After School Activities

I don't normally take pictures of our every day activities, and definitely not after a busy day at the office and the kids at daycare.  But today as I watched my kids just playing and doing their normal stuff I was inspired to capture it.  I want to remember these simple things, when the house is a mess (or 'lived in') and the boys are just being boys and not forced to sit and smile for the camera.  I love how Caleb barely even pays attention to me standing up on top of the furniture to get a shot of him playing legos.  And how Cullen lines up his toys and asks me for help to draw his favorite super heroes.  These are the things  I want to remember.

 

 

A Quick Portrait

Sometimes as a photographer I just want to get out there and take a picture.  My kids aren't always happy to be my subject but today I convinced Cullen to let me get a quick snap of him.  I am so glad I have all these pictures to look at and one day look back at.  I will never regret taking too many pictures.

Easter 2013

But first a flashback, to Easter 2011 :)  Love my little bunny and maybe one day I'll forget I have this picture but not any time soon.

 

 

Now instead of being a bunny, he wants to EAT the bunny...  Gah this kid (and the other) consumed more than their share of chocolate bunnies this year.

And I got one half decent picture of the two of them together, but I'll tell you it wasn't easy!

And yes we did dye some eggs, I didn't take many pictures this year though.

Bathroom Artwork

Inspired by our SuperHero themed photoshoot, I DIYed some artwork.  These were made in Photoshop and then printed onto 10x10 Aluminum from one of my professional printing labs.  I love how they turned out!!  Printing on Aluminum was a tad cheaper than canvas and more durable than just mounting prints to the wall without frames.



My Super Heroes

We had a little fun in our house going through comics and cutting strips out and making our own themed background.  I guess this is what you do when its spring and suppose to be warm outside but its not.

The Pier

Took the kids up to the park on the Lake today, its not warm enough to do much but walk around, but its still warmer than it has been.  They enjoyed walking down the pier and playing on the playground.  Can't wait to come back once Summer (or maybe Spring) is here in full thrust.

Gotta love always having a camera with you via your cell phone!

Graze Box

I heard about Graze box on one of my favorite mommy boards, where I pick up a lot of tricks and trips for parenthood and life.  Graze.com is brand new and not even open to the public yet.  Its another one of those box subscription websites, they have them for everything, for clothing, organic food, makeup, even kids fun/adventure boxes, books, you name it, I'm sure its out there.  Graze is for healthy natural snacks.  They send you samples depending on your likes and dislikes and frequency.  I opted for the box sent to the house every 2 weeks.  The best part?  the first box was free, another bonus?  the 5th box is free, so I get 5 boxes for $15!  So why did I sign up for this?  Well my kids love getting mail, but they are horrible at trying new foods.  So I thought maybe if these foods came in a cute package in the mail they might try it.  Oh and there's chocolate involved (as you can see on Cullen's face).  Check out the pics, the boys were so excited to open up the packages and try the goodies.

Saint Patties Day 2013

The older my kids are the more fun they are!  This year I laid out some seamless paper and let them draw a big rainbow for our picture backdrop.  Winter this year is going on and on forever, so I'm trying to do new things with indoor pictures besides just sitting them in front of the white paper, photographing them on the bed is fun but it also gets old, and sometimes my house is just not picture perfect lol.  Painting with the kids is always fun so that's what we did.

Sick Week

The week before Saint Patties day, Caleb got pretty sick.  Fever hitting near 103 for 4/5 consecutive days followed by a couple days of a nasty cough.  After 7 or 8 days the virus passed though and we were in the clear.  but that meant that we were homebound for a bit.  Its hard when both parents work and you have a sick kid, normally Grandma would be able to watch them but this week wasn't good for her so Tony and I had to take sick leave.  A couple days I was able to go into the office at 6 a.m. and get 4 or 5 hours in before going home so Tony could go to work and get 4 or 5 hours in at the office.  It's a struggle and all about compromise.  Plus the kids are couped up all week.  Cullen who wasn't sick wasn't laying around and wanted activites.  Caleb was pretty sick so he was laying around most of the time but without just watching TV all day you gotta find activities.  Here's a couple of things we did.

We built a fort using my seamless stand and a king-sized sheet.

Took some macro pictures of Caleb while he was sleeping :)  I'm a good mom aren't I?

We got the real paints out and taught Cullen about the colors of the rainbow.

Cullen's New Shoes

Honestly everyone should feel sorry for this kid,  he's 2.5 and these are only his 2nd pair of new shoes...  Caleb never cared about shoes, in fact he hated buying new shoes and never wanted to give up his old pair.  Cullen is so different, he loves picking out his shoes in the morning, he's only ever had hand-me-downs from Caleb or some other little boy, except for his Puma's that he got from his Aunt and Uncle for Christmas when he was 1.  Well I finally let him pick out some shoes at target.com, he free shipping and not super expensive!  He was so excited when they came in the mail so we did a little photo of him wearing them.  You can't tell but they are Spiderman and they light up when he walks, just like his friend Cohen's from school (per Cullen).