Memorial Day BBQ

Jack wanted Abby to carry him around the pool:
So when the third one arrives... how is this supposed to work?


Nice... simple... nice.

Jack's Second LOUD Dodger Game

It was a spur of the moment decision. Go to the Dodger game... after church while Abby was in Manhattan Beach with Gramma. Jack isn't intimidated by much, so we figure at the worse we'll have to let him walk around.


Well... Jack was a little tired, but we were shocked that he was absolutely totally screaming/yelling. So off we go up to the walkway area. Except he's still screaming/yelling. I'm so confused. He doesn't seem all that upset, what the heck is with the noise!?

OHHHH I realize as his volume increases with the crowd's cheers... he's competing with the LOUDness of the rest of the people. He's doing it quite scientifically... and very effectively.

I talk to him about this loudness and he then starts repeating LOooOOOOUUdah with me for about fifteen minutes. Just hilarious. We found a place by the entrance where it was less LooouuuuD and walked around for a while.

All in all... pretty dang funny.

Mood Swing thy Name is Adrea

So - suddenly feeling energized and creative and happy.

odd.

Belly Button, You're so Fine

Jack is in love with his belly button... and really likes to try to find yours too.

This is how incredibly psychotically cute my son is:



This is what a rascal he is:

Park Days

We've had a few park events in the past couple of weeks I haven' documented...

In reverse order:

Miss Pat's retirement picnic:



yes this is a boy following up with Abby when she looked sad and desolate after her friends dared not to want to do what she wanted to do.

Jack just loving the swing - I have a video too of how he just sort of sings to himself on the swing:


She was just feeling the angst of childhood his day. She was a delight for us, she just tended to look melancholy.

Jack lovvvvves the swing
AND the slide - particularly a the dinosaur park *aka Victor Lugo* where the slides are HUGEly long compared to normal playgrounds (after all they are made out of cement dinosaurs, they'd BETTER be big). It's not THAT far away but its far enough that I never think to go. I want to take Jack again when its not so hot.

Shove Flippancy

Isn't it always when you're bragging that you are certainly not "like that" that you realize, well actually, there's a time and a place where you most certainly are exactly "like that"

I was just bragging to my mom tonight how, in the name of a witty remark, I am not easily offended. That I understand that so many of the things we say during any conversation have not been thought through therefore there is no reason to take every little thing in the worst way it could be taken - no reason even to hold some sentence or thought over someone's head years later as canon of their beliefs simply because it was said once. You know what I mean. For example for the rest of my life everyone is going to say/joke/etc how much I hated being pregnant. And that's no one's fault but my own, because I don't gush about things that I don't want to gush about. I don't sugar coat things just for the fun of it. I might, however, whine about things just for the fun of it. But sometimes quite literally JUST for the fun of it.

The truth is I don't enjoy how LONG pregnancy lasts or how FAT I get or how injured I can get or how one's body is not one's own for a long long long time. I don't enjoy the first trimester sickness or the feeling like everything winds me. I don't enjoy that essentially life is put on hold waiting for the new life to emerge.

BUT that doesn't mean I don't enjoy the idea that we made a baby by accident or on purpose, that I don't still find the feeling of the baby crazy insane fascinating awesome. It doesn't mean I don't panic at the end because this little baby I've been able to harbor inside me is now going to be outside me and to some extent never under my control in the same way. Heck, I even sort of like labor - the adventure of it... the 'it's almost done' of it. But see, I'm not going to share that with everyone. Oddly enough, I feel like the things I don't like (not just about pregnancy, but about everything) are much less intimate and therefore sharable than the things I do.

I'll tell anyone and everyone about the stress and the exhaustion and the sickness and the taking over the brain like a sci-fi brain worm. But the parts I enjoy seem more private... more mine and I don't like to give them away.

Anyway, point being I understand that we don't all rehearse for hours on end what we are going to say and how we are going to say it. We all stick our foot in our mouths, we all, at one point or another, hurt, offend or rankle someone without intending to. And not just strangers, in fact, more often than not it is those closest to us that we let our guard down with, that we just plain screw up with.

STILL I feel like when someone is vulnerable, it would be great, just great if we could just shove the flippancy and be nice. BE NICE.

The problem? Of course we don't always know when someone is vulnerable.

I didn't know I was vulnerable... until after two straight nights of my wonderful simple easy sleeper Jack up from 1-3 at least, waking again at 4 or 5 - crying all night even though not totally conscious. Which is O...K... I don't go into the room if he's just randomly crying for a few seconds then going back to sleep. But it means I don't exactly get long periods of sleep, I don't exactly relax.

Even at 5 months pregnant it's really hard for me to get up quickly. So he starts to cry and I tense ... waiting... slowly get myself up when he doesn't stop right away... but still waiting on the edge of the bed... before as a last resort getting up.

On my third night, with no reason to think things will be particularly better but always hopeful since Jack is such a sleeper, I get to sleep at 11:30 - not an indecent hour for me... and I'm asleep, seriously, finally, actually unconscious and the show Steve is watching wakes me up. And then Jack starts his intermittent crying. There is no SOLUTION to his crying (also odd for Jack - not odd at all for Abby's baby year). It's no too tempting to pick him up and move him to our bed because it's not like that makes him restful.

And oddly enough - as I'm sitting there next to his crib trying to decide if there is ANYthing I'm forgetting - that one thing I'm missing that will calm Jack... it's flippant comments from the PAST that swarm in my head and make me feel mad and misunderstood and uncared about. And if you think you are a problem then you're wrong because the people that tend to be so flippant are also quite proud of how un-flippant they are.

Ha. I know because that's totally me. On the one hand I've gotten quite good at not taking a joke at the expense of others... turning humor around so that I (who can take it) are more the punchline. On the other, when it's family... when it's friends I feel safe with... I want to impress with that funny joke... and of course... yeah... I see I'm the pot calling the kettle sooty ;).

But I'm still mad. I still want to be understood and loved and not dismissed because these are the same days of our lives that have had people/women struggling with since the dawn of feather dusters. And NO it's not you. I know who you are thinking 'uh oh, I've said something' and it's not that. I swear. Oh stop ... okay fine - it was you - all you... are you happy now?

See? Perfect example - maybe that really hurt your feelings because you were worried you were the insensitive people and you wanted to show care and all that junk... and I just totally insulted you.

Sorry, I didn't mean it. It was just a good joke opportunity...

Sigh.

I'm tired.

Cue:

I met Abby at the door when she was dropped off from school, she gave me a big hug and her face comes to the middle of my belly. She hugged me and snuggled the baby bulge saying, "And how's that baby doin' in there today? huh?" (speaking to the baby, not me).

I just think if we saw that on tv we'd think it was too much. Of course Abby is always too much but in a good way.

Slowly, Slowly

I'm letting the creative side of myself have a little time in shoots whether it calls for a different look or not, whether my subjects WANT it or not. It's coming more natural and that is making me, naturally, more happy.

If you were the manipulative sort...

What would you want from me? Chocolate Chip Cookies? A five minute photo shoot? Would you like the easiest and least used way to completely get me softened up? LOOK at any of the TWELVE photo albums I've completed (or 99.9% completed) when you come over to my house.

I'm the only one who does look at them (besides Abby who also tends to destroy as she loves - very psychological of her) and that's FINE, I do them for me and maybe for the family too if they ever want to look back ... which knowing irony, they won't ever care to.

Project Progress

First off, Baskin Robbin's shakes make me sick and I still get them... everything I love from there makes me sick. My brain blinds me to that though until it is too late. Very annoying.

I am 2/3 done with Jack's baby album.
I am ready to start Everyday 2009 (there are still a couple pages needing inspiration in 2008, but that counts).
HAWAII is now the daunting task ahead. Sigh. My brain fizzles at the thought.

SO six months to complete until I'm on target, then hoping I can take everything back out in September and get caught up to Abby's birthday THEN... we can put it away for... as long as I have to. I'm thinking of ordering pictures as I go this time - that way even if its two years before I get out my things again they are "ready" so to speak. It's hard to be organized at family photos when I'm more focused on being organized with BrightWaters photos.

And I know this has no bearing on anything or anyone but projects are consuming when one is within them and therefore ... consequently... blogging material.

I have ordered SO many duplicates... organized would be better. But again, when my mind is somewhere else...

What was I saying again?

Snapfish Frustration

Oh wow how incredibly bored I'm going to be by these posts in a few weeks.

Even so...

Here's the problem. Smugmug has superior quality printing and crazy superior quality upload tools than Snapfish. But they are also much more expensive. That's okay, you figure - the really good prints for scrapbooking or for framing I'll put up on Smugmug and I'll use Smugmug as a third protection against loss (i.e. off site backup). But for my everyday photos I'm going to be cutting up and pasting in the scrapbook (half of which I don't even use) I'll use snapfish and in a way it will even be a FOURTH backup.

Well now I remember WHY I stopped uploading on snapfish (which was frustrating as I tried to get photos to scrapbook).

Because their mac easy upload is fine for small quality images or for small amounts of photos, but try to upload a massive amount or a normal amount in decent size and it's extremely frustrating. It's not like I can just restart the upload from where it died because it seems to pull randomly from the order of images - so each time I have to guess or start over arbitrarily and end up with four copies of one image and none of the other. Grr. Grumble. Bah.

TUMS

Oh lovely, to be back at the tums portion of the pregnancy. Actually, I'm fine with it since tums does work and is fairly easy to keep readily available. I don't know how many weeks I just ignored it last pregnancy, not really realizing it was acid that could be fixed oh so simply - even though the best tasting tums still taste a bit reminiscent of vomit if you ask me.

I have photos coming... I just know it... they are lurking in the postman's box - ready to spring tomorrow when my scrapbooking supplies are replenished.

In other news... I'm tired.

Yeah

I cannot tell you how much easier life has become since Jack started saying "Yeah" to what he wanted. He just won't answer if he doesn't want something. Notice he can also nod, though it does more like an attempted head butt. Notice also how much he lurrrrves his mommy and his daddy. Maybe we love him too... it's so hard to tell by our sugary sweet voices, huh?

Technically Thanksgiving

I'm finishing up Thanksgiving 2008 but there are three or four scrapbook page spreads awaiting pictures or decoration still, so I don't feel SO accomplished.

Four or five pictures a day are coming as I ordered from the online sites as I realized which pictures I was missing. It's a fairly good pattern because I know exactly where they fit and I get them and put them in place the first chance I get. THOUGH, in the mail yesterday I got all of Thanksgiving, Jack's birthday and Disney Christmas all in one shot which was not terribly helpful.

The "Random" pages or "Everyday life" pages are my bane. Like I have any idea what was happening when when they aren't tied to an event.

How Many Days DOES it Take

In the spirit of the old Tootsie Pop commercial I decided to time how long it takes for me to go through a gallon of Oraganic Non-Fat Milk since it has been feeling like I'm constantly running out.

I received the latest gallon Wednesday at 10pm and drank the last drop Saturday at around the same time. Is that weird?

Unbearably Adorable

So Steve woke up with Jack this morning and at some point asked Jack if he wanted to go see Abby. Jack responded with his now trademark "Yeaaaah" (caught on video which I will upload soon).

So up they came (Abby had crawled into my bed realizing Daddy had left a vacancy). And Steve sat Jack down next to Abby and he proceeded to say "Ickle, ickle, eckle" as he clumsily tickled her. That's the first time in a long time I've heard him attempt that word. It was wonderful. Then he'd giggle and put his head down on hers (which was probably rather painful for Abby but it looked cute to us). This went on for a few minutes and he finally tempted her out of bed.

Other "words" he's saying before I forget:

Donawwld = Old MacDonald.
P'ieeabou= Peekaboo
Uh-Oh = Uh-Oh
Zzzzzzzz- Zzzzzzuh= Zoozie
Up=Up
Op=Open
Splsh= splash
Yuckh=guess
Uh-Uh-Uh= help me... okay that one doesn't really count.

A Bad Mother and Scrapbooker

So off I go scrapbooking away... I'm starting on Halloween 2008, looking through blog posts for pictures that were lost in the great drop-kick hard drive failure of 2008 and realized... I'd forgotten to scrapbook (or note) Abby's birthday at all. No "Oh shoot I have to order those prints" no "I feel like something is missing in September" just... passed right over it.

It's odd just how many things I have already forgotten about. How many random events are out there that have lost their place in my memory. That wasn't deep, that was an "I'm drunk with lack of sleep" comment. I should go to sleep NOW.

But I don't wanna.

Okay, off I go.

Three shoots tomorrow... everyone pray for inspiration!

Back to Scrap

I am mostly able to sleep, but am finding myself with large amounts of time waiting for my two munchkins to get to sleep. It is discouraging to go downstairs and assume Abby won't be coming down four times for a multitude of different reasons or Jack will suddenly lose his binky in the four foot square area of his crib.

So I've gotten the scrapbooking stuff back out. I was a little over a year behind when I started and now I'm up to August 2008. I'm dreading Christmas. I don't know why but I just didn't have a real train of thought for my photos last year... the result is a hodge podge of random Christmas photos.

But I'll just try to finish August for now. If I am more than a year behind when the baby gets here I'm lost especially since I had minimal to no organization in Snapfish at the end of last year and then I lost my hard drive so theres nothing to look through here.

I'd also love to get to Jack's baby book. We'll see how much I don't sleep.

Not that This Works...

As I always put here things I want to remember for future shoots and I never remember whether or not it's in here.

Anyway, I had as close as you can come to perfect shoot Friday morning with James Q who was so smiley and happy that I actually didn't have as many shots to choose from as I usually do since he was smiling in nearly every one, therefore rendering many of them too identical to use. What a problem to have, eh? Anyway, because he was smiley, because I knew what I wanted from the shoot and because I knew my light in that place, I didn't need to shoot as much or as long. Therefore, when it came time to edit, it wasn't overwhelming, just simple and happy.

I carried over the "shoot better and less" to my next shoot of the day for Dena and similarly, just did not need to spend as much time pouring over images making the editing process more straight forward and just plain nicer.

EVEN so I probably shot three times as many pictures as I needed to in both those sessions. I found myself clicking away and thinking... this is really not necessary, I got it three clicks ago.

So... go me... remember that.

Also I just have to keep a better eye on that clock. When we're charging a third of what other professionals are charging, keeping our time low is synonymous with keeping our spirits over this high.

Dear Future Kin: READ THIS FIRST

Well, I recently saw an Antiques Roadshow in which a journal by a soldier written during the Civil War was worth a bit of money only because he wrote about Lincoln's assassination on the day it happened and was a guard of some sort involved with the execution of the conspirators.

This is a note to let you know, don't bother printing out this blog and taking it to be appraised. I kinda purposefully don't talk about current affairs. Partly because everyone else's opinion bothers me, so I don't see why I would want to add mine. Partly because I myself am very very narrowly focused on me and mine.

So unless me mentioning seeing the "new" Star Trek movie on opening night which is antiquatedly old to you floats someone's boat (I liked it... alot)... you're out of luck.

But hopefully you'll enjoy getting to know your whatever I am to you. So sorry and better luck next time.

Maybe I'll try to write important things now and then. Big economic crisis happening at the moment. We're doing okay but I'm forcing Steve to drink water rather than get him special drinks from the store. There, that's got to be worth something.

I want to Do this...

Another mom at Abby's school is doing this project which now I want to do, but I don't know if I want to horn in on yellow right at the same time Jennifer is.

Maybe I'll start with red... AND maybe I'll start Monday.

Say Cheese

Sarah and I started talking about writing out a sort of guideline or helpful hint document to give to our clients or potential clients - talking about how to dress and how to focus their appointment to get the most out of us as they can.

Of course, being the somewhat reluctant professional that I am, talk turned to making some points in this document about the traditional "everyone look at the camera and say cheese" kind of family portraiture vs. the kind we like to do. That takes some qualification. Nothing makes me happier than getting a family in a nice piled up sort of pose all looking at me with their beautiful eyes sparkling and happiness flowing from them. But sometimes such things are not possible. OR, if they are, the blood-boiling it takes to get something even remotely close to it sucks the life out of your photoshoot and your time with me.

Please do not think I am talking about YOU in this post. Trust me we all (including myself) have done this sort of thing at one time in one degree or another. I am just trying to get a rough idea of what I want to say which is not offensive and is only off-putting to those who think the artsy style is cute but what they are really really after is "everyone look at the camera and say cheese."

My first thought was that I want people to really understand the product, I don't want to have to defend my style the entire time. When the photojournalistic style of wedding photography became popular were they still doing all the traditional shots just because it was expected? Probably.

Steve says that I absolutely have to defend my vision, it will actually strengthen that vision and prove there is a substance to what I see.

But the people that ask me to take their picture can't just be asking because we're cheap, right? Speaking of, if this becomes a real problem (customer expecting more traditional images) my brother suggested that we offer a choice. We can either charge them the actual going rate for professional photographers (about 250 for a session) if we strive to get "everyone say cheese" or we charge our current bargain basement price wherein that is our "portfolio" price so to speak - i.e. it's our art, yes we care to make the client happy, but we're artist first, commercial next. See, that just SOUNDS rude.

It's just that at some point we may need to do this for commercial mainly. We might need to put food on the table and all that sort of thing. At that point clients become blessings beyond anything. But as we're not there, and I never planned on being a working parent, I really need to get something that strengthens and feeds my heart out of this. And that means, having wiggle room to create something beyond the tradition. Not that I'm all that artsy - seriously people if you knew what really constituted artsy you'd think I was a librarian.

So that is where I'm at. For all my big talk I fully understand that my main real true problem is that I do desperately want the client to ADORE their pictures. Obviously if I really didn't care, none of this would affect me. But instead, to fall under their expectations just crushes me which is bad for an artist, but guess what, pretty much on par for an artist ;) ( trust me, I've been watching alot of Ovation TV).

So that's what I'm thinking about. I just have to fit that in somewhere between:
"Moms, pamper yourselves first, the kids always look adorable whether or not they are wearing matching shoes, your husband will just look all the more manly with a little stubble on his jaw, and you're the one who never gets to be in the picture, so make sure you feel gorgeous"

and

"When choosing what to wear, go to the extreme. If you want a casual feel, then wear completely simple clothes - white, black, jeans. If you want something that looks a bit more grand, wear the most formal thing you have. If you want to go colorful - go VERY colorful - like Orange! or Red!"

Eh