? Well, it wasn't all that hard actually. And here's my little tutorial to prove that anyone with a little basic sewing knowledge can make a neck pillow too! Because really my sewing knowledge is BASIC!

Here's the end product...but how did I get there? (Isn't he handsome?)
I started by drawing my shape on the wrong side of the fabric and pinned right sides of both fabrics together.

I then sewed around my line using the line as my guide.
Then I cut the shape out, about 1/4 inch from the sewn line. I found it MUCH easier to sew the shape and then cut it out rather than trying to sew the already cut shape. It's a good thing I have to do things twice because it gives me an opportunity to try it a different (and hopefully easier) way.
Turn the pillow right side out...I added this ribbon to Naomi's because originally I was going to use white chenile on the front but forgot so the ribbon is to differentiate between Micah's and Naomi's...plus I think it's cute!
Here are the two pillow forms waiting to be stuffed. They look the same basically but I made Naomi's a little wider at the bottom.
I stuffed the pillows pretty tight and then sewed a line near the top so that stuffing would stay tight in the bottom. I didn't fill the part between the lines too full because I didn't want it to push their heads forward.

Here are the pillows in action (she's faking it)...
(he's not).

Hope you enjoyed this little tutorial. If something isn't clear let me know and I'll try to clarify. Let me know if you make one...I'd love to see it!

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

give away

I am so excited to be featured on Give Away Today, but not today. I just wanted to let you all know now so that on FRIDAY, when I am featured you can head over to Give Away Today and enter to win!!

I am giving away a free session and a 16x20 print to one lucky winner (a $250 value). As if that is not enough I am also giving away 15% off any wedding photography package to one bride (or groom). Please stop by Give Away Today on Friday June 26th to enter to win!

You can enter for yourself or your family and friends. Even if you don't live in San Antonio you can enter. Maybe you know someone getting married in this area, or someone who is about to have a baby (maybe that's you) just get on over to Give Away Today on Friday (or this weekend) and enter to win!

I do also plan on making a trip to Milwaukee and Indy next summer so if you win you and you live in either of those cities you could use it for yourself!!!!

When you enter if you could leave some nice words on your post too that would be awesome. The more publicity and positive feedback the better!

Oh and if you go there right now you might see someone you recognize looking back at you!!!!

busted

Okay, here's my busted camera.
bummer.
I'm crushed...
just like my camera.
I guess I'll have to retire it to the antique camera collection
that greets people when they come into our home.
Thanks for the memories little Kodak z710.
You can't even tell what's wrong with it in this photo.

Then it starts to be a little more aparent.Ah, now you can see the problem.

blah blah blah

I captured this little (blurry) video of Micah the other day while Naomi was still napping. It's been kinda fun lately to have them on the nap schedule they are on. Right after lunch Micah lays down for his nap...then Naomi and I play a little bit and mostly just read books. Then I lay her down for her nap and usually get about 45 minutes to myself. If Naomi actually naps then when Micah gets up we get to play together before Naomi gets up. It's fun to have some one on one time with them and to allow them to play without being hounded by the other one. If Naomi doesn't nap then Micah and I don't usually get any one on one time.

ANYWAY...now that I wrote all that as if you care. Here's a little video of Micah talking and doing his little mouth thing. He usually does this mouth thing (that you will see a 1:22 in the video) without his tongue and it's so cute. But as I said (in my post on Monday) now that my camera is broken I won't be able to get that on video. At least I got this...even though it is blurry...it will help me remember my cute, little, silly, Micah!

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

museum day



Yesterday was a day all about museums.
Naomi and I had a mommy - daughter day and headed to the Children's Museum. Since we have season passes it just makes sense to go more often for shorter periods of time. She loved being the center of attention and getting to do whatever she wanted for however long she wanted to do it. Rather than take my camer and get photos of her playing I just enjoyed the time with her and had Greg take a photo of us before we left...and then Micah got in on the action too.

Greg and I had our own Museum experience too. We went to see Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian! It was a great movie. You should really check it out and totally great to see on the big screen. Buy one get one free movie tickets are totally worth the price for the entertainment book for us (even though ours was a gift this year). Thanks Anna for the entertainment book...we have already used it a bunch.

push it

We bought the little blue chair for Naomi when we first moved to San Antonio. She was totally in to sitting and loved having a chair all her own to sit in. Now, Micah loves this chair too. But he doesn't love to sit in it. He LOVES to push it. If Micah is ever in a bad mood and in the kitchen I usually just give him the chair and tell him to push it. That usually helps cheer him up. That is, until Naomi tries to steal it from him. He loves to push his cup around and any other small toy that he can find that will stay on the chair. Silly boy. This video is about 2 minutes long and he's pushing the chair and then doing some walking. Don't mind the half naked girl eating a felt pancake...at our house that is totally normal!

Monday, June 22, 2009

the end

Saturday marked the end of a long era...okay, it probably wasn't an era but (probably) four good years. My Kodak point and shoot camera that also takes all the videos you view on my blog bit the dust. It is dead. It was my fault. There is no one else to blame.

I was taking photos at the park like I normally do. I know most people play at the park but I take photos. come on. do you expect anything else from me. really? Anyway, Naomi was having fun trying out the slides and climbing and there was one slide in particular that she didn't want to go down. I asked if she would go down the slide with me and she said yes. So, I put the camera over one shoulder like I always do when I need it out of the way and put her on my lap and down we went. This was a really tricky slide that basically went STRAIGHT down at one point and it just wiggled us back and forth. Aparently my camera was not far enough on my back and too much on my side and the lens was out...duh...and it got totally messed up. I'm thinking there's not really anything we can do to fix it...

So, it may be a long time before you see any videos on this here blog (although I do have two to share this week that I took last week). I am currently saving any money to go towards a new computer...I don't think you understand how bad I need a new computer. This one is TOO slow! And then I'll need a new monitor and probably a desk to put the computer on. So, it may be a LONG time before I have enough money to buy a point and shoot camera that also takes video. I'm going to miss my little Kodak friend. She was very carefully selected and served me well. Taking me places that my giant camera could not go. Taking photos before the canon arrived on the scene. Helping me preserve many precious memories and helping me video those first few steps for both kids and the laughter...oh the memories. It makes me sad just knowing that video will be out for a while. man. I'm bummed. but I'm so glad I didn't have the 40D around my shoulder!!!

Here are some photos from the Kodak's last day in commission! Documenting our fun at the park. It's the end of something good. go grab a tissue. i know it's sad. i'm sad too.Micah is a little bit of a scaredy cat. He HATES the vacuum, doesn't even like to look at it. And aparently swinging is not on his list of "things I love to do"...which is strange because in May he was all about swinging. What a strange kid.But he loves to slide. And he usually only goes down the little slides...yup, he's scared of the big ones. But he only goes down the little slides face first. Go figure.
This is the last video my little Kodak ever took. Micah sliding, face first!The last photo my little Kodak ever took. Too bad his eyes aren't open!The End...of Kodak z710.

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