Are ya sick of these kids yet??

I'm running behind again...the story of my life, I guess. Anyway, these are actually from when I was in Michigan - my niece and nephews, but these are the last ones that I needed to finish up before I can dive into sessions from this past weekend. And I thought these were fun.....
Now...I must repeat this mantra to myself: Stay on Task....Stay on Task....Stay on Task...Must have Coffee....Wonder what's on t.v......I should paint my toenails...doh! Stay on Task...stay on task.....

For Steve

I'm in Atlanta right now for a few days and tonight I ate Chinese with Steve's mom and this was my fortune.

Steve-o: Thought you'd see the irony and (hopefully) find humor in it....
Love you....

Good news...and bad news....

The good news?? Starbucks brings back its holiday drink line, including EGG NOG LATTE...my favorite. Yum.
I will single-handedly keep Starbucks a major financial entity with my latte purchases in the next 2 months.
And what could make it even better? A CHAI Egg Nog Latte....mmm. Oral ecstasy.




The bad news??
Last night Steve-o showed me THIS website about a group of people who, I kid you not, make talking Jesus, Mary, Moses, and David dolls. They offered to donate 10,000 of them to Toys for Tots - they refused them. Is it bad news that T4T rejected them? No...the bad news is that people actually spend money to manufacture these. Or maybe that people would actually buy them....Notice the atypical white American-ish looking Jesus, complete with blue eyes and flowing brunette hair. He actually looks like one of my neighbors -- It's surburban USA Jesus! Complete with SUV and a ripped up six-pack under his robe! Available in stores now!
Ok...I'll stop now.

Just Owen...being himself

Owen has been having a really hard time with Steve being gone for basketball all the time lately. There are some days where Steve-o is gone before Owen gets up and Owen is bed before he gets home. I hear A LOT of "where's my daddy?" throughout the day.
Well, I'M feeling his absence as well in the form of Owen misbehaving a lot without his daddy here. Things have changed a lot in the last couple weeks for Owen and I think he's having a hard time adjusting, along with me, too! I find my patience with Owen is short lately and this morning we had a rough go of it. I disciplined him for disobeying me and getting into some stuff I told him to stay away from (oil air freshner, if you care) and after I talked with him about it, he sat on the couch and pouted for awhile. So I took his picture. :)



Once he saw that he had my undivided attention, he perked up a bit and wanted me to take his picture "uh-side-down".



I've been working on my color images lately - I've never been too pleased with my color, but I feel like they've been improving a bit. But I had to throw in ONE black and white, just for old time's sake. :)



And then he was done with pictures. And we moved on to the old stand-by. Trains.

Five Good Blogs

There's a bit of a grass roots trend starting in the blog world that I've now seen on about 6 blog sites, so I thought rather than come up with an original and witty blog, I would copy that idea and do it myself here. Five Funny Blogs is the original title, but I changed it to Five Good Blogs, because hey - not all blogs have to be funny to be good (although it does help maintain audience). Here's the guidelines for choosing your blogs, in case you decide to do it yourself and share some blogging joy.
1. They are funny (or just plain good, per my criteria change).
2. They are made up of mostly original content (not links to other blogs, YouTube, etc.)
3. They are updated regularly.
4. There is a good chance you've never heard of them. That means they don't have a gazillion other links to them, hundreds of readers leaving comments, etc.
5. At least one of them isn't already on my blog roll. (In other words, I had to go looking for it.)

So here they are: my FIVE GOOD BLOGS:

1. The Pioneer Woman
So-Cal ballerina meets and marries Oregon ranchers and births several children. Her blog has made me laugh out loud on several occassions and she takes rock'n pictures. Don't go here unless you're prepared to spend about an hour catching up on past posts.

2. Addison Road
I'm not really sure how to describe this eclectic blog with contributions from four regular writers. Their tagline says "where angsty GenX-ers make their living producing worship for boomers" --whatever that means. They are from California. They are writers, music producers, artists, Believers, emergent, liberal, random, and most occasionally rather funny.

3. Kinda Kitschy
This blog satisfies my inner loathing for almost all items coming from "Christian" book stores. I'm glad I'm not alone in this because for awhile I thought I was the only one who found something innately wrong with Action Figure Jesus and Testa-MINTS.

4. Crummy Church Signs
The name says it all, but don't miss the comments - that's where things get really funny.

5. Blogging...with Audrey
Ok, her blogs aren't funny, but this is my #1 favorite photographer of all time. She is enormously talented and the kicker is - she uses only all-natural light. Sometimes I get tempted to buy studio lights and go that route so that I can feel like a "real" photographer, but all I need in 5 minutes on Audrey's blog and/or website to realize that you can get some KICK'N natural light photographs - if you know what you're doing. This chick photographs for Ford Models and has a VERY successful business in Chicago. Compared to her, I'm like a 4 year old with a Kodak disposable camera.


Go forth...enjoy new blogs, friends. And share some that you know so I can feed my addiction.

The Chocolate Crunch....Take 1

One of the boys favorite episodes of Thomas the Tank Engine is "Percy's Chocolate Crunch" in which Percy crashes into a chocolate factory and gets covered in chocolate sauce. Fortunately for them, mama happened to have the perfect ingredients for them to make their own version of Percy's Chocolate Crunch on the back patio today.

It's been gorgeous here today, so this afternoon I shooed them outside for some fresh air. They're playing happily with their trains so I decide to catch up on my email. A bit later Owen comes running into the computer room, and I turn to see he's COVERED in brown paint. I had been painting an old dresser outside last week, and had accidentally left the paint outside. They seized upon this faux pas of mine, and decided to have at it. Owen had actually got into a different container of this paint just a few days ago (on a much smaller scale) and I had been infuriated at that time and scolded him severely, so as I looked at this terror-seeking child of mine, covered in brown paint yet again, I felt my blood pressure rapidly rising and after I GASPED at what he had done (including the brown footprints all over the carpet) I clenched my teeth in silence, picked him up and dropped him in the tub. Then I went back outside to get AJ before he could begin his own run through the house covered in paint. At this time I'm counting slowly, telling myself they are children and to them it's just a fun mess, when everything inside me wants to go completely postal (it's been a long day).
There was AJ....happily driving his trains through the paint and as I walked outside he looked up at me in pure glee and yelled "LOOK MAMA! It's chocolate!" and then he began to giggle.

And so did I. :)

A few more...

Well, I hate to ruin a good surprise, but I thought I'd put up a few from our newborn session with Kenny. I'm sure Manda is anxious to see them....:)so here's a few of my favorites: