Is It Spring Yet?

I see a little bud!!!

The Thoughts They Think

"I love beads, Twizzlers and Sesame Street! This is the best day of my life!!!"

"Seriously, when can we stop hamming it up, and chow down!?!?"

"My Momma said I'm sitting on Kimmy. I thought she was in Phoenix, and human...My Momma has issues."

"Round and round goes the train, everyday it's just the same."

"Oh boy, time for train ride number two!! Let's run, but catch me if I wipe out please, but hurry up about it."

"THE PUBLIC IS TERRIFYING!"

"I love you Mimi, now give me your earrings, and sneak me some chocolate, and let me rule the universe. Is that too much to ask for at Christmas?"

"Won't you be so glad when we are no longer the "it" couple in this family? Yeah, me too!"

"I'm sick of posing for cheesy pictures, it is so 1987."

"I'm going to marry this person someday."

I guess now is a good time to tell you John and Amber got engaged over the weekend!

"It" couple number 2!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go charge the battery on my camera.

Confessions of a Lazy Photographer

Miss VeeVee likes her stuffed toys.

That really doesn't pertain to my revelation to you, but I thought in case this picture didn't get that message across, you should know that.

I have been trying to teach myself depth of field with my camera.

I could read many thousands of books, online articles, and the like, but I chose to speed read a post from a website that is written by a cattle ranchers wife. Who was also on GMA last week.

Anyhow....

The greater majority of my research was to simply look at other people's work, then go for it trial and error style. Mostly error.

The first thing I had to do was get test subject #1, also called daughter, to hold kinda still.

If you know my daughter, you are undoubtedly in hysterical laughter at the idea, so I'll give you a minute to compose yourself.......

Time's up. Moving on.

She loves to color after lunch and the light is good so I pounced.

I thought I did pretty good, that is until I went back to look at the work I studied only to find, I'm still draggin' fanny behind the pack. But I have a theory.

Most all aspiring photographers own some sort of high end camera, usually a digital SLR, and Photoshop. They read the manual to their camera, joined an online forum, and learned how to use Photoshop. I stopped at step one. I don't have time to read, unless it's a colorful book about shapes, numbers or colors. And God Bless Photoshop and all it's wonderful things. I have only opened the program twice, and it was so much I just bailed.


SOOOO....nearly every single picture on this entire blog is a straight out of camera shot. And that goes double for all of these. Every so often when I'm hanging out with Stella, my tough as nails alter ego, I will do tiny bits of editing in Picasa. But Photoshop, she remains a nearly untouched icon on my desktop. I wonder if she gets lonely. All those gifts, and no photos to lavish them on.
Now you all know I'm a lazy photographer, and feel better for telling you.
Now if you want to see some real, super cute photography go here
I really like her stuff, and not just cuz it's babies and cuteness. It has a flavor.
And, yeah, most of you know her. But I do love to promote others.
If you need me, I'll be sorting through and deleting the remaining 7,573 pictures that didn't turn out. Because I'm sure that takes less time than a Photoshop tutorial.

Why I Like to Eat Crow Pie

I remember being a child free woman of the world. I remember being able to go and do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I also remember that while I was out doing all of that I would inevitably run into Mom's with kids who were a total mess, strung across the aisle of a store, dropping things, kid screaming, and I would think, "When I'm a mom, I will never be that way."

Let me run you down my checklist for today:

Awake with huge headache-check

Pull "cranky" card off of toddler mood stack-check

Run out of medicine for both myself and baby-check
Realize you forgot to put bills in the mail-check

Come to conclusion you will just have to fix messes next week-check

The last 2 weeks have been the same or worse than today. Don't misunderstand me, I am not complaining. My husband has been working 12+ hour days for 2 weeks because of a deadline, and Bless his soul, if he gets home before the baby has had a bath, he takes over when he hits the door. Violet has also managed to sleep through the night, every night, since coming down with croup. Plus, I get to be home with her every single day, and that is priceless.

But my point is this:

For these last couple of weeks, I have been that Mom I would see out and about. And I would love to go back in time and slap myself silly for being such a judgemental snob.

I wish I would have stopped and realized that the Mom I was so harshly judging had a sick kid, or was sick herself, and was probably out because she ran out of groceries and medicine and had no choice but to take her kids to the store. Maybe, just like me, both of the Grandma's were also sick, and her husband was at work, and all her friends with healthy kids were understandably avoiding her like the plague.

I had to run to Target the other day, and I was stopped in an aisle digging through my coupons and Violet was babbling away at me. She was getting a little loud, so I shushed her. Just then a very nice older gentleman approached us with Violet's hat in his hand and said, "You dropped this, I think that's what she was trying to tell you." I thanked him and he gave me a sweet, sympathetic smile and went back to his shopping.

That was my serving of crow pie.

I was so glad I was around him, instead of myself from the past. Old me would have given me and dirty look, or worse, just left the hat laying there.

So, today instead of feeling sorry for myself and my current conditions, I will repent for having been such a creep. And thank God, in all of His infinite wisdom, that he gave me a chance to see how wrong I was, and go forward with a changed heart.

My New Favorite Blog

Now that I spend my days wrangling a toddler, cleaning up after a toddler and feeding a toddler so she can stay healthy and busy and make more messes, that leaves little time to work like I used to. I have been on a mission to really tighten the financial belt around here and needed a little guidance, so I started going here.

Shellie, who runs the blog, is a SAHM of three little girls and knows a thing or two about stretching the dollar.

Plus, with a name like Frugal is the New Sexy, how can any of us go wrong. Cuz tan and slender are out of the running for me these days in the sexy column. Hey, I'll take what I can get.

Check her place out, she is also doing giveaways, as well as daily nuggets of bargain hunting, recipes and other handy household tips!

I am just holding out hope that she'll find a way for me to access bargain weight loss online!

Doting is an Art Form

You four know who you are.

And you know what you do.

We just want to say thanks for doing it so well.

Violet approves.

Sleepy Girls

This was supposed to be movie in bed before lunch.

It turned into nap before lunch.

Tim says we are cute.

I say he's biased.