A Dreamer of the Day…
All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible. - T.E. Lawrence
My little buddy doesn’t always take a nap unless he’s really, really tired. This particular day he asked to go upstairs and said he needed a nap. After a little while I head upstairs to check on him.
I found him asleep and wearing his train engineering cap (he definitely wasn’t wearing it earlier).
I think he wanted to dream about trains! =)
Small parts and moving objects…
I have a number of friends and family that have had babies or are expecting the arrival of their little ones soon. With that, I thought it would be a great time to give parents out there a few ideas on what to capture as you get snap happy with your camera!
Here are just a few small parts to remember when you go to take photos of your little bundle of joy.
1. The little hairs on their head…
2. Rolls and wrinkles…
3. Those small hands and tiny fingers
4. Feet and toes
And don’t forget those moving objects! 
Babies don’t always have to be still…and you know more than I do…they won’t be! =)
So to all you new parents out there…enjoy your new ones and just keep taking pictures!
Don’t look for that perfect shot…it’s just about capturing these moments as you live and love them. And hopefully one or two of those shots will perfectly express your life and love … and that’s all you need. =)
You”ll treasure those forever!
Until next time…
Family Time: The Weekly Kid’s Co-op
I’ve joined a group of awesome bloggers who are coming together online to share their love for family! This group will be sharing their favorite family friendly, unique, fun and/or educational activities with you all in one spot called The Weekly Kids Co-op! So basically, each week we’ll be getting together to share our favorite family friendly activity and we’ll also be asking YOU to share your favorites as well.
If you’re like me, I’m always looking for great ideas, tips, tricks to help me in this crazy thing called “Life with Kids!”
So here’s my Weekly Kid’s Co-op activity for the week…
Family Time!
I know this isn’t a new concept or activity but we all need little reminders in life don’t we?
Well, this past week, my husband and I finally decided we needed to just spend some quality family time together.
My husband works all week and I am home with the kids all day…yes! ALL 3 kids! Well, except for two days per week where my daughter M&M goes to school and my little buddy goes 1 day per week; otherwise, I’m home with the kids.
Now you’d figure that being home with the kids most days would allow for me to have that quality time…well…not exactly.
Homeschooling requires time just as much as other things in my life and so honestly, it becomes one of the many things to do in my days… at least right now with a 10 month old crawling around at my feet! =)
So having quality time can easily be missed. Especially what our kids consider quality time.
In my opinion, quality time is undivided attention. It’s time I can spend not being distracted by something else and just enjoying the moment for what it is!
We did that this past weekend with my kids.
My kids love bowling! I’m not sure why they love it so much when they’ve done it only a handful of times but they totally do. Funny what are kids LOVE right?
Anyway, we had such a great time!
We only bowled for 2 games (maybe an hour and a half total…2 at the most) and all of us had a blast!
Here are a few photos from our time together…
Quality time is hard to make happen! Believe me… I know! We get pushed and pulled in so many different directions but spending time where we aren’t distracted and can focus on our family is so important!
Do you make family time a priority in your family? What do you like to do when you do spend that quality family time together?
Please do share, I would love to get more ideas of fun things to do together.
And one last thing…don’t forget to have your camera with you! As a photographer, I truly believe that every part of our life is beautiful and is camera worthy! I hope you take the time to express your life and love through your family this week and capture some of those to times to remember forever! =)
Well, I hope you enjoyed my post for this week’s Weekly Kid’s Co-op .
Remember, this is The Kid’s Weekly Co-op so we’ll be back every week with great activities and ideas to share. And if you have some to share as well, please join us!
Check out the other blogs participating int his week’s Kid’s Co-op below…
Until next time…
Birthday cards
January just seemed to fly by! February is on warp speed. And I just celebrated a birthday in February which brings me to the title of my post…”Birthday Cards”.
My favorite birthday cards always come from my kids. You can count on them making me either smile and melt or smile and laugh at loud! And this year, I both melted and laughed out loud. =)
My first card was handed to me by my little buddy.
“This is for you mommy! Happy Birthday!” I immediately said thank you and held him on my lap as I proceeded to read the paper he handed to me.
It’s a card made from computer paper that’s usually found atop my printer. It’s folded in half.
Front page reads…
From: Your Buddy (with 2 stick figures…one taller and the other smaller)
I open the card…
“I love you so much.”
Back of card…
To:Mom
Melt my heart! I gave him a big hug and he gave me the biggest smile! These are the moments that makes being a mom all worth it!
My daughter gave me a birthday card too.
Front of the card reads…
To: somewone special (Mommy) Note: “somewone” is not a misspell. She wrote it exactly as is! =)
From: M&M
smiley face =)
I open the card…
Happy Birthday Mommy your “20″ wow you look young to be “20″!!!! 
And no, i’m not 20 but you get the picture!
love, M&M
p.s. You’re the best!
I had a BIG smile and was laughing out loud inside!
That’s why I love homemade cards…you can’t buy this kind of love and laughs! =)
Do you love home made birthday cards as much as I do?
Well, I hope you enjoy “your day” this 2012 and I hope you get to enjoy some homemade birthday cards too!
Until next time…
Learning to love vegetables…
I think i’ve shared this before but one of my hopes for this year is to eat more healthy. My diet’s not terrible but it’s not great either. I just know I can do better and one of the ways I’ve decided to improve is by eating more vegetables. In my quest to do that, I’ve decided to try at least one new vegetable recipe a week hoping to learn to love vegetables while doing something I already love…taking pictures.
The first recipe I decided to try is Baba Ghanoush. I decided on this recipe since i love dips (one of my favorites being hummus) and this recipe only called for 5 ingredients! I just love easy recipes! The star of this recipe is the eggplant. Did you know…
:: Eggplant is a fruit; actually, it’s botanically classified as a berry.
:: It’s native to India and
:: 85% of all eggplants are produced in 5 countries (China, India, Turkey, Indonesia and Iraq)
So eggplant isn’t really a vegetable? Well, it’s botanically a fruit but culinary wise, it’s considered a vegetable since it isn’t sweet. Anyway, I’m glad I can consider it a vegetable considering my title post. lol! Well, enough culinary knowledge…time to share some photos with you! =)
So I got all of my 5 ingredients together…
turned my oven to broil and broiled the eggplant while turning it every 5 minutes for a total of 20 minutes.
I let it cool for just a few minutes then peeled the skin back. This was so easy to do since broiling made the flesh of the eggplant pull away from the skin. I then just basically scooped the inside of the eggplant onto my cutting board.
I decided to chop the eggplant as well as the other ingredients rather than put everything into the food processor. Of course, the food processor would have made everything super quick. Chopping is just the more traditional version.
I then combined all the ingredients into a bowl.
And voila!…
It was all done and ready for me to eat!
Honestly, this was so easy to make. I really loved the overall flavors but thought I could have used less garlic. The next time, rather than 2 cloves I’ll probably be using only 1. Of course, I should have known, the first clove I chopped looked larger than normal and could have really counted for two. Anyway, lesson relearned… You can always add more of something but you can’t take anything away.
If you’d like to try this recipe here it is…
Baba Ghanoush (from 1,000 Vegetarian Recipes Cookbook by Carol Gelles)
1 medium eggplant (1 pound)
1/4 cup lightly packed fresh parsley leaves
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (basically 1 lemon)
3 tablespoons tahini (sesame paste)
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced*
*The actual recipe calls for 2 cloves but I modified this so you can add accordingly.
1. Place whole eggplant on a grill or under a broiler. Cook, turning about every 5 minutes, until charred all over (about 20 minutes).
2. Cut the eggplant in half, scoop out the flesh, and discard the skin. Let cool.
3. Place the eggplant, parsley, lemon juice, tahini, and garlic in a food processor container fitted with a steel blade. Process until the parsley is finely chopped. Let stand at least one hour for the flavors to meld.
*****
With my first attempt being a bit more garlicky than I’d like as a dip, I’m thinking it would be perfect in a Greek style hamburger. Hmmm…a burger with lettuce, tomatoes, few slices of thin red onions, this baba ghanoush spread on the bottom (or top) layer of the bun, and some feta? I’ll have to eventually try my crazy idea sometime. But that will have to be for another future post! =)
I hope you enjoyed this post! I’m really excited to share more of my journey into the world of vegetables through photos and recipes with you!
Until next time…
Family Fun: Ring around a rosy
It’s a busy week so it’s nice to have some help with ideas of a fun but short post. Here’s a photo that immediately came to mind when I saw that this week’s I Heart Faces photo challenge was “Family Fun”.
Little C just loved holding hands with mommy & daddy, moving in a circle, chanting a rhyme, and finally falling down.
Who doesn’t love this game & rhyme?
“Ring around a rosy, pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down”…
Check out more Family Fun photos by clicking on the I Heart Faces button below…
Until next time…
Changes and more photos of course!
If you’re a regular on my blog, you’ve probably noticed I’ve recently made a few changes! There’s been an addition here, a little subtraction there, and there will probably be a few more changes along the way. Why? I figure change is always good…or is it never good? Well, I’m hoping it’s good! =)
Anyway, I finally cleared the house of everything Christmas this past weekend. Yay!!!… for life moving in the right direction! =)
So before too much more changes take place and since I did use the word Christmas on this post, I thought I’d sneak in a few more photos from that December holiday shoot I shared with you on the post “A Christmas Extension”.
The shoot and kids were just so much fun I’d hate to miss sharing these with you…
Bye, bye Christmas!
Until next time…
Favorite of 2011: Just Breathe…
It’s been a long while since I’ve participated in any online photo challenges but what better time to get back started than when I Heart Faces’ photo challenge of the week is your “Best Photo Face of 2011!”
As soon as I read that this was the theme, two images immediately came to mind. And like everyone else, trying to choose your BEST was a tough calling. But I think this image is my fave of faves! Why? I love how big sister is just breathing in her little brother. I also love how it reminds me of how I can sometimes miss so much of all life’s goodness because I simply forget to breathe.
You can bet this big sister isn’t missing out on anything good in her life, especially her amazing little brother…the angel warrior! If you’d like to read more about this little guy you can check here and his FB page here!
Remember…sometimes all we need to do is breathe!
To check out more best of 2011 entries, click below…
Until next time…
I do love my camera phone! And you should to. It’s light weight and you usually have it everywhere you go! Have you heard the saying that the best camera is the one you’ve got! Well, it’s true! People often ask me what kind of camera do you have? And follow with “I want better pictures but I don’t have a great camera yet”. Sorry folks! If you’re waiting to take great photos with a great camera, you’ll be grossly disappointed. Most photographers will tell you it’s not all about the camera! Truly…It’s about the person taking the picture.
So today, I thought I’d help you…the person behind the camera with a few tips on how to take better pictures with your camera phone. This is really a 3 part series on Camera phone love! First, i’ll be discussing the phone settings you can look at to help bring about better pictures with your camera phone. Part 2 will discuss what the person taking the pictures needs to think about when taking pictures with a camera phone. And part 3 are the numerous apps available to you on your camera phone and ideas on what to do with all those pictures you’re accumulating.
So first things first, let’s make sure your camera phone is at its optimal settings for the best end result possible.
1. I suggest reading your phones manual. Usually the camera phone section is a very small section of the booklet and so it won’t take much to look over but you’ll be surprised what you didn’t know about your camera. I couldn’t find my manual and so looked it up online. Nowadays, you should be able to look up any manual rather easily.
2. Make sure you are shooting at your camera’s highest resolution possible. This will make sure picture quality will be at its best. Hopefully your camera phone allows you to modify the picture size and picture quality. My phone’s picture size goes up to 5M. And the picture quality allows you to choose from normal, fine to superfine. If possible, go to the highest megapixels allowed and superfine quality.
photo from pcmag.com
3. When possible, set your white balance. If you’re unsure which setting would be best, just go through the different options. Usually you’ll see your screen change accordingly as you change your white balance settings even if you haven’t taken a picture. Of course, I do recommend taking a picture of the same thing at different white balance settings so you can see what each setting does to your photo.
Typically, if you are taking shots outside in an overall sunny day, you’ll want to use the sun (daylight) setting. Unless it’s cloudy and overcast, then you’ll want to use your cloudy setting. The icon that looks like a upside down lightbulb is your tungsten setting and this is used for indoor shots with your incandescent light bulbs (your 60watt light bulbs). This is the white balance setting that will usually get rid of that yellow tinge in your indoor shots.
4. Never use your flash! I’ve never seen a decent photo using the camera phone’s flash. If you can choose your camera’s ISO setting…I would do it here. ISO settings on a camera phone usually go from 100 and possibly up to 1000. My phone doesn’t allow me to change any ISO settings but there a number of apps you can install on your phone that will allow you to do so. Or move to where more light is hitting your subjects.
5. If your camera has an exposure setting then use it! My camera allows you to modify the exposure setting from -2 to +2. Basically brightening or darkening your photo because (+) will help bring in more light and (-) will stop light from coming in. If you’re taking a picture and it looks like it could be a little brighter, you can easily just boost the exposure +1 or +2.
6. One last thing, you can make your camera a little quicker at taking that shot by setting focus mode to Infinity instead of Auto. Ty it! You’ll notice your camera will be a tad quicker at taking that picture in Infinity mode versus Auto mode. This may not completely stop you from having the streaks or blurs because of low light conditions or moving objects or people but it won’t hurt and may actually help. This tip works best if you aren’t trying to take any real close up shots (less than 2.5 ft in front of you). If you are doing extreme closeups you may want to return your setting to Auto mode. It will just focus better.
In the next post “Camera phone love: Taking better pictures (part 2) I’ll be discussing ways to compose your shots and what to think about being the person behind the camera.
Here’s a photo of a camera phone in one of my maternity sessions…
And finally, but not least, if you have the iphone and want to learn more about using your camera, check out this awesome 2 day FREE creative live workshop that begins tomorrow! Youtube video here (about the workshop).
Until next time…
A Christmas Extension
For some, Christmas has come and gone. I am fully aware that there are many who have already packed up the holiday ornaments soon after December 25th in preparations for the new year. I’m not so inclined to put the decorations away yet; in part because it wasn’t until a week and a half before Christmas that I finally got our tree up this year. Anyway, our Christmas decorations are only a few of the pretty and tidy things I have around the house right now! Since going on vacation right after Christmas and having been back for only a couple of days, our house is currently under clean up from the annual tornado that hits our home sometime during the holidays. And if you’ve already read my previous post, you know I’m working on “BEING” in the moment and so I’m trying very hard not to succumb to the pressures I personally feel with having to get myself in some kind of order for the new year and that order points to having to get the Christmas decorations down and put away!
I know I’m not the only one who feels this pressure around this time of year. Am I? My husband said to me earlier today, “We have to take the Christmas tree down today!” to which I immediately but calmly replied, “Why?”. He reminds me it’s January. January? What made January 1st (or even December 31st) as the day Christmas officially ends?
I just have to ask…Why are we so quick to put away the decorations? I’m sure there’s a possible number of reasons for the need to get the decorations out of the house. Is it crazy to want to have the decorations up just for a little bit longer?
If you are one of those who’s already put the decorations away I hope this doesn’t bother you at all! I wish my life would allow for such organization at the moment! There’s definitely nothing wrong with having your decorations put away. I’m just wanting to say that there’s nothing wrong with having decorations up past January 1st ( probably an attempt at convincing myself that it’s okay that I have nothing put away).
So I’ve decided to allow myself a little Christmas extension. I’ll eventually get those decorations down but for now, they’re still up in my house. And who knows…it may actually be a week or two before I can get them down. But I’ll get them down. I am absolutely sure I’ll have all my decorations down before Valentines day! Now if you happen to come over to my house next month and see cupid along side decorations on a tree…PLEASE help this girl out! lol! =)
Finally, on the topic of Christmas, here are a few photos from the north pole (a fun Christmas session I did in December)! =)
I’ll be sharing more from this session in the next post so check back soon!
Thanks for reading!
