i simply adore this part of photography. catching a little unexpected glimpse of real life that happens in between all the rest of the shutter clicks. like this sweet hug when i photographed my friend and her family…
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.jpg "November 06, 2012-162-w") recovering from a week of having a sick 5 year old at home. he has been out of school for two weeks now and i think we are both excited for him to go back to school on monday. decorating the house inside and out for the holidays. the boys insisted on colored lights on our tree. i’m partial to white lights, but i remember how much i loved multicolored lights when i was little. getting sentimental as i unwrap all of the ornaments from past christmases. from my childhood, our family ornaments and the ones i exchange every year with my two dear friends that i have known for 27 years now. scouring pinterest and instagram for inspiration for a month long visit from our new elf on the shelf friend, stiller the elf. (named after ben stiller’s elf character in elmo’s christmas countdown thanks to quinn.) tomorrow he will arrive with a special advent calendar for the boys. trying to keep tate from opening packages in the shopping cart. this is his new little trick. preparing my own version of ali edwards’ december daily project. i will tell one little story a day and snap a photo to go along with it. i’m putting it in the back of my project life binder. loving my new iphone 5! happy birthday to me. i cannot say enough how much i love the camera and the processing speed at which i can edit and share photos on my phone. it is amazing. and was totally worth the wait. cooking less and re-heating leftovers and fast dinners a bit more than usual. i got out of my good dinner preparation routine. need to get back on track. putting little weapons in the hands of lego mini figures about 55 times a day. tate can’t quite put these pieces together and all i hear is “mom, hands!” ordering new project life supplies (i’m going with this pretty white binder) for next year – which is just weeks away. shopping online for the boy’s christmas presents. they are all about lego star wars, lego ninjago and angry birds star wars this year. watching the boy’s favorite holiday shows – a charlie brown christmas, mickey’s twice upon a christmas, frosty the snowman and elmo’s christmas countdown. hoping for some more cooler weather to really get us in the christmas spirit. wondering how tate grew up so fast. his vocabulary has exploded and now he has lots and lots of words. he can clearly communicate with us. except for the times when he gets frustrated and yells. those are fun times. anticipating quinn’s part in the preschool christmas program. he is going to be a duck. they did say non-traditional manger animals were welcome. wishing we could get a real christmas tree, but being okay with the fake one that we have. i know a real tree would require watering and sweeping of pine needles. and the fake one we have is from my grandma, so it is special too.
what are you doing these days?     
So excited to find your blog! Love your work!!
.jpg "Photo-Nov-22,-5-15-30-PM") we have started to make it a tradition. taking a family photo of everyone around the table before we eat our thanksgiving meal. for the past few years i have set up the tripod and used my big camera. but this year i got a bit crazy and threw caution to the wind. i used my new iphone 5 for the photo. i set it on the fireplace mantel wedged between an orange and a paper weight. (i really need to get this cool keychain tripod for my iphone.) then i used a great little self timer app (timercam). the best part is that before anyone had even finished their turkey, i had processed the photo and sent it to their phones. now all of these family photos are great, but what good are they if you never really get around to sharing them? the photo quality might not have been perfect (even though my iphone 5 is pretty darn amazing and i’m super in love with it!), but the photo was taken, the moment documented and most importantly, shared with everyone. ———–
this is what the trees in our front yard looked like as hurricane sandy passed along the florida coast on her way north just two weeks ago. the wind was unbelievable – especially for a storm that was so far away from us. i just knew it was going to be bad. we were very lucky. but so many other people in the direct path of hurricane sandy were not. it is amazing to see the kind of damage and destruction that wind and rain can create. my heart hurts for the many people who were effected by this storm. living in florida, this is a reality we face too. and every time we hear the storm warnings, we hold our breath. and when the storm takes another path, we let out a sigh of relief. we have been so very lucky. as i go about my everyday life with the things that i often take for granted like electricity, running water and plenty of food, i am grateful. and if you haven’t done so yet, please consider making a donation to the american red cross to help out those who were not so lucky. even if we all just gave a few dollars, that would be helpful. it all adds up.
click over to see what wind looks like for these girls also participating in linked 52: Stacey, Tracey, Heather, Jenn, Amanda, Janet, Rhonda, Carla, Heidi, Kristin, Heather, Jean and Hanne. 
Perfect capture! First of all I am totally jealous of palm trees in your front yard! Love the peek of sun through the swaying branches! Glad to hear you we’re kept safe from the storm. 
Thankful that was all you saw of Sandy. 
I wondered how you fared through the Sandy storm? Crazy wind! 
i would have held my breath, too! 
Wow, that is some wind. We don’t get that kind of weather up here in Minnesota (except for some tornadoes) 
Love the shot and so glad you were safe!!! 
such a cool photo. glad you guys were safe during that terrible storm and that the worst missed you. tate loves bowling. and i mean l.o.v.e.s it with a passion. he plays with the kids bowling set on the floor. he lays down on his stomach to set up the pins and watches the ball as it knocks over all the pins. he could do this over and over again all day. he also loves the tiny bowling set that quinn got as a gift last christmas. it has teeny tiny pins and he uses little bouncy balls as the bowling ball. he is so meticulous about setting up all the pins just perfectly in a triangle. (it is not very fun to hear him crying in frustration when the pins fall over before they are all set up.) this is another thing that could occupy him for a very long time. and let us not forget about his favorite cartoon, “bowling ducky” – or the looney tunes episode where bugs bunny, daffy and their friends go bowling. he asks to watch this all the time. so it is safe to say that taking tate to the bowling alley for the first time was certain to be a big hit with him. we already knew how much fun quinn has when we have taken him bowling, so we figured he would love it. and i’m happy to report that the family trip to the bowling alley did not disappoint. we went early on a weekday so we had the whole place to ourselves. the boys had fun picking out bowling balls in every color they could find. they were picking up the bowling balls with a little help from dad and setting them on the metal guide. every time anyone knocked over any pins at all tate would yell out “strike!” and throw his hands up in the air. and seeing quinn and tate help each other was so sweet. this is a family fun day that we will definitely be doing again soon.
Okay…that metal guide thing is great! Evie has mastered the bowling between her knees, but Eli has a hard time. I need to ask the bowling alley we go to if they have one of those. Love these photos. Bowling with kids is so fun! i’m doing some more catching up with project life on my blog. i’ve been behind in posting photos of my project life pages. but i am about to fix that with a bit of photo overload below. here are my pages from july, august and september… which leaves me wondering just how we got this far into the year so fast! week 27: fourth of july
week 28: beach time with family, reading and a visit to mark’s work
week 29: cousin time and happy birthday to grandma marge
week 30: quinn’s 5th birthday star wars pool party
week 31: celebrating quinn turning five
i documented quinn’s whole birthday day in photos (see blog post here) and added an insert with some highlights from the day.
week 32: summer days coming to an end
week 33: hello preschool year
week 34: hurricane preparation and a favorite candy treat
week 35: our everyday life
week 36: riding bikes + playing with toys
week 37: baseball + bowling
week 38: hello fall + open house at preschool
week 39: cooking, drawing and quinn’s first baseball game
you = amazing 
Your pages are beautiful! I love the week in review card as the title card, and I really like how you include white space with the square pics – very elegant. And I particularly love how you documented your son’s birthday throughout the day – what a great idea! (I came over from pinterest.) 
I love your pages! They are so bright and light. I love the clean look of the typing. I love the week 33 tall photo you used…brilliant!
there are things that remind me of halloween from when i was little. like carving pumpkins with the whole family. the kids cleaned out the pumpkins, my mom separated the seeds and my dad carved the pumpkin faces. and then my mom roasted the salted pumpkin seeds in the oven – yum! well, i’m the mom now, but i have never roasted pumpkin seeds. this year quinn was old enough to understand the whole carving the pumpkin thing (even though it didn’t go as planned) so i had pumpkin seeds to roast. i found an easy recipe on pinterest. all it took was a 325 degree oven, some cooking spray and salt. i roasted them for 25 minutes and stirred them around a bit from time to time while they cooked and voila, i had salty pumpkin seeds ready to eat. the weather is finally cooling off a bit down here in south florida. so between the jackets and the warm pumpkin seeds, it is finally beginning to feel like fall has arrived. and that makes me happy. now if they would just stop playing the christmas music until after thanksgiving…
sunset just outside of my window…
click over to see what texture looks like for these girls also participating in linked 52: Stacey, Tracey, Heather, Jenn, Amanda, Janet, Rhonda, Carla, Heidi, Kristin, Heather, Jean and Hanne. 
oh my word Tracy this is stunning. Beautiful texture.
Oh Tracy. This is so simple and beautiful. Love it so much. 
A gorgeously abstract image with a wonderfully subtle color palette. Stunning!
wow, that is SUCH a cool photo! totally love how you exposed it.
MAN that is a wicked shot!!!!!
Love this photo. Love the low light an the orangey light peeking through.
love the sunset. this is beautiful! love your blinds… adds a lot!
WOW. Very cool. I love your creativity in your posts! Beautiful and soft colors, very calming. 
Beautiful…Great low light shot. 
i agree with all the other girls – this is really an amazing shot! |
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Jenn V - I love your blog!! Your photography is excellent. Love this black & white shot.