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

To embrace the camera, one must have the camera and the SD card!

Duh, right!?!?

Not so much!

The kids and I went on a great Corn Maze adventure with the fun folks from church this week. As, I go to snap a photo of Grace holding up her prize pumpkin, two horrible things happen.

1) I realize that there is no SD card in my camera...

2) Her sweet little pie pumpkin falls out, leaving a trail of rotten pumpkin guts running down her arm!

So in true mom fashion, I stash the camera, switch to the phone and let her wipe the pumpkin ick on my pant leg. Such is life!

Linking up with The Anderson Crew...Just the Girls: Real Beauty Blog, who is sort of ETC'ing this week...and the lovely farm where we went corn mazing!

The Cow "bullet" Train

She was so excited to sit first cow! Can we say adrenaline junkie?

Jackson and his sweet friend, who happens to be my favorite
teenager and photographer!

Is it daring and adventurous?  Yes! Than my big girl is right there!
Note the nice girl in the background helping the kids...
her name is Corn Angel...!

She wasn't all the way out before she was asking to go again!

WOOSH!

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!