Day 274. Halloween Night.

This KS1's opinion of Halloween.  Such a party pooper.  He gets it from his dad.  :)  That's okay.  I love him, just the way he is.  :)

Day 273. Halloween & Birthdays

Two of my guys celebrate fall birthdays, only a couple of weeks from one another.  Some years, I'll combine their parties, and this was one of those events... we made it a costume party for the fam.  It was a blast.  The boys absolutely LOVED it!

The Freeman Girls:

Some of our fun, party decorations.  :)

Day 272. Halloween Fun Begins!

I spent all day today, at the kids' school, helping with their fall parties.  We had a blast.  Here were a few fun sights:

Day 271. More Birthday Fun.

Lots of birthdays in the fall... my husband's is another.  A week ago today, we celebrated his 36th.  I LOVE this man.  :)  He, however, does NOT love it when I force him into letting me take his picture.  :)

Day 270. Crazy Hair Day.

Day 269. Pumpkin Patch.

Oh goodness, do you ever get overwhelmed?  That's a ridiculous question.  We all do, right?  Whew, good thing.  I'm glad I'm not the only one.

GOOD NEWS!:  My camera IS WORKING!  HALLELUJAH!  My husband came home from work last night, and unburied it from the rice (without my knowing), and VOILA!  Everything was in working order.  Camera body, lens, battery... AND memory chip!  So far, so good!  I was even able to retrieve the pics from the memory chip with no trouble at all.

This would be the darling family who had to witness my turmoil:

I was able to get about 15 usable proofs for them (before the unfortunate sitution of my drenched camera!)... hopefully, we'll reschedule soon!

Speaking of overwhelmed, I joined KS3 on his field trip to the pumpkin farm today.  Wow.  Once again, I'm reminded why I could NOT do the job of being a schoolteacher.  Seriously, it requires a God-given gift, that I just don't have.  I was only in charge of three little boys, and I was pulling my hair out, trying to make sure I didn't lose one of them.  YIKES!  But they all made it back to school, safe and sound.  Yay!  :)

Ew!  A broken pumpkin!  Upon viewing this site, one of the little boys decided to try breaking pumpkins himself, by picking them up and throwing them randomly into the air.  Oh dear.

 Look, Mom!  I can reach the sunflower!

Pumpkins, pumpkins....

...and MORE pumpkins!

Day 268. Mondays.

I haven't touched my bowl full of rice and camera equipment since yesterday morning.  I'm being patient, and leaving it alone.  The damage may be at the point of no return.  Don't know yet. 

In the meantime, I can't be completely without a camera!  I got out these little beauties:

This is my old, point-n-shoot Canon.  It served me well for a few years before I got my "good" one.  This camera still goes with me to places like the pool!  :) 

This guy is one of my originals, before I went all Canon.  I had a few versions of this camera, and I loved it.  It also served me well.  Now, it goes to places with my kids.  When they want to photograph things like Lego creations, or have a camera for a field trip... this is the one they get. 

I spent the morning, on the phone with my BFF in Romania.  :)  She makes me happy!  I told her of my camera woes and she sweetly listened and lamented with me, as I sat in the middle of my kitchen floor and cleaned out my remaining equipment as well as the two oldies I'd dug out of storage.

Yeah, that is actually me... with no makeup, in my workout clothes, and hair pulled back in barretts.  My poor children have to be seen with me like this in the mornings, when I take them to school.... And their unfortunate teachers who help in the "parent dropoff" line.  They probably think my kids must have two moms... the one who brings them to school, and the other one who comes back through the week to help in their classrooms.  Yep, very different ladies.  It is what it is, people.  It's called REALITY.  :)

And that's what Mondays are for!... ...a friendly, uplifting phone conversation  ...catching up from the crazy weekend.  ...working out  ...no makeup  ...making lists for the week  ...laundry!

Day 267. Senior Sessions.

Prognosis on the camera is not so good.  We'll see what happens.

In the meantime, I still have a few sessions to finish editing.  I got this one completed today, and thought I'd share some more.

Day 266. Ugh.

This is what happens, when you're in the middle of a session, and you walk backwards, off of a ledge, into a pond, submerging your camera IN the water.

These are bowls of rice, with my camera, lens, battery, and memory chip, submerged in the midst.  The picture was obviously NOT taken with my trusty Canon.  This is the best my little cell phone's camera can do.

Sometimes, I am amazed at the stories I could tell.  Sometimes, I am amazed that I actually reveal the ones I DO tell!  Oh dear.  But that's life.  No one is perfect.  No one gets everything right.  Some of us are just less embarrassed about the end result than others.  Rest assured, this one was enough to embarrass even me.  :(

The family I was with, was a family I was meeting for the first time.  They were so gracious and kind!  I frantically stood in the middle of the park, pond scum covering half of my body, trying to dry out my camera with a cloth.  It did not work.  So, I had to cancel the session, promising to make it up to them, and rushed to Creve Coeur Cameara on my way home.  My wonderfully understanding husband met me there, where the kind gentlemen looked at me with a hopeless expression and said, "There's nothing I can do for you.  Take it home, and see if it works when you dry it out.  Let it rest in rice for a couple of days, and see what happens."

I purchased a $9.00 bag of rice on the way home.  And then I treated my boys to icecream, because it was just THAT kind of day.  We came home, I hopped in the shower to wash off the pond scum (which smelled LOVELY, incidentally), my husband built a fire outside, and we roasted hotdogs, followed by marshmallows... 

Because life goes on.

As for my beloved Canon, we'll check on her in the morning.  :(

Day 264. Charmed!

WARNING!!!:  Girly topics to follow!  Maybe you get tired of hearing my excitement about my most recent find in hair color, makeup, or boots.  :)  Well, I'd suggest you probably find someone else's blog to read.  :)  And that's okay, too.  Because I can't help myself but want to share pretty things, so here's another.

Remember THIS pretty, little thing?  I'm telling you, this lady is AH-MAZING!  She represents a company called U Design Jewelry.  You have to check this stuff out.

For my 30th birthday (I looked through my '06 picture files to show you, but my new computer is still not cooperating fully with me... anyway), my family gave me a charm bracelet.  My mom had one like it, and so did my grandmother.  It's where the little charms are shaped like profiles of a child's face.  You have one to represent each of your children, their names and their dates of birth.  Along with my three boys' profile charms, there were small baby-booties, with their birthstones.  I've had the bracelet for four years.  And I've probably worn it four times.  The chain had a weird clasp.  I couldn't get it on by myself, and then it broke.  Well, enough about all of that.

I asked my friend if she could do something fun for me with the charms.  I wanted something different than a "traditional" mommy bracelet.  And she came through for me, BIG TIME!  One morning, I went to her house along with another friend, and we poured over stones and beads, and we came up with something new and fun and totally unique.  I picked it up today, and I HAD to show you!  :)  Here it is!

 This would be the cutest toggle clasp I've ever seen... and I can get it clasped on my own!  :)  Seriously, LOVE it!

KIM GRONEK, U DESIGN JEWELRY
Check her out.  Seriously, you'll love it.

Day 263. Fish.

We had a death in the family today.  KS2 and KS3's fish decided it was time "to go."  He is resting in the sewer system now.  There were tears, but all was well after school when we went to Petco and replaced our dearly beloved "Soccer," the beta.

We have been through several of these hearty, little guys.  I remember writing about this before, in fact...

If you want to catch up, click HERE!  You'll get the idea.  :)

Long story short (no, I'm not capable of that), I have FINALLY figured out how to keep these things alive for a little while.  Thankfully, we had a MUCH smoother beginning of pet ownership when it came to our doggies.  At least we never lost one, that is.

My sister saved me a lot of hassle by finally convincing me that a tank with a filter is the way to go.  I'd been keeping them in plain, old fashioned fish bowls up until then... you know, the kind that Dorothy lives in, in Elmo's World.  Well, if it's good enough of her...

Nope, go with a filter.  In this case, you barely have to maintain at all... at least that's true of a beta.  I've never tried to keep another kind of fish, and I doubt that I ever will.

KS2 and KS3 share a room, so they share a fish.  Here's our newest family member.  She's the first GIRL beta we've ever had.  Introducing Tiny Silver.  (That's what I'm calling her, because KS3 says she should be named Tiny; KS2 wants to name her Silver... the rest is pretty self explanatory.)

You know what I've discovered?  Taking a decent picture of a fish is not so easy.  :(  This is the best I got, and you'll have to forgive the water spots on the tank.  She lives in a little boys' room.  Trust me, that's NOT the worst thing in there.

And my sweet eldest child had given up on the whole fish concept when his last one had been found, MUCH too long after his life had passed... and, well, we ended up flushing TWO pieces of fish down the toilet.  I know, way too much information.  I guess KS1 got over it, because yesterday when his brothers brought home their new pet, he didn't want left out.

So, here we have "Cobra," named after a Cobra Mustang, of course.  Once again, difficult to get a picture.  He was camera-shy, too.  He did NOT want to give me ANY good poses.  Obstinant!

And there you have it.  Life is never dull around here!

Day 262. More Family Previews.

Here are a few previews from my session on Sunday morning.  I went to school with the three lovely ladies in this family (and one of their husbands, actually!... a "highschool sweethearts" story at its finest.  Now, here they are, 14 years and 3 kiddos later, still as darling as ever!).  :)  It was a lot of fun to see them all now, so many years down the road, with their husbands and children... all gathered around their parents (now, GRANDparents).  Just precious.  I got a little carried away with their previews, so I hope you enjoy seeing so many.  :)

Day 261. Family Session.

I started my little business about a year and a half ago, or so.  Last year, Fall proved to be a very popular time for photos!  This year has been the same.  I LOVE it!  This is my favorite time of year, especially to take pictures.  This little sneak-peek will show you EXACTLY why.  :)

Day 260. Senior Session Previews