Are You My Sissy?

2 year old Z can say all of our names except for M.  Instead she calls her "sissy".
This morning we were going through everyone's names.
I asked Z, "Where's L? Can you say L?"
"Where's M? Can you say M"
And she says "sissy"
She also calls my mom, Grandma M, "sissy".  So I mentioned  that to her.
Then she says "L sissy"
"Me sissy"
"Momma sissy"
All in her cuteness.

I Lost the Track

"I like starting school before Labor Day 

but this year it may need to start after Labor Day"- me

When I discovered I was expecting I jumped on the planning track.  I needed to figure out how we could get the most out of our school year before the beginning of March.  I was due in the middle of March and could realistically give myself a month off before needing to start full time school again.  There's nothing like a mid-school due date to throw a homeschool mother into planning mode.  I was planning to start the second week of August-then the bleeding started and I miscarried and since then my planning has lacked muster.  It's expected that it would be hard to get back on track but seriously, it's not like I can't plan.  I need to plan.  I cannot let myself get totally off track.  So, very slowly, I've planned. So slowly that we might have to *gasp* start after Labor Day.  It is really not a capital offensive but I have never in the history of homeschooling(going on our third year) started schooling after Labor Day.

 I believe starting school after Labor Day is a Michigan thing. We began our homeschool journey in Oklahoma where public school starts the second week of August.  So naturally we have started mid August.  I have loved the extra week or two of time that it has given us to take off during the year.  I seriously would LOVE to end school at the end of May but you really can't do that unless you start school early then stay on track.  So that is our goal... staying on track if I can, somehow, find the track to stay on.  

Fun In The Sun- beach time photos

While on vacation in Ludington we spent some time on the beach taking photos.

I started taking pictures of Z first, it was her birthday.

 I wanted to get some shots before she got grumpy(it was bedtime)

Then I took some of M, L and N in that order. 

Next was group photos which honesty did not go well, 

they were goofy by this point and did not want to listen.

Cute goofy.

`Group black and white

 Colors.  

The sunset was amazing and gave us excellent lighting.

I just started editing with Lightroom 5 so I tried some presets out.

 Middles

 Youngest and Oldest

My most favorite of the night!

A more cars

Z is upstairs on a mission.  She quickly enters the bedroom she shares with her older brother and is struggling to push the bin back on the shelf, all the while uttering the same phrase over and over.
I don't understand her utterances but help her push the bin back.
Her hands are full of matchbox cars.
She then leaves her room and starts heading down the hall towards the stairs.
M comes upstairs and she informs me they are having a rubber band car race(whatever that is).
It is then that I realize Z was saying, "a more cars, a more cars, a more cars" over and over again.

N Saying

N "I don't want a Disney Princess! I want a boy princess!"

I Create Beautiful Children

I have been wanting a new camera lens for at least a year now.  A few weeks ago I decided I would have a garage sale to earn the money to buy one.   I needed a little more than $100. So I had my garage sale, made the money plus some and bought my lens from amazon. HERE  It is a Canon EF 50 mm f/1.8 II . As soon as I received it in the mail I started using it.  We had found this old chair at J's Grandparents house and it has been sitting in our utility room.

It's old, worn, the color is not too bad.  What do you think?

I kind of want to sand it down, re-paint it a brighter turquoise color then sand it down to give it the old, worn, look again.  But right now it is sufficient as is.  I might be on the look out to find more chairs of this nature. 

I set the chair up toward the back of our yard next to some purple flowers, put Z on it, who by-the-way was already in this pretty dress and shot away.  Most of the pics were taken with a f/1.8 or f/2 setting.  I forget what my ISO was, most likely 100 or 200. We were in complete shade, although I noticed on a few photos we had some sunlight come in.  The fun was to the subject's right side and it was around 5 pm.  I tried to get my auto focus to be on their eyes because I heard that this helps with getting the color of their eyes out. I don't know if that is right but I do think it helped.  

Look at those bright blue eyes!

I really love how the lens can blur out the background!  A lot better then my kit lens can. 

BTW... my son is shirtless.  It was a hot, muggy day today so he was running around in his underwear all day.

So much cuteness wrapped up in a small package!

I changed some to black and white because they were a little overexposed.  Just a little side note I do not have photoshop or any other editing program other than Picasa 3.  Although I want to take pictures in RAW I don't yet and won't until I have a decent editing program.  I did the "I feel lucky" action on a few of these.  Cropped some and then changed the overexposed ones to black and white. 

She is even cute in black and white

A few more of my favorites.

Look at her eyes!

I'm sure this is a crop. Look at that cute pout face!

Funny Moments

Baby Deer

I was driving out in the county the other day- alone and saw a baby deer crossing the road.   He/she was very focused on its destination. I was maybe 10 ft from it before it noticed me, at this point it was just a few feet away from the side of the road.  The poor baby deer saw me and jumped 5 ft in the air then jumped off the road.  I for real laughed out loud.  Then after realizing that he jumped because he had been so focused on  his destination that he didn't notice my large, loud vehicle approaching, I laughed out loud again.  

Musical Chairs

If you ever want to laugh until your side hurts, come over to my house and watch my kids play musical chairs.  Here is the run down.  First they start with three kids playing with three chairs.  They realize that that isn't very "fun" and take a chair out.  Then when the music stops the first time one cries, usually the smallest one.  I quickly start the music again and the crying stops.  I try to stop it when the youngest one is standing next to the chair so that he will get a seat.  Sometimes this works and sometimes not.  There is usually a 5 sec. reaction time to the music stopping which sometimes ends with the older kids getting the younger kids chairs even when the younger kids are right where the chair is.  Hilarious. Very Hilarious. 

Morning Madness

Last night my son peed his bed.  Which means that he spent the rest of the early morning hours in our bed. Later in the morning my youngest daughter joined us. 

There are four in the bed and the youngest one said

Yep.  Sang that to myself this morning.

My son kept on hitting me in the face with his arm.  His blanket.  His pillow. It got to be annoying.  Let's just say I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.  So I said rather angrily "Stop throwing stuff on my face!"

A minute later Z(youngest daughter) starts singing in her almost two year old, high sweet voice, "Not on my face, not on my face, not on my face"

Her brother laughed at her.  I laughed at her.

Z's sayings

I was showing Z a pick of our friend's newborn daughter and trying to get her to say her name, "Heidi" 

Z looked at the picture and said "Hi baby" and waved.  

I asked her "can you say Heidi?"  

Z said "No" 

I said, "Say Heidi"  

Z Said "Hi baby"  

This conversation repeated itself several times and didn't change.  I guess "Hi" is close enough to "Heidi"