Little League Moments

I was so grateful for the opportunity to photograph these little ones.  All of them were extremely well-mannered and have great athletic skills that allowed me to capture some fun photographs.  I hope that these pictures will be wonderful keepsakes for them many years to come.  Here are just a few of my favorites.

Taste The Rainbow - The Culinary Experiment

Spring Break - Day 2


Today the kids and I had a culinary experiment....to make brightly colored food for Day 2 of Spring Break and pretend there isn't still snow on the ground.  We added food coloring to our pancakes. We made Rainbow Rice Krispy Treats.  And we made a yummy dessert of 6 different flavors of Jello.  Afterwards we invited all the neighbor kids over to to gobble them up!  Happy kids = Successful Day 2.

Thank you to the following websites and Mommy bloggers for their inspiration:
Rainbow Jello Desserts - Taste of Home
Rainbow Pancakes - i am mommy
Rainbow Rice Krispy Treats - babble

(*Update* another great "rainbow" recipe I found that we did not get to try were this awesome St. Patrick's day cupcakes - Daily Organized Chaos)

Guess How Much I Love You?

Spring Break - Day 1

So it's Day #1 of Spring Break for my kids.  When planning and thinking about the upcoming time with the kids, I had visions of picnics, walks through the nature center, bike rides, and bar-b-ques.  Because of my  work-a-holic status for the last week or so (see previous post), I felt that THIS week was going to be my mommy redemption time....the time when I would no longer be shunned by the flawless mothers who have their children at the park 3 times a week before taking them home to feed them chicken and broccoli while mine are hurriedly shoving the last Girl Scout Thin Mint in their mouth in preparation for their next battle on Halo 3.  Last weekend I had my mental 'pre-game pep rally' where I convinced myself that 168 hours straight with my kiddos is going to be AWESOME!  Plenty of quality time with my kids, laugher, eating our healthy fruits and vegetables, butterflies and rainbows, and possibly even a unicorn or two.

It was a pipe dream. I woke up this morning with 4 text alerts on my phone that we were under a "Winter Weather Advisory" the high for the day is suppose to be 34 degrees....snow tonight.  Put away the apples, time to pull the Thin Mints back out.

I decided to have a Monday Morning Meeting with the kids since my game plan was now null and void.  After 5 minutes of trying to gather them up, the meeting went something like this:

Me:  Letting out a deep sigh of disappointment, "So guys, it's really cold outside what do you want to do today?"
(long pause of silence)
Kid #1: "NERF GUNS!!!!!!!"  he screamed as he got up and ran out of the room waiving his hands in the air.
I watched him leave with no energy to do anything about it.
(Another long pause)
I took a drink of my tea and looked down at my daughter who was blankly staring at me.
Me:  "Sweetie, what would you like to do today."
Kid #2:  "NOT nerf guns, he always shoots me in the face and it HURTS.  I'm worried that he might get me blinded and then I can't dance ever, EVER AGAIN" she said as she flings her hands down on the grounds and forces tears to fill her eyes (so my daughter MAY have a flare for the dramatic...I refrain from correcting her grammatical errors.)
Kid #1 screams from across the house:  "I do not SHOOT YOU IN THE EYES!"
Kid #2 screams back:  "Uh HUH!!!  Remember, you shot me in the FACE last week when I was on the stairs???"
Kid #1:  "Well....yeah.  I shot you in the face....but you said EYES.  I didn't shoot you in the EYES!!!"

It was at this point I had already made my way to the kitchen and shoved a second Thin Mint in my mouth.  So much for Monday Morning Meeting.

I sat down at the computer to go through my email and noticed our library books were overdue.  The LIBRARY!!  Thankfully my kids LOVE the library.  We began to go through our shelves and shelves of books to try and find the overdue ones to take back when we came across their favorite..."Guess How Much I Love You".  It had been a long time since we had read through that book.  My first grader opened it up and began reading in her slow, monotone first grade reading voice "I....love.....you....as.....ha...ha....hard?"

"High" I replied.

"high....as...I...can.....hop!" she said proudly.  She read the whole book.

I fought back the tears.  I had read that book to my kids when they were just months old and now they could read it on their own.  As always, when I have a "Mommy Moment" like that, I have to scrapbook it. (Yes, I just used "scrapbook" as a verb).  Besides.....reading "Guess How Much I Love You" to my children and scrapbooking it MIGHT get me back into the good graces of the flawless playground mommies.....(might).

Don't forget that YOU are part of the story in your kids lives.  Lots of parents have tons of photos of their kids in their scrapbook, but not many photos of them WITH their kids.  Even the cheap cameras have timers that you can set and then run into the photograph.  Tripods are inexpensive but you can also use anything that is stable and the right height (for this photo the camera was sitting on a dresser with a bunch of overdue library books stacked underneath).

For a photograph challenge, try to think of an activity that you can do with you kids and utilize you camera timer to get in the photograph with them!!

The Importance of the Mundane

Hi, my name is Katie and I am, a work-a-holic.  The side effects of this epidemic are astronomical.  They are even worse when your business is in your home.  I sit down at my desk at 8:00am and the next thing I know it's 7:30pm, my dog is on the verge of getting a urinary tract infection if I don't get her outside STAT, my kids have eaten an entire bag of Cheez-its for "dinner" and they have trouble blinking from watching their 7th episode of Spongebob since getting home from school (wait, what time do they get home from school??).  To add insult to injury, I am slightly dizzy and nauseous from my strict diet of Earl Grey Tea and granola bars which has made my blood sugar rise and plummet all day.

If this wasn't bad enough, I then put my over-carbed, over-stimulated children to bed, let the dog out, upgrade from the Early Grey to a semi-sweet Red, and then sit myself right back down at the computer. By 11:00pm, I have sat at the desk for approximately 13 hours and still have a stack of papers I want to read, websites I want to research, and projects I still haven't even started.

I can see the confused looks on your faces thinking, "WHAT does this have to do with scrapbooking?"  Well....nothing, and everything.  Countless times I have told people that scrapbooks are as unique as each individual.  They are the stories of our lives.  People have preconceived notions that scrapbooks are all about new babies, graduations, and vacations.  While those are important, it is equally important to capture the day-to-day moments.  Even the things that we consider 'mundane' have value in our lives.  Today I wanted to scrapbook an aspect of me, that my kids will probably not remember when they are my age.

So the next time you think that it was "just another day," think again.  There may be an awesome scrapbook page waiting to happen.

Photo Tips for Toddler Photographs

A GREAT scrapbook page always starts with an AMAZING photo.  But sometimes when you are chasing around a two-year old with a pudding pop melting down his arms, the last thing on your mind is lighting and framing.  All parents know that a photo session with a toddler, whether candid or not, has an EXTREMELY small window of opportunity.  You are only seconds away from a tantrum, a knee scrape, complete boredom, a distraction, or that bully 3 year old on the playground that acts like the lava-hot slide is HER turf.  In other words, you need to move FAST!

GET DOWN

The world looks different from your toddler’s angle and so does your toddler.    Get down on their level to capture those big eyes and adorable faces.  Sometimes this means grass stains on your new “Lucky” jeans, but if you haven’t already learned, being a parent is about sacrifice.

GET CLOSE

I know, I know.  First I ask you to get on the ground and then I ask you to get close?  Chasing a toddler while running on your feet is one thing.  Chasing them around on your knees could be an Olympic event.  But don’t forget you have a handy dandy zoom button.  It is a parent’s salvation for getting awesome close up shots.  All too often I see parents doing the “photo dance” (completely different from the “pee pee dance” but looks similar) trying to get the perfect distance between them and their child.  Unless the background has some sort of significance, fill the photo with your child.

GET OUTSIDE

The best flash in the world cannot compare to indirect lighting from the great outdoors.  I know of some great photographers who shutter (get it) at the idea of using a flash and will ONLY use natural lighting.  Partly cloudy or overcast days are the best (which is good news for the citizens of Seattle) because you avoid the harsh shadows and color washes from the sun.

GET CREATIVE

Kid photos are the most fun when kids get to do what they do best……..be kids.  They do not have to sit pretty, smile, and look at the camera for every single shot.  Let them play, explore, and have fun.  Their emotions will shine through into the photograph.