Parents, if you want wonderful pictures of your children, never teach them to say "cheese"! Please learn from my mistake or you will have thousands of photos just like mine - squinted eyes, scrunched up noses, clenched teeth, and an image that just screams "say cheez!!!". Join me while I search for that one perfect shot that doesn't conjure up images of dairy products. Oh, and unless you like that *messy* look, you'll probably want to clean their faces before you snap away. I never seem to remember myself.

An imporant sidenote is to make sure you document your life! Recording the little details of the who, what, where, when, & why makes for wonderful stories and captures your life for years to come. Because if you are like me, you'll forget it all 5 minutes later!

Friday, March 25, 2011

Project 52. Week 12.

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.  ~Robert Brault

This is my little girl.

Her with her American Girl doll and her Dick and Jane book.

Such a simple moment, but one that fills me with such bliss.

She has been a bit late to the reading game - well, late by today's high pressure/push the kids to do more earlier and who cares if they aren't ready for it/crazy standards - but here she is...relishing a book on her own terms, when she is ready for it. Freshly six years old, happily reading to her favorite doll and completely enjoying it. She is easily reading the words with energy, with emotion, with fluency, and with comprehension.

On her own, reading, and it is all clicking together.

While this may look like such a little thing, it is truly a big deal and definitely a memory I hold close to my heart.

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Friday, March 18, 2011

Project 52. Week 11.

One day at a time--this is enough. Do not look back and grieve over the past for it is gone; and do not be troubled about the future, for it has not yet come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful it will be worth remembering.

Children are amazing.

Their wide eyed innocence and carefree curiosity guides their days as they freely live in the moment. They take each experience as it comes and they fully embrace it. They have an unconditional love of life and everything around them.

There is so much we adults can learn from children. Instead of trying to change them and shape them how we think they should be, we should step back and observe what they innately know. We'd all be that much better for it.

So live in the moment. See the beauty in everything. Live and love unconditionally. Slow down and definitely take each day as it comes. Let's learn from our amazing children.

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Thursday, March 10, 2011

Flower Therapy

Every year around this time I start to feel a bit unsettled and anxious. Ski season is winding down, the ice on the lake is melting, the ground is mushy, and yet it is still pretty chilly out. I become antsy for spring while mother nature seems to take her ol' sweet time.

I suppose I become a bit impatient waiting for the seasonal change. So in my impatientness (yes, I like to make up words), I try to find ways to keep myself sane and preoccupied so I can avoid dealing with the real issues behind my unsettled feelings and anxiety. Because, really, who whats to go there?! This week I bought lots of flowers because, well, flowers are a great pick me up! Possibly a fleeting pick me up, yes, but nonetheless flowers are good for the soul (as is playing around with flower photos in photoshop).

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Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Project 52. Week 10.

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. ~Charles Dickens

Nothing more that I can add to that. Chuckie was spot on!

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Thursday, March 3, 2011

Project 52. Week 9.

“Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.” - Dr. Seuss

I think that pretty much sums it up.

This weekend when we just enjoyed being home and being together all was good. It was fun. No deadlines, no pressures. No worries about the mess in the house, the piles of laundry, the to-do list not yet to-done {well, sort of no worries - I am a bit ocd after all!}. It was relaxing and carefree and I'm looking forward to many, many more weekends just like this.

Because when it comes down to it, the little annoyances of parenting, relationships - life in general - just don't matter. For when you see two little brothers so happy together, enjoying the simple pleasures of childhood, how can you be brought down by the other stuff? I'm going to concentrate on the good, the fun, and know there will surely be another one. :-)

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PS. Huh, the "it just doesn't matter" theme seems to keep coming up in my ramblings. Gee, maybe I'm trying to project that out to the universe so that I can truly live that theme a bit more often.

PPS. Not that I let myself get caught up in all that extracurricular annoying life stuff or anything. ;-)