The Watermelon Incident

There's always a surprise when I upload photos now...Jacob helps himself to the camera when I'm not around. And here is what I find. You have to look closely to see what this is, and at first glance it will appear that the watermelon is simply resting on the couch, but I promise you, it is not. That is the coffee table with a blue waterbottle (top off) on it, and then a whole watermelon balanced on the waterbottle. WTF? 

So I had no idea that this episode even took place until I saw the photo evidence. What was going through Jacob's head, and where the hell was I when this was happening? Oh right, I have three kids now so this is just what it's going to be like...complete chaos all the time.

Summer Laurel

    Here's our girl, Summer, and pictures of her first couple days of life.  Everything is calm and under control for the moment, but we could lose it at any second!

 Meeting her big brother and big sister

See who she gets her knobby knees from?

 Jacob helping with her first bath

What toosh?

                                                   

 

 This is the Going Home outfit.  I came home from the

hospital in this outfit, and so did both my other kids.

 Don't worry, I was really careful with those ribbons!

 We make a song of it, "This is the way to

buckle a baby..."

                                             Old lady foot

Day 57: Reflections on Sunglasses

This is the one and only picture you'll see of me on this trip because I was always the one taking them. So this is Jessica, daughter of my step-sister, Kelly. And if you can't tell, that's me in the reflection. I take a lot of sunglasses reflection pictures. I don't know why.

Day 6: In His Hands

This is a photo of Jacob holding a ladybug he caught. I like taking photos of ladybugs, so this picture is nice and all, but what's startling to me about this photo is that when I uploaded and saw the shape of the hand in the photo, I thought it was my hand. It's definitely Jacob's hand, I know that, but even so, right now I am still doubting myself. Everything is the same; the overall shape of the hand, the lines, the individual fingers. What strikes me most is his pinky, ring finger, and that top line of his hand. That area is what caught my eye initially.

I'd never paid any attention to the genetic similarities of peoples' hands, but I'm going to have to start taking better looks at that part of people. I like that he has my hands, he doesn't resemble me in many other ways.

Day 5: Slimy Little Thing

This little guy showed up last month when I was cleaning out the pond one day. He left a slimy mark all across the rocks and took his sweet time getting to his destination, allowing me to snap several pictures. I love that he's got stuff stuck all over him, and the goldish lines all under the skin (if that's what you all it) on his back are fascinating.

Day 4: Set in her ways

This photo is from a couple weeks ago, but I had to post it because it's hilarious. I know some people might not find it funny to post a picture of their kids crying, but when my kids are grown I not only want to look back and see their smiling faces, I want to see the full range of their emotions. I'm an advocate of taking pictures of your kids in every kind of mood and from every different angle. I can't stand it when people take photos and aren't happy unless their kid is smiling angelically.

This was after a long romp in the mud, though I can't remember what exactly she was so worked up about. I just love the smudge under eye and Reggie in the background wondering what the heck was going on. Sabine's been doing a lot of this lately - that is to say, tantruming. I had been telling people, "She's practicing for when she turns two." Since she turned two this week, what better way to represent that by posting a picture that shows what will likely be the way she spends most of her time the next several months?

Day 3: Lens or Pupil

I took this photo the same time I was taking the photos of the freaky spider in the back yard. Sabine was at my mom's, so Jacob and I were having an alone day. I'm already starting to miss him because he's going to school in the fall. I'm not happy about that. I tell myself if I can just get one more year of homeschooling out of him after 1st grade, then I will settle for that. Maybe he won't even like school...

I love this photo because you can't tell where the reflection of the lens ends and the pupil takes over. Also, Jacob's iris appears to be blue, green and brown all at once. What you're seeing is the baby pool, grass and tree line reflected. And there I am reflected in his eye too. Oh the possibilities for metaphors in this picture!!

Day 2: Sabine's Birthday

Today Sabine turns two! I had a really hard time picking what picture to use for today. I took a couple today while we were strawberry picking, but neither of them were exactly what I was looking for. I had wanted to use this one where you can see the '2' I painted on her cheek but you can't see her face very well, and there's another one that's perfect except it is both Jacob and Sabine, and since this is her day, I wanted it to be of just her.

I've gone back and added a rule, plus I edited another, because I had such a hard time picking today - one photo only, and no more.

Anyway, this picture took the cake (haha, birthday joke) because it so accurately represents Sabine these days; she's all quirky with her little arm bands she insists on wearing and her hair is all over the place and beautiful, and she's always watching what's going on. I took this picture at Jacob's last baseball game on Saturday. I said that day she looked like she stepped out of a Molly Ringwald movie, that or an old school Madonna video...and you can't even see what she had on her feet.

You can see the runners up here and here and here (oops, last link to be added later, flickr is being extremely slow right now).

Day 1: A picture a day

I snapped this picture last week and that's when I came up with the idea of posting a picture a day all summer. It's my challenge to myself in order to keep me coming back to this blog regularly. I can't seem to keep up with it for more than a week. So, if a picture truly is worth a thousand words, then if I never get to post anything else, the photos themselves should suffice.

I actually took the photo of the spider so that I could post it on facebook and have someone tell me what the heck kind of spider it is. I'm very curious because it is the biggest spider I have ever seen in my backyard. Click on the photo for a picture showing it's true size.

Here are my rules:

1) Obviously it has to be one I've of my own photos, but if someone else takes a photo on my camera and it's blog-worthy, then that counts as being in my possession.

2) It doesn't have to be a photo taken on that day, but it should represent something happening in our lives at that time.

3) I reserve the right to 'cheat' by post-dating some photos to appear at a later date, as we will be out of town and away from internet access at least a few times this summer.

4) I am beginning on the start of summer. I will continue through the official end of summer of September.

5) No matter how hard the decision may be, I can only choose one photo for each day.

Come back daily to check in! And please leave comments!!!

For My Mom On Mothers' Day

More pictures and story to come later...

For G'Ma Chris

Zach spent the weekend at his dad and Chris's house re-doing their barn roof. As he was wrapping things up late Sunday afternoon, I brought the kids down for a visit. Sabine was still in her party skirt from that morning when we attended a baby shower. Chris just went nuts over the skirt and couldn't get over how cute Sabine was in it. She said, "I can't wait to show all my friends a picture of my hippie chick grand-daughter in that skirt!" Or something to that effect, but the point is that she said Grand Daughter. That's a big step for someone who doesn't have any of her own children and swore she'd never be referred to as a grandmother.

Jacob must have sensed a shift because the next day when we were back down there picking up Zach's truck, Jacob walked over to Chris to ask her to open the horse stall. He started, "Grandma Chris, can you..." and she didn't even flinch. Zach and I looked at each other and raised our eyebrows as if to say, did you just hear what I heard?

Welcome, Spring!

This past week was unseasonably warm! It was such a nice way to break into spring. We spent the whole week enjoying the outdoors. On the first of the warmest days I hung diapers on the line to dry, went running in a tank top and shorts and we hit the park (where it was more crowded than I have ever seen it). These are all sure signs of spring!

Here's some pictures of how we rang in the spring the other day. Jacob colored the walkway with chalk while Sabine chased the wooly bear around the yard, tapping her leg to get it to come like we do for the dogs. The kids played in the bed of Zach's truck, and at the bottom Jacob is obsessing over, I mean, giving his new seedlings some TLC.

All Smiles

My family and I often notice clever commercials and really appreciate their creativity. One of our favorites right now is the American Express commercial with all the faces. Zach suggested that I take some inspiration from the commercial and capture some photos like that. Well that was a couple months ago and I've only gotten one photo, so rather than this post being a collection of smiles, it's just one. But at least now I've got the tag going and it will be easier to post them in the future. For today, I hope my cheese grater makes you smile:

The Portraits

Back in November (or maybe it was December - I can't even remember, but I do know that Jeff got us the pictures REAL fast) we got our portraits taken by Zach's friend, Jeff. It had been a few years since we even had portraits taken, but Zach re-did Jeff's basement last year and turned it into a swanky photo studio. Zach had always wanted to take me there to see his work so we had some photos taken while we were there.

We hadn't planned to get so many prints, but they all came out so good that we couldn't pass them up! And again, we're not the kind of people to cover our walls with pictures of ourselves, but this'll probably be the last time for a while that we get official portraits done.

I was a little hesitant to post pictures of the photos in their frames because I'm intimidated by Jeff's superior photography and professionalism and I didn't want him to see the kitschy Target frames that some of the photos ended up in. But it's Sabine and she's so friggin cute that there's a good chance one won't even notice the heart bubbles and pastel lines.

Here are the only frames I originally intended to use - Pottery Barn. I knew exactly what I wanted in them and how I wanted the photos arranged so they'd balance, but Zach had a problem with the way I had one frame going vertical and the other horizontal. Somehow I don't think Jeff would disapprove so I convinced Zach. But there was one detail that neither Zach nor I could get over: The background in Jacob's photo is black and it throws off the balance. We had no choice to leave it though because we didn't notice that detail until we had the prints in hand and next to each other.

These last photos are awesome! Well, the family shot isn't really awesome, but I actually like the way I look in it! So we got a print. The one of the kids smooching is the best! I have to take credit for that one though, I've been training them to kiss for the camera.

And there you have the partial reason why we don't really get portraits done - it's just not worth the obsessing about every little detail I can't help but put into the process. But seriously, if you're in the market for portraits, or a wedding photographer, or a nice on-site photo shoot, or whatever, I'll send you Jeff's info and website.

The Annual Thanksgiving Picture

Each year for Thanksgiving we go to Zach's Dad's house. And each year we take a photo of the four men, three sets of fathers and sons: Jacob, Zach, Zach's father, and Zach's grandfather. We've just got a new computer and I don't have all my photos on the new one, so I've pulled these from my flickr page. I guess I don't have the first couple years on flickr, but I do have them somewhere. I think it's pretty cool to see all of them, in the same spot year after year.

A few things are clear from these photos. The most obvious thing being that having kids has clearly kicked the shit out of Zach and me. We look at pictures from just a few years ago and it looks like we're ten years younger in them. Also, one can see that seriousness does not run in the family. Each year it's a little harder to get Jacob to behave for the picture, to just stand there for 30 seconds and act normal. This year I thought he was tall enough to finally stand for the photo, but you'll see below how well that worked out. The jokester quality is also observed in 'Pop', Zach's dad. Every year there's a photo with him grabbing at Jacob, trying to mess him up.

Anyway, Happy New Year. This is one of the aforementioned posts I said I'd get to before the end of the year. Did not happen, unless, do you think it's still 2009 somewhere in the world?

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

New Stella

It seems every other year Stella is in favor of our family. The other years she's into one or another of our neighbors. She'll leave for Florida one autumn in one frame of mind only to come back here the next spring with a completely different agenda. This year when she came back north I was very indifferent to her, stayed away as much as I could because last year was the year she anonymously called the cops on us because of the smoke from a backyard fire. We traveled a lot in the first half of the summer anyway, so we just didn't see that much of Stella.

And then one day we were taking a walk, as usual, when Dorothy came hobbling out of her house to say hi. She loved visiting with us and told us so. She showed her pleasure with life and the people who are good to her. She told Jacob he's a good boy and told me what a lovely person I am, and wondered how I got to be such a nice person. Dorothy is the complete opposite of Stella. She asked that we come back often and to always knock on her door when we're going by.

Jacob was completely taken with Dorothy from the beginning and I think a lot of it probably has to do with the fact that his great-grandmother passed away just a few weeks before we met Dorothy. Meeting her probably filled a void in Jacob.

Over the next few weeks we learned a lot about Dorothy, but she learned very little about us because she'd need to ask the same questions each time we knocked on her door. For good reason though, because together we figured out her age - she couldn't remember how old she was, but told me the year she was born and I told her that will make her 94 this fall.

We've been bringing her baked treats, crafts and a photograph of us with our names on the back so she can remember who we are. In turn, Dorothy has told us a lot of her history and about her two sons - one 'bad', one 'good'. She can't remember her late husband's name but knows he fought in WWII and that he was never the same after that.

She has her favorite neighbors, like the ones who take her to church every week, and her not-so-favorites, like the one who has the crazy wife. Dorothy loves to show off a picture of herself and say how pretty she used to be, you know, back when she had teeth, she jokes. She has a very good sense of humor. Today I said we couldn't come in because I had to go home and make lunch. "You've gotta go get drunk?" she asked. I laughed as I corrected her and she smirked back at me.

It's almost as if Stella has sensed the shifting dynamic in the air because she's been by more often the last couple weeks than most of the summer. More than likely though, it's probably because the back neighbors have pissed her off again. She actually called the cops on them the other day because the daughter's boyfriend kept driving his diesel truck up and down the driveway. So now we're the good guys again. She sits and chats like old times and brings over a plate of whatever she cooked that day. It's nice to have the company, and I'm starting to warm to her again. Sabine points across the yard in recognition now when she sees Stella.

I hope our old lady friends are around when Sabine is a bit older so that she will have nice memories of them like Jacob does. And I hope when I'm that age I have a little family to come visit me.

Sabine in the Garden

I haven't blogged much about our garden, but it is something that's been occupying a lot of our time this summer. Everybody enjoys spending time in the vegetable garden, and on this day Sabine especially enjoyed being left to her own devices there. She was very good and didn't dig everything apart, just sat there eating beans, just as natural as could be.