Day 596

Clean...
Little C just loves being a big boy and taking showers in our shower! The pictures pretty much speak for themselves. ;)



I hope everyone has a relaxing and happy Labor Day weekend!

Day 595

Whoops...
With such a busy week almost behind us, I just completely forgot to take any pics today. Hopefully we will find ourselves back in a routine very soon but with my booking so many evening sessions and it's not even the Christmas rush yet, that may be just wishful thinking!

Day 594

On Call...
I was on the schedule today for Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep and although I appreciate the fact that I am able to give back in some small way, I always secretly hope the phone remains silent. Unfortunately at 3pm, it rang and I drove to the medical center to photograph this full term baby who was just too precious for this world. His parents were remarkably young and so completely heartbroken by the cruelties of life. I pray that their hearts will heal and that these images will give them something to remember their beautiful little boy by.

Day 593

A teeny little cheat...
Ok, so I know I said that I would not post images from sessions my pic for the day, but I honestly forgot to take any pics other than these ones, so I hope I can get away with it one more time. In all fairness, Wednesdays are my most full days with sessions, errands, piano, flute and very soon volleyball tournaments too! So here is my cheat, but I did take it today and he is such a sweetie that I know you will enjoy him!

Day 592

Better day...
Just as I expected, the rest of his first day of Kindergarten was perfectly fine and his second day was even better! He absolutely loved riding the bus and even wants to ride it alone tomorrow when I have to pick up L for piano lessons. Is he brave or what? Needless to say, this development does an awful lot to ease this mommy's guilt over leaving my little guy in tears yesterday!

After bouncing in the house, the first thing he wanted to do was play with his dog. Such a boy!

Day 591

First day...
L & C have been totally stoked about the first day of school, theirs is brand spankin new (in fact, so new, it's not quite finished) and for C, his time to ride the bus has finally come. On the other side of the spectrum, M was not nearly as thrilled. She didn't get the teacher she was hoping for and at last check, none of her friends would be in the same class. Bummer. We keep trying to help her see this as an opportunity to make new friends to add to her posse, but as of this morning, she hadn't quite come around to that viewpoint yet. After a quick swipe with her new Chi turbo flat iron, she was ready to roll. After about 15 minutes, I thought it a little strange that daddy was back in the front door and then he told me...she no longer wanted him to walk her to class, something he has been doing since her first day of Kindergarten. OMG. Where is my little girl?

Then...

Now...

Next up, it was time to leave for the elementary school with L & C and our neighbors and their son who is a frequent subject on this blog too! L was totally ready to go (as if we'd expect anything else) although leaving her precious Lola behind wasn't her favorite part of the morning, that's for sure. I half expected to find her in L's backpack!
Look at these two boys, do they look the least bit nervous?

No way man, all smiles all the way!
Walking in...
Still goofy...
Uh oh, reality check. Things aren't going quite as peachy as C thought they would. All these kids are a little intimidating.
Not for L though, she's in her class and at her desk. This is old hat for her!

Back in the cafeteria, C was going downhill. My heart just breaks and I want to scoop him up and take him home but I know it's time for him to start his elementary school adventure. When I tell him this, he looks at me and says, "I can't go on an adventure, I don't have a map." Well, duh.
Getting better once I tell him that we will stay to walk him all the way to his classroom.
In we go!
And now it's time for mommy to leave. I felt like such a louse. I know he is right now, sitting there just fine, making new friends and being the life of the party like he always is, but it hurts to know this is the way I left him.

Day 590

Stuck...
It only happens when we have somewhere to be at a specific time and rushing home today after church to load up my studio to bring back to church, we discover horrible traffic on 249. If you are from this area or happen to know of this highway, you know that once you are in a position to notice that it is stopped and bumper-to-bumper, it's too late to do anything about it. No where to turn around, no way out but to sit and wait. After sitting for about 20 minutes, we see the Life Flight helicopter land and we know whatever lies ahead and is stopping traffic is not good. Turns out, some how a person flipped their Explorer cutting a power line in half and then landing on top of the broken line and since it was live, there was nothing rescue workers could do until power company technicians could kill the power. After sitting for roughly an hour (a drive that normally takes about 7 minutes), we pass by the scene and the driver is not yet loaded on to the stretcher. I hope and pray that he will be ok. In the end, we were only about 20 minutes late getting back to church, but it was an opportunity to again talk to the kids about wearing their seat belt always and that you just never know what life may bring so keeping God front and center always is the most important lesson they will ever learn and like most of us, we re-learn it daily.

Days 581-589

Uhm yeah so ...
You know something's afoot when I haven't touched my camera in more than a week. Even though I fully intended to take some time off in these last final days of summer, it was with the hopes of doing some fun stuff with the kids but what I ended up spending my time doing was quite the opposite. First off, it rained and rained and rained EVERY SINGLE day which was kind of a pain, but still manageable. Well, remember when I blogged about the spider bite? Well, guess what...after finishing the seven days of steroids, I had three more days left of the high dose antibiotic. No biggie right? Wrong. I noticed on Sunday evening that my hands were itchy which I thought was from all the crazy hand washing (a staph threat will do that to you) and possibly a burn from ironing (I always iron when it's raining). Then on Tuesday afternoon during the girls' swim lessons, my chest started itching too and when I get home and peer down my shirt (which is totally inappropriate to do in public unless you're under the age of 5), I notice that I am covered in tiny red spots and bumps which have spread to my neck and back. FABULOUS! Given the location of the new breakout, it is evident that something I am ingesting is to blame. Unfortunately the only foreign thing I am ingesting is the antibiotic. Eureka, I am allergic to the antibiotic... Lovely! How did we not know this you ask? Apparently, the steroid I was on had been suppressing the reaction and since I was no longer taking them, the reaction to the antibiotic was just now apparent and without wanting to risk the infection coming back, I finish the antibiotic anyway. Oh and the other lovely thing about steroids is that once you finish a course of treatment, you can not start a new one for like 4-6 weeks so I am left to pop Benadryl like candy and wait for the antibiotic to clear my system. Sound like a great way to spend the last week of summer to you? Yeah, me neither. Don't even get me started on the problem this presents in treating any other infection I have in the future as I am also allergic to penicillin!

Day 580

Excitement in Tomball!...
What could possibly be more exciting than a brand spankin new LUBY's! Boy howdy, I'll tell you what, the joint was jumpin! One of M's girlfriends was determined to be the first customer and arrived a whole hour early with a bunch of her friends (they are about two years older than M). We of course, showed up when they opened and stood in a decent line but nothing compared to what it had grown to by the time we were through it! I do have to give props to the older girls though, they made a point of inviting M last night and texting her this morning (even though she never has her phone on) to tell her that they were saving her a spot! See, not all teenagers are horrible...LOL! SO here they are, the first customers of Tomball's Luby's and their waiter, Oscar who was very good-natured about the whole scenario. The backlighting was vicious, but you know me, I hate bringing flash out so I'd rather have it the natural way!
This picture was a nightmare! Try getting three kids 7 & under to look at the same place at the same time and get them on the same focal plane, yeah not happening!

Day 579

New...
To me anyway! The diamonds are the ones I was married with, but the setting and outer bands are totally new. Don't worry, I had a really good reason for "needing" to do this. You see, with all the shooting I have been doing, my original three-stone setting was getting crushed and the outer diamonds were getting dangerously loose, one of them was even spinning in it's setting...yikes! At first we thought we would just get the prongs fixed or replaced, but then I decided that I almost never ever wear yellow gold anymore and I would prefer to have the whole setting redone if we could. Have I mentioned how totally and completely spoiled I am by my hubby? He never batted an eyelash and the price tag and even said it was below what he had in his mind as the limit. It finally came in this week after the setting I had chosen was back-ordered but I was feeling so miserable that I couldn't bring myself to go and pick it up. Great guy that he is, he knew that it would be the perfect pick-me-up and went by the jewelers after his meeting this afternoon!

This was snapped by M and it was perfectly sharp even with the focus point moved over to left. Makes this mom's heart so proud!
Walking back home after spending some time at the neighbor's house. I only had the macro on, but I loved the clouds and get tired of the close-up shots of the moon sometimes. I like the tiny little spec in the far right corner which was a bright star. Then it started to sprinkle.

Day 578

Roles reversed...
Went out today with the girls to get their usual before school hair do's and M got her roots seen to. As in anything else, you want what you weren't born with right? L wants her hair straight and M wants hers curled! Nik did a great job (no surprise there) and the only downer of the day was they had swim later on and would have to kill the great styles. We were a few minutes late to swim because we absolutely had to get these shots to remember them by.

Day 576-577

Allergic...
UGH! Remember I said that I had a really good excuse for not posting for a couple of days but that I would get to that later? Well these two days were somewhat consumed by doctor visits, blood tests and prescriptions but mostly misery (for everyone in the house since I am such a whiner!). About a week ago I was bitten by a spider, no big deal, right? I didn't think anything of it. It would seem I have completely forgotten in the last twenty-four years since I have been bitten by one, ironically while watching the Olympics, that I am allergic to them. I now recall the horrible hives that developed when I was 10 as they have reappeared. It would seem a little odd to me (and the doctor too) that the hives would pop up more than a week after the bite and that some of the hives had turned into bruises and almost all of them were infected (in the space of 36 hours mind you) so he sends me to get some blood work done as the bruises raise some red flags. What flags you ask? Well, apparently, there could be a problem with my platelets or my thyroid. We are leaning more in the thyroid direction as it explains a number of other odd things happening and seemingly like to accompany low blood pressure which I have already been diagnosed with. Great. Maybe the spider bite had nothing at all to do with the hives or maybe by scratching at it like a mangy dog, I opened it up and then caused it to spread...who knows?
Yeah, that's some pretty major antibiotics and can I tell you how much I hate taking steroids? They turn me into a raving lunatic. I know they are doing their job in killing the allergic reaction, but try explaining that to my kids who think their mother has been replaced by Joan Crawford!

Day 575

Who else?...
With no kids home, me & T caught up on a little tv and while waiting for my parents to bring the kiddos home, I snapped some pics of Lola. I really need to take some of her with Cotton, they are absolutely hilarious together. Cotton follows her around keeping her safe and only every once in while forgets how much bigger he is than she when they play.

Day 574

Work...
Yeah, I have a pretty good life when snuggling and cuddling with little ones like him are work right? According to mom and dad, all he does is eat and sleep. Unless he is getting his picture taken apparently! After about an hour of rocking and feeding and cooing, little K went out like a light and we were able to get some great shots. This was certainly not a bad way to spend my Saturday morning while T worked!



We did sneak out for a little bit to enjoy a dinner to ourselves at Perry's. I have to say though, it doesn't even compare to Kirby's which is more than worth the drive to The Woodlands.

Day 573

Whoo hoo!...
Fridays and Wednesdays are the worst for my schedule! The really awesome thing about this Friday and why I have no picture is that straight away from gymnastics, we took the kids out to my parents house for the WHOLE weekend! After staying much later than we planned to watch the Olympic opening ceremonies and enjoying some of my dad's tasty burgers, we came home to a reasonably silent house (we did, after all still have three dogs to contend with). The weekend wasn't all serenity and bons-bons though, I had a session with a newborn and T had some work to do too.

Day 572

Yeah so I dropped the ball...again!
I just cannot keep up with this blasted blog! I do, however, want to thank all my friends who are far more faithful to it than I am. I actually have a fairly decent reason for the past several days as to my lack of posting, but more on that later. First, here is the shot that I actually took on the evening of Day 572. It's of course, our newest supermodel family member, miss lola! The real tragedy is that right before I took this, her whole body was in the bowl while she was eating and by the time I had my camera, she had figured out that just wasn't effective.

Day 571

Lola's 1st vet visit...
Since I stupidly forgot to bring the camera when I went to get Lola, I was really good and remembered it for her first visit. Poor L was horrified when she got her first shots, it was so sad. The good news is that she is a perfectly healthy little yorkie! Her next visit is scheduled for when her "mommy" is busy finding her way around the second grade in a brand new school.

She was eventually ok, with a little help from her big sis.

Day 570 (caught up!)

Her name was Lola, she was a show girl...
Don't be ashamed, you know you know the words to that Manilow classic! Sing it loud and proud and heck, for less than a buck you can have it on your iPod! I can't help myself, every time I call her, all I can hear is the chorus to "Copacabana" in my head! And yes, she can wear mini Build-A-Bear clothes. Next thing you know, she'll be wearing pajamas and her want slippers and cocoa.

Going...
Going...
Gone...it's rough in the puppy racket!
Here she is with her "babysitter" while L was out at piano lessons today (no stinkin tropical storm will hold us back...lol).