I’m back! I’ve been busy! I had a friends wedding in Michigan several weeks ago and then two photography projects for local schools I’ve been working on.
Finally done with the two projects! Now, I can take a deep breath and have a little time to spend on my blog.
I’ll be sharing more with you soon but for now here’s a few photos from one of my senior shoots during a homeschool group’s “school” photos.
Until next time…
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! =)
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
