Project 365, February 3 - February 11

These past two weeks have been full. I'm working on Andrew's birthday party prep - lots of dinosaurs! rawr! - we finished up their class Valentines for friends, my new Wordpress blog will be ready to go next week, and it's tax prep time at my "real" job. So lots of takeout and scrambled egg dinners and late nights for me.

Do y'all do that with dinner? If life gets super busy, the first thing to go is meal planning and healthy homemade dinners. We can only do so much and chick-fil-a for dinner once a week just doesn't seem that bad in the scheme of things.

And the kiddos certainly don't mind! :)

"Profile" 34 // 365

"Chillin'" 35 // 365

"Mr. Spike" 36 // 365

"Snow Day" 37 // 365 

"The Living Room is My Gym Mom!" 38 // 365

"Click!" 39 // 365

"Chick-Fil-A Does it Again" 40 // 365

"Happy Snowman!" 41 // 365

"Brightest Shoes Ever" 42 // 365

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Project 365, January 19 - January 25

We've almost made it through the first month of this photo-a-day project. Time moves quickly. It's like we blink and it's gone. We all say it, so it must be true.

Andrew and Caroline have both had major growth spurts the last few weeks, (new pants for everyone!) and I swear they look older now at the end of the month than they did at the beginning.

It's subtle, but we moms notice these things.

It was a good week of picture taking. The kids haven't gotten annoyed with me yet. They mostly just ignore my camera which means we're seeing lots of real life - including real life attitudes - in these photos.

"Family Tradition" 19 // 365

"Little Miss Brown Eyes" 20 // 365

"I swim on my back!" 21 // 365

"Legos Before Bed" 22 // 365

"Crib Friends" 23 // 365

"Post Tennis Chill" 24 // 365

"4, 3, 2, 1 - Cousins" 25 // 365

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Project 365, January 1 - January 10

So a few friends are hosting a new photography challenge for the year and somehow I've convinced myself to try a 365 Project. I'm giving myself a 50% chance of finishing, which is not high. But I'm up for starting, and I really hope I follow through. I think it would be amazing to have a book ready to print at the end 2014: A Photo a Day, Everyday. Pretty cool right?

A little lofty though considering I don't even open my mail everyday. Ha! But I really love the idea of picking up my big camera daily. I used to be much better about it, taking it with me on errands and outings. I'd like to get back to that and this project just might be what I need to spur me on. So if we're friends and you see me at Kroger with my big camera, just don't laugh - okay? :)

I'm not sure if I'll post my photos here every week or not, but to get me off on the right foot here is our first week and a half of 2014:

"Oh, Hi Andrew" 1 // 365

"Big Messes" 2 // 365

"Bubbles in the Sun" 3 // 365

"Grin" 4 // 365

"Princess Cooking" 5 // 365

"Toes" 6 // 365

"Excavation" 7 // 365

"Skeptical Princess" 8 // 365

"Game Night" 9 // 365

"So Very Loud" 10 // 365

Ten days! I made it ten days. As you can see, all but one of these are of the kiddos and that's my plan. I'll still take pictures of other stuff and some days my photo may be of something besides these two, but I'm focusing on them for this project.

I'm acutely aware that my time at home with them is getting short. Andrew goes to Kindergarten in the fall. Caroline is going to preschool two days a week starting this month. I want to take advantage of my cute subjects in 2014.

I am hoping to get more creative with it. I think that will come with practice and more repetition. I'll get bored and start looking for new perspectives or angles, experimenting with my settings.

So far, I'm loving the challenge - no themes - just the freedom (and the obligation) to take a photo every day.

Making Time

Y'all, I've lost my blogging mojo.

I don't know what happened.

I think of all these topics I want to blog on and post about and then, I'm just not making time for it...

I started working out with a trainer back in March. She's awesome, and I feel great. So that gets a little of my time, but not much because it's such a super efficient workout.

I'm going to sleep earlier. That's helping me feel better too - more awake and aware. Don't get me wrong - I still need at least two cups of coffee a day, but I'm not yawning all afternoon anymore, so that's an improvement.

I'm spending what seems like hours sitting in the bathroom with Caroline while she tinkles just a squirt on her potty and then talks about tinkling and then sings about tinkling and then I finally chase her down and put a diaper on her and she says, "I tinkled. Change diaper?"

I'm not sure exactly what Andrew's doing during these long minutes I'm hanging out in the bathroom. Mostly building with his Legos or watching Scooby I think.

It makes me proud that he's capable of keeping himself occupied for long stretches of time without needing too much from me. I love the independence. It's one of the traits I most want to foster in my children. Which makes me worry I'm just neglecting them and not giving them every opportunity to grow.

Like maybe they need to be playing soccer and singing in the choir and going back to swimming lessons, which are all things we decided not to do this fall. Instead we're taking them to the pumpkin patch and the SMU Boulevard to tailgate before football games, and teaching them (well, Andrew) about fantasy football and why we love the Cowboys, and going for long walks in our new neighborhood, hanging out with our cousins and making new friends at tennis lessons on Friday mornings.

I'm also spending way too much time reading fashion blogs and thinking about my fall wardrobe which is just silly, but also super important to me because just because we're moms, in and out of preschool pickup and Target all day, doesn't mean we have to wear yoga pants if we're not going to yoga. I need some style.

I'm making a conscious effort to go through my closet and find things that I feel good in and wear them again, mix them up in new ways.

How are you spending your days this fall?

*All photos taken with my awesome, yet neglected 50mm and Canon 7D in our playroom in the natural afternoon light while my heart swelled with love for these two cuties who can occasionally play in the same room without screaming at each other.

Balancing

Weekends at the family lake house are the best.

They're full of sun and fun and conversation, family and floating and lots of hot dogs.

Here are a few snapshots from the weekend....well, last weekend, but this weekend looked pretty similar.

So the rest of our July will look a lot like this, plus about a million boxes and movers and hours and hours of packing and unpacking.

I'm hoping to balance our time well for the sake of the kiddos. They turn into wild animals when we spend too much time inside, and well, we pretty much have to be inside for me to pack.

So a little packing, a little playing, a little unpacking, a little swimming....we'll balance it all out.

It's going to be a good month!

Saturdays

Caroline seems to have finally given up her 4:30 or 5AM nursing session which is wonderful. I'm so, so glad. But it also means she's up for the day by 7AM now.

Which is not that bad I know, but we're a late night household.

I'm working on changing that, but somehow 7AM is a lot earlier than 8AM on a Saturday.

We are finally going to make it to the kids' swimming lessons this morning. Our Saturdays have been filled this spring, and we've missed the pool. I'm so looking forward to summer and weekends in the water.

After swimming lessons I'm leaving the kids and taking one of those "me" days I talked about this week. My sister and my mom and I are going shopping. Woohoo for new spring clothes!

If I find anything fabulous I'll be sure to share it with you.

But first I wanted to tell y'all about Whitney Rae Paper.

I met Whitney at the Handmade Marketplace at Blissdom. I was immediately drawn to her paper goods because I love all things pretty paper, but her camera stamp jumped right out at me.

I neeeeeded that stamp. I've been stamping all kinds of stuff - my planner, blank note cards, the kids - kidding! Kind of.

If you love photography and you love paper you should put one on your list.

Happy Saturday friends. :)

Making Time for You

A few of my favorite bloggers, Kelly, Jennifer, Courtney and Erin, are doing a great series on encouraging moms who are in the season of little ones. I'm certainly there and could use a little encouragement. I bet lots of you could too.

I wanted to join in and share a bit this week on remembering you and taking time to keep your own identity even after you become Mom.

This can be so hard when you’re at home with a newborn, especially as a first time mom. I remember those first three months after Andrew was born as mostly a big blur of hormones and worrying about sleep and nursing and quite a few tears from both of us.

The very last thing I had on my mind was getting out and doing something fun for myself.

And then when Caroline was born…whoa. It took  me almost six months to get my feet back under me. Being at home with a non-napping toddler and a newborn left me feeling so exhausted and run-down that I didn’t have much left in my tank for me.

Oh, those new baby lips.

But the fog lifted….they did not stay tiny forever. And eventually they slept, kind of. And eventually I found the energy to leave the house again. :)

One of my favorite ways to spend a “me” day is with my mom and my sister. We love to shop together, try on shoes and lipstick and sunglasses, have a long lunch and laugh a lot. I wouldn’t say any of us are expert shoppers, but we really love to spend an afternoon at the mall together.

New lipstick makes me happy.

Mom and Kelsey are two of my very favorite people in the world. They fill me up and restore me. Throw in a little retail therapy, and I’m recharged for weeks.

And I don’t feel guilty leaving Andrew and Caroline at home with Brian. They love their daddy to pieces, and it’s great for them to spend time together without me every once in a while.

I spend a lot of time studying and practicing my photography. I had barely even picked up a camera before Andrew was born, but when I held that dSLR for the first time everything changed. It was like I had found something just for me and it was so very exciting.

I had to work really hard to learn something completely new. (Heck, I’m still working really hard to learn new techniques all the time. That’s one of the best things about photography. You can never know it all.) It brings me so much joy. And I guard my photo time. Sure, it ebbs and flows with how busy we are in a certain season, but I always make time to read new blog posts or flip through the latest Click magazine.

And sometimes that means Andrew watches a movie while Caroline naps so I have time to do some editing. I think this is okay. Again, I don’t feel guilty about it. We all need that time to reenergize ourselves and photography is it for me.

I’ve also talked before about how much a family dance party in the living room means to me. It’s silly, and I’m not on my own or buying new lipstick, but a good get-it-all-out after dinner dance session with my family makes me feel like a new person. We could have had a terrible awful no-good day, but a little dance party makes bedtime easier and puts us all in a happy mood. I mean, who doesn’t love boogying down to a little Raffi? :)

Dance, dance baby.

Find what makes you happy, what restores you and fills you up and brings you great joy and make time for it. Because no one else will guard that time for you. And it’s totally worth it.