Shabby Miss Jenn

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

My World Changed a Bit Today


After six years of having this cutie pie with me all the time, I sent him off to school by himself today.  For me it means my world has changed a bit.  Since 2000, the year my oldest was born, I have always had a boy by my side.  With my oldest two being boys I learned how to be a mom to boys.  Even now that we have had two little girls, I just somehow feel like a "boy mom".  Cars, Stars Wars, Batman, PowerRangers- these have been common conversation starters in our house for quite some time now.  Sports are also big in our house.  Football, basketball, baseball- you name it, my boys ( and Liza) can tell you something about it.  Slowly, as Liza has gotten older, we have started to have more princesses lying around the house, more dolls, and stuffed animals.  Even with the addition of all the girl stuff ( and there is plenty of it!) my mommy career started out with boys.  And now, both my boys are in big school.

All summer I have been telling Harrison how weird lunchtime would be when he was in school.  I am used to having my little H with me.  And today was weird.  After dropping Harrison off Liza, Louisa and I came home to a house that was a little quieter ( if you know Harrison you know his voice can carry!).  My poor little Liza followed me around from one task to another.  Today was the day she lost her best playmate during the day.  I guess I didn't even realize that she had become my shadow until I was trying to put Louisa down for her nap.  She quietly followed me into Louisa's room, where I was going to rock Louisa.  She dragged her little bathroom stool out of the attached bathroom and sat down beside me.  When I asked her if she missed Harrison she shook her little head and said, "Yeah, I miss Hair-son."    I told her I missed him too.

It will take some getting used to- this being without my boys during the day.  I will learn to be a "girl mom" and Liza will now take on a different role.  She will be my big kid and Louisa will be following her around like she used to follow Harrison around.  

Amazing how one day can change your world...

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

A Few Random Pictures

My sister is down at the beach with her family this week.  Lucky for us, we are close to the beach so I took the kiddos and shot down there for the day.  We enjoyed hanging out at the pool all afternoon, followed by a pizza dinner.  It was a great summer day.

Check out Ariel, The Little Mermaid, aka Liza.  Recently, she has started making me leave her hair down when we go swimming so that her hair can flow through the water.  She is so silly!

And here is one of my neices, Molly.  She actually played the role of Ariel today.  Liza got demoted to Melody, Ariel's daughter.  For those of you who aren't into the Little Mermaid, Ariel had a daughter named Melody.  That is from The Little Mermaid II.  Too bad I was a little lazy about taking pictures today because I missed getting pictures of King Triton, aka, Harrison.  He even pretended to carry his trusty trident around.  We have such little actors on our hands.


And, although this picture wasn't taken today I just loved it.  Look at my big girl, Louisa!  I snapped this yesterday.  You know where she was??  In my front doorway!  For you aspiring photographers go give this a try.  Open up your front door.  Set your trusty little subject right there in the doorway and snap away.  Usually, your front doorway will have nice, pretty soft light.  It is nice, open shade- perfect for taking pictures.  This is a great example of front lighting.  See how there aren't any shadows on her face?  The light fell on it evenly.  Front lighting is also called "glamour lighting".  I learned that in Candice Stringham's portrait class.  Aren't you impressed with my learning?  Now, go off and take some pictures of your kids in your doorway.  Leave me a comment if you do and let me know where I can go and take a gander at your doorway shots.


So, there you have my completely random pictures from today.  I am still playing around with my new camera, learning all the new features I now have available to me.  I have already decided some that I will use a lot ( like back button focusing) and some that I will use in particular situations ( like changing the auto focus drive modes- pretty nifty for catching moving subjects!).  All in all I do love my camera.

And before I forget, someone asked that I post what lens I was using.  For all of these pictures I used my Tamron 28-75mm/2.8.  I leave this lens on my camera most of the time now.  I love a 2.8 aperture and I find the focal range to be pretty decent for most of what I shoot.  I do have a longer lens that I use at sporting events for my kiddos but it was demoted as my favorite lens once I got this one!

Friday, August 7, 2009

What a Cutie- Inside and Out!


My little Liza was sweet enough to let me practice taking some pictures of her tonight.  I tell you, my kids are really not into helping me out when it comes to picture taking these days.  They are completely over being my test subjects.  So, I was pleasantly surprised when I suggested going outside tonight and letting mommy take a few pictures.  Liza said she would help me out so outdoors we went.

Now, although I do love the little shot I got of Liza, the real reason for her picture being on this post is because her mommy is super proud of her.  This week our church has been holding VBS ( Vacation Bible School for my Yankee friends).  Liza and Louisa were supposed to be in the nursery all week as I led a group of kids.  Louisa had different ideas though and she learned very quickly ( like within 30 minutes of me dropping her off the first day!) that if she shrieked her high pitch squeal, then she would get busted out of the nursery.  And me, being the tender hearted mommy couldn't bear to leave my Liza in the nursery ( it was ALL babies!) if Louisa was going to have to accompany me around all morning.  So, I told Liza she could rotate through the stations with my group ( the rising kindergarteners) as long as she as a good girl.  Well, Miss Liza was a good girl!  She listened.  She followed directions.   She participated.  And the crowning jewel in the whole thing was tonight, on the way back from dropping Benjamin off.  We had the VBS music CD playing in the car and I heard my sweet little Liza's voice singing "We can trust Him, We can trust Him".  Something about hearing her soft little voice singing songs that talked about such important and bigs ideas, made me proud of her.  She was a trooper.

And to be fair, all of my kiddos were troopers and made their momma proud.  Benjamin was in a rather challenging group but the leader made a point to come up and tell me how thankful she was to have Benjamin there as she could count on him to listen and help out.  And my Harrison was in my group, which isn't always the easiest on a kid.  He really made me proud though!  We had the largest group at 30, and I didn't have to speak to him once this whole week.  I had some very active little kids but Harrison knew how to behave and did his best.  Not only did they all behave, but they also learned a lot.  Every night we have been able to talk about what we learned the previous day and they made sure to bring in donations each day to go towards our mission ( we collected over 1000 pounds of food!!).  All in all it was a crazy busy but super fun week and this momma is oh so proud of her babies.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

New Camera, New Pictures

Just a quick post to show off some new pictures taken with my new camera!  I actually got the camera almost two weeks ago but am just now getting time to really learn it.  While I do believe that the camera does not make the photographer, I can now say that it does help a little!

Here are a few pictures snapped with my new baby.  Along with the new camera I am trying out some new processing techniques.  Seems like I always have to be learning something.  What fun is it to always do things the same way?

Here is a soft/dreamy type processing.  Took these last night in front of a beautiful church downtown.  I love the grounds of this church.  So pretty!


And this one cracks me up.  I love how Liza wrinkles her little nose up.  She does it when she is being devilish.  My goodness she is a character!

And here is my little H.  Isn't he the best model?  You should have seen him posing for me!  I just love this little dude.


And this one is my absolute favorite of all the pictures I got from last night.  It's not my favorite because it is the best composition or the best processing.  It is my favorite because of what it says.  To me, this picture shows what life is like in our house at times- Liza being a character while the boys look on and laugh and/or wonder about her.  This is an emotionally perfect photography to me.


And lastly, I apologize for not including any photos that show our little Louisa.  A big storm blew up as we were taking these pictures so Miss Louisa missed her modeling time.  Never fear though, you know there will be more pictures soon!