farewell Emma Rose with the big red bows...

I'm sort of struggling with Emma and her refusal to stop growing up.
Look at her, she looks so smug, as if she knows she's 10 going on 21 and there is nothing I can do about it. This week she started 5th grade.

I hate 5th grade.

There are no hair bows in 5th grade. No cute from head to toe, matchy-matchy outfits. No funky tights or cute mary janes. No super cute monogrammed polka dot lunch boxes, those I was told this morning, are so 4th grade ::insert rolling eyes here::

It's really her fault that I'm so depressed about her growing up. She was so much fun to play dress up with even as a baby. She wore tiny baby jewelry, bows and hats. I could dress her up in the morning and she would stay clean and dressed all day. What kind of baby does that? You can't do that to a mom and then decide to give it all up a decade later!

Next week I send the J's off to preschool for the first time ever, then in a few weeks Jones will turn 5. You might want to avoid the blog for the next month or so. I foresee a lot of dismal, depressing posts coming up....

First day of kindergarten (2004)

First day of 5th grade (2009)

Back to School (and blog)

Ahhh…. A moment of silence. It’s been a hectic evening. The J’s are wild, and Emma decided to go 0 to 60 straight in to preteen sassy-ness. I still have to put them all to bed, but they went upstairs and I can’t hear anything. It’s NICE.

School starts tomorrow so I thought it would be as good a time as any to get back together with my blog. We were on again, off again for awhile. I wasn’t sure we would last, but I’m committed and i’m ready to give it another go.

I made a cake in celebration of “back to school”. I’m almost too scared to post a picture of it here for fear it might end up on Cake Wrecks. The color scheme is lacking, but it was pretty tasty. That’s what really counts. I almost spelled school “shcool” which would have been oh so embarrassing. I also added a little message on there about my birthday, which was a few days ago. I didn’t get a cake which I won’t soon forget but it’s no big deal.

I turned my back on my drink today and the next thing I know it looked like this.

Sometimes when there’s an incident, I have to question all the suspects to figure out who did it. This one, not so much. This has Jaden written all over it. A little later he came back and told me he needed a sip of “his” drink. I'm not positive, but I think that counts as a guilty plea.

Duck, Duck, Chomp

I'm not sure if I'm risking rubber ducky's secret identity, but... Jonah has a duck that is a super hero. He calls him Super Duck. He's even made (or had me and Emma make) paper capes and masks for Super Duck. So when I saw this cute little candy duck I just had to get it for Jonah's Easter Basket.

I noticed after the fact that this yummy little treat was labeled "milk" flavored. Uhhh... what the heck does that mean? I checked the back before I let him eat it and the first ingredient was sugar so I deemed it edible. Sugar is, after all, one of the five basic food groups... isn't it?

Before he indulged in the tasty treat he let Snack Duck and Super Duck get acquainted. They seemed to have an instant connection.

After a few minutes Jones was ready to eat his sweet treat. In a flash he chomped down on Snack Ducks head and a few chews later he announced it tasted like chocolate. I sure wasn't expecting that! A yellow candy duck, advertised as being "milk" flavored, tasted like chocolate? Somehow I doubt it, but I wasn't curious enough to taste for myself so we'll have to take Jonah's word on it.

Ugly Blog. Cute Kids.

Ohm'gosh - I don't think I can stand this blog layout a minute longer. I hate it. It's time to change it. I would love to make my own but I sure don't have the time to learn how right now. I'll have to look online for something I can live with.

Right now Jonah and Jaden are having a burping contest while I contemplate whether or not I have had any positive influence on them at all.

Jonah got a new bike. He was thrilled. This is a piece I call "Kids On Bikes". It's one heck of a title, bordering on lyrical genius - but not so out there that it confuses the viewer. You should definitely click on this one to see it full size. Emma is looking all "crazy eyes" in the tiny version.

This is fun. I told Em to look "fast", like we were doing an ad for the bike helmet. I'm looking at it now and I'm not getting "fast". It's actually looking pretty darn still. I guess it's time for me to google a tutorial on panning. Don't get your hopes up. I'm convinced it's way too advanced for me.

Here are a few pictures of mostly Jaden playing in the yard yesterday. Everyone else kept disappearing.

That's all for now.....

My Favorite Things #003

I got this umbrella while I was in California visiting a friend (I think bought it at Borders). It's the Pet Chopz design from Paperchase. It can be hard to find cute, original boy stuff and this is adorable with all of those colorful critters on it. There's even a robot, and I love robots!

I fell in love with it and struggled with whether or not to get it because I wasn't sure if you could fly with an umbrella. It seems kind of silly now, but I was worried they would think I could use it as a weapon.

::perplexed look::

I should have gotten two of them but I didn't want the J's to have identical umbrella's. That just seems silly now, especially since Jaden is forced to use a pink Disney Princess umbrella, which is cute, but I don't want to be the subject of all of the kids adult therapy sessions.

It rained a bit last week. The J's wanted to splash in the puddles for about three minutes and they were ready to go back inside. They're so fickle.

Seniors 2009

I attempted to do senior pictures for Hannah and two of her friends, Heather and Brianna. I was pretty successful with Heather and Brianna, but Hannah, well - let's just say someone was Miss Crankypants. I will be doing Hannah's again sometime soon. I posted more of these on my flickr if you're interested. I love that last picture. They look very Charlie's Angels to me.

Babies Anyone?

There's a baby boom among my friends and I'm not too proud to beg folks to let me practice on their precious bundles of joy. I feel so fortunate that people will actually let me experiment with their brand new babies. I have no idea what I'm doing so I'm basically just winging it with other peoples tiny loved ones. (shhhhhh! don't tell.)

This little gal was 12 days old and NOT sleepy at all. I only got her to go to sleep once. I think I jostled her too much because her mom told me her cord fell off about an hour after I left. Oops.

This bitty baby boy wouldn't sleep much either. I even got to try on two separate days. Apparently I'm no baby whisperer, but I'm going to keep trying.

I don't think little Ava (who's not so little anymore) was much of a sleeper either. That didn't matter because she was the first newborn I ever shot and I was more worried about figuring out what to do with her. She was sweet enough to show me a wee bit of sleepy love though.

Are you starting to see a trend here? Another 'eyes wide open' model. He was as sweet as he could be though. He didn't complain at all while I flipped him this way and that trying to figure out what would work.

This is Phoebe. She's obviously not a newborn, but she was a very cooperative model. I wish she lived closer because I would definitely stalk her and make her do all kinds of insane poses because I'm almost positive she would make me look like an awesome photographer.

Mason here is obviously not a newborn, he's not even a baby, but he's pretty stinkin' cute so I had to share his 'cool dude' pose.

Thank you to everyone who's willing to help me get much needed experience. I think I'm about to start acquiring props. You know you'll want to check that out. I'll let you know how it goes.

My Favorite Things #002

Here is another one of my favorite things.

I got these at Walgreens about a month ago. They were 3/$1. I actually considered not getting them because I got a dozen and that meant I was spending a whopping $4 dollars and I thought that was too much. Sometimes I'm not very rational. Especially considering how much I love and use these little dessert dishes. Not only are they super fun to eat ice cream out of but they are the perfect size for snacks for the kids. The boys like to dip stuff and these bowls are the perfect size for dipping french toast sticks in to syrup, or chicken in to ketchup. I could go on and on.

much love for the queso

Wow. Jaden was all about the queso last night. It was intended to be eaten on nachos, but he decided to eat it like soup right off the ladle. Yummo.

Got cheese?

with love from Emma

I wasn't feeling very creative this year when it came to Emma's Valentine's cards. I even took her to the store and suggested she pick out something cute there, like Camp Rock or Hannah Montana. She wouldn't even entertain the thought. I guess I can't fault her since I'm the one that started the trend of making her personalized cards.

So late Thursday, the night before the the class party I made little picture tags and put them on goody bags. Em picked out these really cute bags with owls on them that say "Owl love you forever"...awwww.

I had my friend Kelly of Alacrity Designs make this cute shirt just for Valentine's day. I saw one like it on Etsy and asked her if she could whip one up and she did lickity split! Be sure to keep her in mind if you *need* any customs.

Mia & Rome

Doesn't that sound like the title of a movie? Mia & Rome.
My sister came over this weekend to let me take some pictures of her lovlies.
Here are a few of my fave's....

Sweet baby Mia

Little lady bug

Taking a break to say her prayers
:: Dear Lord, please save me from these crazy people that keep changing my clothes and propping me this way and that on a bean bag ::

Rome & Mia

Awwww....

Did I spell Rome correctly? I thought I saw it on a license plate but I could be remembering wrong...