Skip to content

Month: November 2007

Amateur

Published by dee on November 18, 2007

zach_xmas07 012One of the projects I decided to embark on this weekend was taking pictures for our annual Christmas card.  I thought I would save a little money by taking some photos of my own instead of going the professional route.  I’m very much an amateur when it comes to photography, but I really enjoy playing with the camera and seeing just what I can come up with.

I tried to set everything up just right before I got Zach in front of the camera.  I picked the brightest room of the house, opened the blinds on all the windows, and set up my background.  The only thing I didn’t account for was the attention span of a toddler.

In the few minutes that he allowed me to snap photos, he quickly lost interest.  He certainly didn’t allow me the time to try to adjust for shadows and the like.  Because of that, most of the photos didn’t come out the way I wanted them to.  Out of about fifty, I ended up with two or three really great shots and several more really good shots that I may be able to salvage with some creative work in Photoshop.

Comments closed

21 Weeks Down, 19 To Go

Published by dee on November 17, 2007

21 Weeks

Baby G is growing quite well these days, as evidenced by the hugeness of my belly. My sister even commented today on how much bigger I am looking.

As the baby grows, I feel her squirming around more and more. Moves that were only small flutters a couple of weeks ago now startle me as I’m not expecting such strong motion. She tends to move around more when I’m being active. She also appears to like country music. When we were at the Garth Brooks concert last week, she was the most active I’ve felt her so far. She was kicking and squirming so hard that I even felt the movement on my hand for a few seconds.

I’m glad to finally be past the halfway point in this pregnancy.  Things will be very busy between now and Christmas so the time will go by fast.  Then we’ll have just three more short months and my precious baby will be here.  It is almost hard to believe that it’s coming up so fast.

Comments closed

Lunch with Toddlers

Published by dee on November 16, 2007

Multimedia messageToday I got the pleasure of going to school and eating lunch with Zach. They had a parents luncheon for Thanksgiving where all the parents got to come have lunch with their kids. It was chaotic to say the least. Sitting at a table with 8 two-year-olds was an experience that I’ve never really had before. In between every bite I could shove in my mouth were requests for more juice or mac and cheese, which were the two most popular things at our table.

The food was actually quite good but the dessert table was the most impressive. I had a hard time choosing between the many cakes, pies, and cookies spread out. I ended up with samples of peach cobbler, apple pie, some kind of brownie/cookie concoction, and a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie.

Multimedia messageI was also impressed with the table decorations, although I have to say that candles, tablecloths, and toddlers don’t really mix well. The kids had the candles blown out within a few minutes and the tablecloths barely managed to stay on the table.

The whole thing really was fun though.  I loved seeing how excited Zach was when I showed up for lunch.  Only a couple of other parents showed up for his class so they were all calling me “mom” for a while.  The hard part came when I had to leave and go back to work.  Zach wasn’t at all happy that I was leaving and didn’t want to let go.  Eventually a teacher had to come peel him off of me so I could escape.

I’m really thankful that I have a boss that is so flexible and allowed me to take an extra hour at lunch so I could be with Zach.  I really had a great time and I know Zach enjoyed me being there.

Comments closed

Late Night Ramblings

Published by dee on November 15, 2007

I’ve had a post in my mind all day that I want to write, but somehow I can’t find the words to write it quite yet. It certainly doesn’t help that I had to spend an hour fighting with my obstinate son just to get him to go to bed. Somehow in the process I lost all of the thoughts that were written out in my head. Hopefully that post will still be coming but I just don’t have it in me to write it tonight.

nov_07 209

Instead I’ll let you contemplate on just how in the world this boy with such an adorable little face can turn into a demon every night when bed time comes around.  It can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours to get him to bed, depending on what kind of mood he is in.  We have a routine set in place, but no matter how hard I try to stick to the routine, he’ll always find a way to break it up.  I’ve even gone so far as to use Super Nanny methods of keeping him in bed but so far it hasn’t worked.  Perhaps I’m just not strict enough.

One of his biggest excuses for getting out of bed is that he’s scared and with the recent onslaught of night terrors and bad dreams, I can’t seem to let that go.  How do you really know if a 2-year-old is scared or if he’s just trying to convince you to let him stay up a little longer?  I want to believe him and comfort him, but I don’t want to let him totally play me either.  On top of that, I really need to get some sleep myself and the recent routine has really thrown my evenings off.

I’m not sure what I’m looking for.  I know there is no magic answer and I know that I’m just going to have to be firm and wait out this phase.  I just hate it when I get to the point where I feel like I’m losing control and I’ve gotten to that point more than once lately.   And now I’m rambling on when I should be getting myself to bed and getting some sleep.

Please just tell me that this will end, preferably before I have my hands full with an infant.

Comments closed

Did You Ever Notice?

Published by dee on November 14, 2007

Time has really gotten away from me today and I won’t be near a computer tonight, so here’s a real quick entry so I don’t miss my NaBloPoMo post for the day.

Monday night Hubby and I were watching How I Met Your Mother, one of our favorite shows.   Basically, during the show Ted was dating a girl he really liked, but the rest of the gang didn’t like her.  When he finally convinced them to tell him what it was about her they didn’t like, it ruined the image of perfection she had about her and he suddenly didn’t like her anymore.  In her case it was that she talked all the time.  He hadn’t noticed it before someone pointed it out.  As the show went on, they continued pointing out little annoying habits about each other.  The thing is, once that one annoying little thing is pointed out, you can’t get past it.

This morning as I was driving Zach to school, I noticed a tree that had the branches cut out of the middle so that it formed a “V” shape to allow some power lines to go through.  Once I noticed that one, I couldn’t stop looking at trees the rest of the way to work to see if any others were cut that way.  As it turns out, there are several along the same street.  Now I’m going to spend the rest of my life looking at trees as I drive.  It is something so simple, yet I never noticed it before.

So, I’m curious to know if anyone else does this.  When you notice something for the first time, does it stick with you to the point where you can’t think of anything else?  Does it ever go away and just become the way things are?

Comments closed

The Rule of Six

Published by dee on November 13, 2007

It’s funny how you can twist and turn and wind around this great big thing called the internet.  A few days ago instance, I received an e-mail notification of a new follower on Twitter. I didn’t recognize the name, so I followed the link to her blog to see who it was. As I scanned through the posts, I discovered a post about the Rule of Six. It looked like an interesting concept, so I kept following link after link until I finally got to the original source.

The concept seems to be discussed mostly on homeschooling sites, but it got me to thinking about how I might incorporate it into my own family life. Basically, the Rule of Six is a list of things that you feel should be part of your child’s life on a daily basis. It can be something as simple as “read a book” or something a little more meaningful such as “spend time in prayer”. It can be anything as long as it is important to you and your family. Oh, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be six things. Your list can be as long or as short as you like.

I’ve done a lot of thinking on this and would like to share my own Rule of Five (Yes, five. The number suited me better than six.). I have kept it pretty general because the way these things are expressed can change greatly. I think we do most of these things on a daily basis already, but I hope that formalizing it a little more will help me on days when I’m feeling a little lazy.

I’m sure as time goes on and my children get older that some items on the list may change, but for now these are the things I want to focus on. If you decide to join in and make your own list, please let me know so I can check it out. You might also want to add it to the Rule of Six blog carnival going on here.

Here’s my list:

  1. Responsibility
  2. Prayer
  3. Affection
  4. Kindness
  5. Gratitude
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger... Comments closed