Living On My Hard Drive

Photos that tell the story of our days have been collecting dust on my hard drive.  Most taken with my phone, on a whim, others a bit more planned.  Just a bit.  What's been missed with words, will now be spoken with images.

Suffering through a cold soccer game...I know I've mentioned this once or thirty nine times.

A day of tubing in the mountains with our Aunty and her fiance:

 

Oh yes I did.  I snagged this pic of the soccer team right behind the professional photographer.  I'm bad like that sometimes.

The Girl did a Revolutionary War re-enactment for a field trip.  She was THRILLED to be an Indian Warrior.  They got the most make-up.  Priorities, people. Priorities.

 

The kids and I went to see Mary Poppins at the theater downtown when it came.  What a wonderful show and special treat for us!

Someone made it into the Spelling Bee for first grade.  They took the top 15 spellers based off of test scores.  He made it to the third round before forgetting the second "p" in "slipper".  Dang!  Ironically enough, the one word he missed on his written test was "stopped".  He forgot the second "p" in that word as well.  We are proud of our hard-working student no matter how far he made it!

 I chaperoned a field trip to the Nature and Science Museum for The Girl's class.  It was me and these crazies:

 Yup, that's eight kids.  EIGHT.  In a Museum.  Here we are destroying sitting on a mammoth tusk.  The group behind us thought this pose would be a great idea as well.  Apparently, it's not OK with the museum curators.  This shot may or may not be illegal. 

My sweet littles also earned their second stripes in Jiu Jitsu.  They continue to work hard and love it!

 

Here's The Little Man getting ready to serenade me with the rest of his first grade friends (OK, and their moms too) for Mother's day.  It was a very sweet performance.

That's one blurry pic!

If the museum wasn't enough, I thought, heck, why not chaperone a zoo field trip.  GAH!  At least they were all outside and nothing was breakable.  Plus, it was super fun to hang out with The Little Man for the day.  There also was an unfortunate incident that involved bird poo.  Thankful that his momma was there to calm, clean, and move forward.  

It's been busy and full...and wonderful.  Thankful that this school year is wrapping up.  We are ready for the break.  However, I must say, it feels like I blinked and it was over.  I think this has been the fastest school year yet.  So much to be thankful for!

When the Cat is Away...

In the past two plus years, we have tried all sorts of things to restore The Hubs' health back to what it was.  Unfortunately, we have not found the magic pill, routine, or ingredient.  The truth is, The Hubs, while not in imminent danger like in 2011, still battles each day with the lingering effects of illness, the large amounts of medication, and all the side effects that come with each pill he takes.

Recently, we started looking into holistic medicine.  While I know this makes some people roll their eyes, it's what we have left.  Part of this new adventure has been a very large change to The Hubs' diet.  The thought is that he could have some food allergies or intolerances that are exuberating his symptoms.  By eliminating these foods, we could possibly eliminate (or lower) some of his medications, thus reducing the side effects to the medications as well as symptoms.  By doing an extensive food panel, the new doctors were able to find that his body had adverse reactions to 29 different foods.  Of course, these 29 foods were some of his most favorite foods.  Foods he was eating everyday.  Things like gluten, coffee, chocolate, peanuts, and almonds.   Then there was this weird one.  The highest reaction came from yeast.  The doctor recommended that we eliminate as many of the foods on his list as we could, paying special attention to gluten, yeast, and sugar.   So, for the last ten or so weeks, The Hubs has been gluten free, yeast free, and sugar free. 

I'm so proud of him.  This diet is serious business.  Yeast is in EVERYTHING.  As a family, we have been following the diet with him in the evenings.  All sharing in a yeast free, gluten free, and sugar free dinner.  It's bland.  It's boring.  It's plain hard.  The Hubs has been faithful to this diet, not cheating, ever.  And there has been some changes in his symptoms.  Not the symptoms we were hoping for, but changes none-the-less. 

Meanwhile, the kids and I have not been as "on-board" as we could've been.  There have been trips (without The Hubs) to frozen yogurt, secret stashes of cookies, and those times when he goes out of town.

Often, work will call him out of town to meet with clients.  It's those days, while we miss him and want him home, we find a silver lining in his absence.  It's called pizza, cupcakes, paninis (with real ciabatta bread), and brownies.

The trick is having no evidence of it when he comes back.  Not that we are trying to sneak it behind his back.  No, he is pretty well aware of what is going on.  It's just we don't need to flaunt it in his face. 

Today, while it snows (on May 1st!!), we will find comfort in The Hubs' absence in some homemade pizza and chocolate chip zucchini muffins.   We've got 48 hours, 14 cupcakes, two pizzas, and three people. 

Game on. 

Cold and Rusty

We are three games into soccer season.  You know, the sport I thought we would never sign up for.  I have to say, the main reason why I have avoided soccer thus for, has followed us each week: the weather. 

UG.

Can I get some sunshine?

How about no wind?  Is that possible?

And if it's not too much, I'd like 70+ degrees.

The Girl has stayed in the car for the entire 80 minutes that we are there for the last two games in a row.  That is how undesirable it has been outside.  I couldn't even coax her out today with a new bright pink folding chair. 

I distracted myself from the cold wind today with taking pictures.  It's been probably three months since I've done anything more that Instagram for the kids.  So, beware...I'm a bit rusty...and cold.

In case you are wondering, no, he isn't trying to catch the ball.  He's throwing it in.

I don't want to end on a sour note, so OK, I'll admit it:  I do like watching him play. He loves it.  Also, as it turns out, he's pretty good at it too.  I'd sit in even colder weather just to watch him.

Snow Days

 

More Pictures for Your Viewing Pleasure

As I continue to get caught up from my "Lack of blogging, but still taking pictures" phase of life I am in, I present to you: The Girl and her 9th Birthday.

First up: her nine year old pictures.  Each year this is proving to be more and more difficult, yet easier at the same time.  How is this even possible?  First, The Girl likes outdoor pictures.  Well, the funny thing is, her birthday lands in January...every single year.  I find it difficult to find interesting locations with the lack of outdoor beauty that we have in comparison to the summer or fall months.  While I think the snow is gorgeous, and love taking pictures in it, it isn't always a guarantee that we will have some on the ground.  It's more likely that we will just have brown.  All over.  And let's say we do have snow on the ground.  Snow equals cold.  Very cold.  I've found that she and I both tend to be a bit grouchy when trying to work pictures in the cold.  So there you have dilemma number one.  Dilemma number two:  She's nine.  I want to pose her like she's older, but not too old.  I want to dress her hip and cool, but not too old.  I want to make her look like the beauty she is, but not too old.  Are you seeing where I am going with this?   There is a fine line, people.

It also has gotten easier.  Since she is nine, she has her own ideas for what she wants her pictures to look like (and they are good ideas, too), she has an opinion on what she would like to wear/what she thinks is cool (thankfully, she is pretty modest, and her style isn't too far out there), and The Girl can pose.  I mean not just, "You stand here, and smile like that" type of following directions posing, but she can "Work the camera like she was born to work it" type of posing.  I give her very little direction, and she just goes with it.  I love that.

Here's my not too old, dressed appropriately, and "working the camera like no one's business" nine year old girl:

This picture and the one after it are probably my favorite of the session.  I just love the way they look snowy and cold (and it was so cold that day...not so snowy, though).   They are exactly what I hope for in a outdoor winter shoot:

Since I can't choose the second image for my wall (it goes the wrong direction), I think I might go with this one.  I like the wood background, and I love her real smile.  She was laughing at herself:

This is The Hub's choice for the wall. I like this one too...not sure which way I'll go:

Later that week, we also had her birthday party.  This year, we came up with an idea, picked a date, and sent out invites for just a few days later.  It was a whirlwind for sure.  I thought no one would be able to come with such short notice, however, each friend she invited was able to make it.  She decided she wanted to get her nails done and have pizza at a local salon and pizza place very close to home.  Well, neither place took reservations, down payments, or offered party packages.  So, I kindly let them know that 10 little girls would be coming, and the day and time.  They were thankful for the forewarning.  We were in and out of the nail salon in 30 minutes, and then they all walked a few doors down to the pizza place where we stuffed ourselves with pizza and cake, and played a fun game of "Would you rather" (which third grade girls find hil-ar-ious).  Just goes to show, you can throw together a party, where everyone has a great time, out of thin air.  It was two hours of giggly, squealing, girly chaos, and I survived. 

Here are some pics:

Showing off the nail color they picked:

Getting the toes done:

Dry time:

Everyone's finished product:

The wild crew on our way out of the salon:

I'm sure the salon owners were happy to see us leave...not to mention the other unsuspecting customers who came to relax and have a pedicure after a long week of work.

Here they are at the pizza place:

And blowing out the candles:

The pizza place had some difficult lighting, to say the least.  I rarely (like this was my third time) use my flash on my professional camera.  So, needless to say, I need to get into the manual and figure out the flash on that baby.  As you can see, there was a lot of photoshop correcting done to that last image due to the flash totally annihilating the image.  I'm a little sick over it since she only blows out her nine candles once.  I wish I had something better. 

Since I was able to survive this party, I'm sure I will be able to muster up the strength to somehow survive not getting the perfect shot of her blowing out her candles.

And I've survived posting the second half of our photo album called "Catch Up". 

Whew!