ETC: Heart Touching

My husband's birthday was the weekend before Thanksgiving, Day one of our pilgrimage to Pittsburgh. I wanted to be sure it was duly noted given the craziness of the trip and the tightness of the budget. He deserves to have a special day, but he also understands that where we are special has limits.

At the same time, I want our kids - mostly Grace at this point, to learn how important it is to show others how special they are to you. I suppose I am sort of bias in this, because I teach her to do the things I would do to show someone they were special...but anyway. In the midst of packing and preparing, I made sure to take her with me to buy his gift even thought I could have ordered it on-line or gone while she was at school. She needs to see me to nice things for her daddy. Then we wrapped! And then she made his card.

This is the part that totally touched my heart...and it wasn't just that she had to make him numerous cards. And it wasn't just the sweet way she asked me to write things like "I love you, Daddy" so that she could copy them herself onto the card. She made him a birthday banner....Just like the one's I have made for her, and her brother and some very dear friends. She was so proud and so excited.

It meant so much to me that she saw what I do for her as a way to for her to show her daddy love. I love that she got it...with out me saying a word!


Check out the other ETC'ers over at The Anderson Crew!

ETC - Embrace the Camera

It was her first time playing Checkers.
The first few moves she had me worried...
I wasn't sure I could beat her!

This week embracing the camera was hard for me...yes, its hard a lot of weeks, but this week I didn't get in front of the camera. I wanted to capture the happiness of my kids, not how very alone I have been feeling this week....it was such a blessing to have friends join us for dinner tonight.

Not sure what this face is about?
He sure did like climbing in and out of the chairs.

ETC - Embrace the Camera

Today we are embracing the camera....and our silly side.

I am having one of those days that is made of really goods and really bads, leaving me feeling kind of blah. Good thing I have my sweet baby (big) girl to keep things light and sunny. Sticking her tongue out in these pictures was hysterical - at least she thought so. And that is why I love her!

So embrace the camera with me...and check out the other embracers over at The Anderson Crew.
Oh and please disregard the absolute disaster of a house in the background of these photos.

Look, my tongue!

Wrangler doesn't mind looking silly! 

Marley, on the other hand, is far to dignified for all of this!

ETC - Embrace the Camera

Embrace the Camera 

Pre-law school (aka pre-broke as a joke) we had lots of nice things. One of those nice purchases was a digital SLR. Oh, How I love my camera. It makes even the most mediocre pictures better. But this week, my camera is out having professional camera adventures...it won't ever want to return home after the fun it is going to have this weekend on a real shoot!                                                                                                                                                 

So these pictures are me embracing the camera that is my phone...and not some great new better than most cameras phone. And embrace I shall! The baby boy is smiling and I don't look too fat. YAHOO!          Check out all the other Camera Embracers over at The Anderson Crew!              

ETC - Embrace the Camera

Sometimes embracing the camera is about embracing the person on the other side of the camera. Loving  your photographer. My mom took these pictures of the kids and I this weekend at Touch a Truck (most fun family event ever!).  And while they capture the kids and I in a real moment, they don’t capture the massiveness of the bulldozer whose scope we are sitting in…but I love my mom anyway.

Hope you enjoy our ETC moment…check out these others at The Anderson Crew.

This is Grace last year and then this year...what a great
way to see how she has grown!

ETC - Embrace the Camera

Embrace…what a word.

These pictures were taken in the wee hours of Thursday morning, as I embraced my sweet, pitifully sick baby boy.  They aren’t pictures of joyous times or moments that are ordinary and extra ordinary all at once.  They are pictures of the rough road of real life.

We are blessed to have to two healthy, vibrant children. Each time they are sick, I thank God for their health. I cannot imagine what it is like to have a child who is not well. I cannot imagine what that feels like or how parents survive. Two days of a sick baby and I am physically and emotionally spent.

I know we are being lifted up in prayers and supported by friends and family for this short time. My baby boy will be well in a day or two.

As, I post this my heart and prayers go out to those whose children are not well.

Visit the other ETC's via The Anderson Crew.

No item of the week post for now...maybe later...

Thursday Round Up

Item of the week this week….check it out! Thanks…

And an extra special post over at Just The Girls: RealBeauty Blog. I wouldn’t be so eager to share, but the guy who wrote it is kind of special.

And ETC! 

My mom seems to have taken to heart my ETC post from last week, as she was very willingly in pictures this weekend. (Thanks Mom!)

These pictures are from a family trip to the park. We packed a picnic lunch (and stopped to by MCD tea…)and went to enjoy a beautiful fall afternoon. This park is probably my favorite of the local parks. It has beautiful old trees, which means shade. The play equipment is big enough to accommodate traffic of various ages, but not so big that I can’t easily keep tabs on the kids.

As I was getting these pictures ready to post and thinking of what made all the pictures I had to choose from either good or bad, I realized a few things. First as the photographer, it is important to be generous to those you are photographing. Even when just snapping family shots, take the time to say “your bra strap is showing”, or “here, let me fix your hair.” Not that ever picture has to be perfect, but if you can why not fix it now instead of hate the picture later.

Secondly, editing, specifically cropping is a beautiful thing.

 And finally, just get in the picture! The more pictures you are in the more chances you have to like one, right?

Don't forget to stop over at The Anderson Crew and check out all the other ETC fun!

Surprise Mid-day post...ETC

You probably don't know this about me, but I love ATC (artist trading cards)...It is a creativity and experimentation in a bite size that I can handle. Unfortunately, right now I am too far from the ATC swap I had become so fond of at Quilting Adventures in Richmond, VA.

But today in my slacking I found out about something call ETC - Embrace the Camera! I love it. Real snap shots of me and my family...today its the kids. ( By the way I found this a what looks to be an absolutely wonderful blog called The Anderson Crew! Check it out and all the other fun ETC's linked from there!)

I can tell you from my own personal experience that the only pictures of my mom from my childhood are when she thought she was thin...and let me just tell you that was not nearly as often as she was actually thin...and I don't care what size she is or thinks she is....I WANT HER IN MY PHOTOS! Photos with me, photos with my dad, with her sister, with her nieces and nephews...she exists and there should be pictures to prove it... and so I embark on ETC...so that my kids can't say the same about me.

I also don't think that life should be cataloged in the un-real moments or the specialist of occasions. I want to remember the nitty gritty...

So...TIAMO ETC week 1....The playground