Margaret Sanger is turning over in her grave right now...

Overheard today during play....

"Judah, you can be the prince and I'll be the princess. Here's your hat and your sword."

"Do pinces fight ba' guys wiv dere swords??"

"Yes, they do."

"I'n a pince!"

"Yes, and I'm the princess"

"Sofi, do pinCESess fight da ba' guys wiv a sword, TOO?"

"No, princesses just sit at home in their pretty dresses and weep for their princes."

J has always said I'm the worst male chauvinist he's ever seen. I reckon it's rubbing off on the kids now...

Another reason I like this town

What says summer better than this??












Hope you're having as good a summer as we are!!!

I Heart Faces: Sports in Action

Well, as many of you know, we aren't really a Sports family, so I'm stretching this week's theme a bit here. This entry is of Sofi and Granddad. I'm calling the sport "Riding on Granddad". We'll see how that plays with the judges :)

I've been having lots of fun experimenting with slow exposure action shots to get that cool swirly-around-a-central image look. I haven't refined it yet, but every once in a while I get a pretty good shot. Anyone have hints for that? With this one I lassoed her face and sharpened it up a bit and then ran a CoffeeShop action. Can't remember what it's called atm.... I love constructive criticism, so lay it on me!



"Be sure to head on over to www.iheartfaces.com to check out all of the beautiful face entries this week!"

To the dear woman who lent me her daughter for the afternoon yesterday

I am so sorry about the bright red and blue paint on the lovely white shirt. And the lovely face. And the beautiful blond curls. And the bottoms of her feet. I'm also sorry about the sugar high. I fully admit that cokes, jelly beans and six spoonfuls of sugar in her tea is not the greatest nutrition for a child of six. I sometimes find it very hard to say no to other people's children.

She is a joy. I hope we can repeat the process often. Perhaps without the paint, coke, jelly beans and diabetic-coma tea.









pssst...more on the Pit thing a little later.

Tot Talk Tuesday

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Sofi, to Judah, planning the afternoon's activities:


"First let's chalk, and then we can cautiously approach the doom of blowing bubbles"


Don't look at me! I have nooo idea....

Tot Talk Tuesdays

Won't you join us? I know you're kids aren't as cute as mine, but they're still pretty cute! Right?? ;) Click on the link above to join!

I can't remember if I posted this story before, but one of my favorite "oops!" moments with a newly talking child was when Sofi was about two. One day in the shoe store, late for naps and reaching the verge of a breakdown, we were trying on some new sandals in an aisle next to a young man and his pregnant wife. As he bent down to help her on with her shoes, he shared with us a little more of his, uh, personality, shall we say? than I might liked to have seen. I turned away, embarrassment for him turning to horror as I glimpsed the look of fascination on Sofi's face as she stared at the chasm revealed to view. I frantically gathered packages, purse, extra shoes and curious toddler into my arms and rushed for the safetly of the next aisle over as I heard her shrill voice pipe out at full, incredulous volume,

"Mama! That man's butt's peekin' out!!"

*sigh*



You can click on the label "Soficisms" in my label cloud to the right there, or subscribe to my blog with the "Follow" button if you want to read more stories of Sofi's adventures in articulation :)

Soficism #(something)

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Hooray for Nicey's new meme! I'm reposting from August last year, because I forgot to write anything down that anybody said today or this past week :) Better luck next week. I'm looking forward to meeting lots of fun new bloggy friends. Follow me and I'll follow you! Click on the button in my sidebar....

A friend of ours recently returned from a trip abroad and brought Sofi a coin purse made from a turtle shell. This morning's conversation about said purse:

"That sure is a cool purse Mr Frank bought you..."

"Why do you think so?"

(who said they grow out of the "why" stage? not happening so far. today she asked me why is this the fastest way to Big Lots. well, it just is...)

"Well, (hem, haw, stutter) I just think it's cool that it's made out of a real turtle shell."

"I don't think that's cool."

"Why not?" (payback!)

"Well, if I was a turtle, I would not want to be killed to make into a purse. (long pause) If I was already dead, I don't think I would mind, but I would not want to be killed for it."

The little whipersnapper ratted me out!

Today was a baby shower for a friend from church. It's also the weekend in which I have my final two recitals of the year. Church went from 10:30 to 12. Recital at 12:45, shower at 2. Tight schedule, indeed. Needless to say I did not finish the cute little outfit that I had planned to make for the darling baby boy. Typical. It's still sitting in my cupboard. I will eventually finish it. Hopefully before he's born. Realistically, possibly not before he grows out of that size. (as a side note, in case this does happen, i wonder if she'd consider having baby number four just so he could wear the outfit? probably not)

However, I saved myself the embarrassment of showing up to the shower without a gift by swinging home after the recital (west side of town) before heading out (twenty minutes late--the main violinist didn't show up on time) to the shower (east side of town) to pick up the extra toy tractor which I had called on my way to ask J to wrap for me. It was an extra tractor because we bought it just in case Mom and Dad weren't able to find one for Judah for his Birthday. They did, after all. Hence the extra tractor. I knew it would come in handy.

My cleverness blew up in my face as C unwrapped the gift and Sofi interrupted her ooos and aaahs with...

"It was supposed to be for Judah's birthday, but then he already had one, so this one got left over."

*general delighted laughter*

People love it when this sort of thing happens to Other People.

*sigh*

Ah well. All my pretensions to Proper Southern Party Etiquette have now gone up in smoke. But I do want you all to know that I own a a deviled egg plate. And I use it. Occasionally.

When does enough Raffi become too much Raffi?

Pretty soon!





Thank you Uncle Sam and Aunt Mina for the awesome Band in a Box! We love it!!

I Heart Faces: Laughter

Once again I didn't get to do a photo shoot. This time we were at Mom's all weekend. I planned to just not enter again, but then I found out that Ree Drummond is the guest judge this week and that's just too cool to pass up! I love her blog, as I told you here. Hi, Ree! I LOVELOVELOVE your Black Heels :)

This photo is form one of the first shoots I did with the kids after we got our new camera last summer. This one shot is one of three in a series that I framed and hung in our dining room. I love the way she's sticking out the tip of her tongue as she giggles! All my nearest and dearest will recognize this as something she inherited from her mommy :P This was during that "super tired and extra silly" stage, right before bed.

Let's see, what edits did I use... (I've started including these because I love it when other photographers include theirs) I reduced the noise a tad and upped the saturation, hoping to darken out some of the wood grain in the background. It worked pretty well, I think. Any suggestions from other photographers? WWYD?







You can go here and check out all the other laughing faces!

Another Soficism

Judah is quite well-known for his love of grapes around here. Today as Sofi hands him the bowl of grapes to take to the kitchen during "table clearing time"....


"Here Judah, take this to Mommy... no, don't eat them, take them to Mommy. (pause) Hmmm, that's a little like setting the fox to guard the chickens..."


Waddayaknow? She is listening. Sometimes, anyway...

Ballerina Sofia

Pictures today, video later.

I Heart Faces: Self Portrait

It's Monday again! This weeks theme is "Self Portrait". The rules basically are, I have to hold the camera and take the shot. I'm entering the "Kids" section, so I have to have at least one kid face in the shot with my own. This selection got the most "votes" from friends in this post (where you can see some more of the pics from my shoot yesterday). I had a nice cloudy day which gives some really cool lighting effects. That glow is caused by shooting up from the ground with the cloudy sky behind us. Really turned out better than I expected! The only editing I did was to sharpen just a touch and do some color stuff with her eyes. I figured out a way to approximate some of the awesome "eye popping" I saw in photos from last weeks challenge.

Anyways. Any feedback is appreciated! And I love new readers :) You can keep up with my photographic journey by clicking on the "Follow" button in the sidebar!

Because I can't do anything without getting a second opinion...

Which one of these do you like the best for submission to the I Heart Faces contest tomorrow?

Random things

Can any of you explain to me why the boy who would cheerfully climb into a dark, scary box to be mailed to China is so deathly afraid of a housefly that he'll burst into tears when one lands on his p.b.j. and then spend the rest of the evening frantically asking, "Fuhyii bichew?" in a teary voice and asking "Daddy killim?"

Overheard in the F house this evening:

J: I was going to, but then you made that whiny face, so now the answer is no.

S: Well, that wasn't really a whiny look. It was more a pleading look.
!!!

Children

*sigh*

Judah is outside, walking around the front yard in his socks. He also just dumped his entire bottle of bubbles into my flower beds.

Sofi has taken her pillowcase out of her room and into the bed of J's truck, spread it out and cuddled up on it with her stuffed bunny.

Yesterday, Sofi begged to carry one of the bags of groceries home (we walk to a local shop). Somewhere along the way she set it down, a fact which we did not discover until we arrived home. She had no memory of where, how or why she set it down, or even that she was at some point in the last ten minutes carrying groceries. This is the child that also frequently drives her bike straight into telephone poles. I promise to give you fair warning when she starts to drive so you can move out of the state.

Immediately after discovering that she had done this, I discovered that Judah had...um...well, it involves diapers and bodily substances in the stroller. Let's just leave it at that. Keep in mind that he's almost potty-trained for poops now and usually asks to go. Not this time. Oh no. We were at the park! No time for pooping on the potty!

I had to change him and then stick them both in the car and drive the three block route back to the store, necks craning out of windows all the way, looking for the lost bag of groceries. We discovered it lying beside the candy vending machines at the front of the store.





*sigh*

Dancing with Noah

Babies at the park

There would be more pics of Judah, but many of them were of him pushing people over, or yelling. So, in order to "protect his privacy" I will refrain.

From 1-28-09

From 1-28-09