head

shoulders

knees

and toes

clickity here to see more you capture entries

I was going to let my last post be my last post of 2010, but I’ll do almost anything for Beth. And since I uploaded Christmas pictures to Facebook but didn’t put them on here [read: lazy] then I thought this would be a good way to share some of my favorites.

Christmas Eve :: dinner + gift exchange with Ken’s family

Christmas morning :: just us + our girls

Christmas afternoon :: lunch + gift exchange with my family in Georgia

[I have NO idea why I only took 2 pictures in GA … I’m so mad at myself]

share your favorite holiday photos [here]

this is going to sound so cliché. SO cliché.

but …

my girls inspire me.

they inspire me to be a better mom.

a better photographer.

a better homemaker.

a better person.

Clearly, I should read the subject of the weekly You Capture before I post, because I just posted a bunch of autumn shots. But lucky for Beth, I take pictures of fall almost every day, because the bright colors last about 3 seconds down here.

Autumn is the perfect cure for cabin fever.

I should have tons of pictures of togetherness since that’s pretty much all we do all.day.long. I actually may have had too much togetherness this week.

Anywho, I didn’t get many pictures because my battery died a couple of days ago, and I keep forgetting to plug it back in.

brain = pudding

But this one image sums it all up …

Big sister telling little sister all about birds and how they flap their wings to fly … just the two of them. Together.

hey … remember when I blogged every day?

yeah, me either.

life with a newborn is so amazing.

life with a newborn + a preschooler is just about the hardest thing i’ve ever done.

it’s still amazing. just ten gajillion times harder than i imagined.

we’re three weeks in now, and i feel like i’m kinda sorta hitting a groove, but there are still things that throw me into a tailspin daily.

one of ken’s riding buddies told him that his daughter had a hard time adjusting to a new baby in the house, and this buddy’s wife told him, “i can’t handle this. i don’t know what to do.” [something i say about 942 times a day] and he said, “well, imagine how you would react if i suddenly brought home a new wife that was going to live with us.”

in turn, i said, “dude. do you know how happy i would be if YOU brought home a new wife?! she could cook, clean, do laundry and wash dishes while i snuggle with lucy and play with emma. want me to help you find one?”

but when I’m hiding in the laundry room, curled up in the fetal position, I remember that this, too, shall pass.

in the blink of an eye, we will be sending our girls off to kindergarten.

and high school.

and college.

okay, excuse me while i go back into the laundry room for a while.

see other you capture entries over at beth’s

Is it already Thursday? Man, this week flew by!

I’ll admit … we’re not playing outside as much as normal, because …

I can’t remember what day that was, but it could be any day these past couple of weeks. So we’ve spent a lot of time inside with play-dough, crayons and coloring books, baby dolls, and My Little Pony’s.

When we ARE outside, you’ll probably find us trying to cool off.

We also hit the playground one evening … 98 degrees at 8pm. *sweat*

And sometimes, she can whine incessantly convince me to take her outside in the morning.

And then I can usually get her to do this …

So it all works out.

The past three days have brought afternoon summer thunderstorms, which we LOVE. The pounding sideways rain … the thunder and lightning … the cooler temps. Yes yes YES!

In the end, we just do our best to have fun no matter what we’re doing.

See how everyone else played this week over at Beth’s.

I rarely process in black & white, because I feel like b&w adds a dramatic flair, and I don’t think I take a lot of dramatic pictures.

But this one of Emma looking out the window, waiting for daddy to get home … it needed some drama.

But I also liked it in color.

Go figure.

Well, we have plenty of green around here, which is shocking since we haven’t gotten rain in a while, and it is hot as blazes. So I managed to hunt some down for this week’s challenge.

Canon 50D • 85mm • ISO 160 • f/ 5.6 • shutter speed: 1/500

Canon 50D • 85mm • ISO 125 • f/ 2.5 • shutter speed: 1/6400

Canon 50D • 85mm • ISO 125 • f/ 2.5 • shutter speed: 1/1250

 Canon 50D • 85mm • ISO 200 • f/ 2.5 • shutter speed: 1/800

Canon 50D • 50mm • ISO 100 • f/ 2.8 • shutter speed: 1/640 

See the other green (or chair or hands) entries over at Beth’s …

This week’s You Capture was all about getting down low … so I took it literally and shot from the ground.

Emma splashing at the end of a super fun water slide …

Canon 50D • 85mm • ISO 250 • f2.2 • shutter speed: 1/1250

sprinklers sprinkling the heat-dried grass …

Canon 50D • 85mm • ISO 250 • f1.8 • shutter speed: 1/4000 • manual focus

momma feet and toes wrinkling from too much time in the pool …

Canon 50D • 85mm • ISO 400 • f1.8 • shutter speed: 1/250

little feet scooting in the late evening sun …

Canon 50D • 85mm • ISO 100 • f2.5 • shutter speed: 1/8000

and our current “middle child” snoozing in the shade.

Canon 50D • 85mm • ISO 100 • f1.8 • shutter speed: 1/3200

Okay, so that last one wasn’t really shot from a down low perspective, but I was squatting. And squatting while almost 6 months pregnant is kind of a big deal.

So how low can you go?