Profile Me

When trying to choose a "profile picture" for my Facebook page, I have a pretty hard time. For one, there aren't that many photos of me to choose from, simply because I am usually on the other side of the camera. Photos of me are usually 1) Christmas morning in pajamas, crazy hair, and dog tired form the nights' "festivities" - (ie. making sure Santa shows up and rummaging through all of our secret spaces hoping not to miss anything), or B). the 'hands' lighting the birthday candles during all the birthday parties we photograph. So, many times I just rely on a cartoon character, or a meaningful object to represent me..

And then there are all those shots of me from the side view - and face it, what woman, after bearing 5 kids, wants to be remembered by her actual profile??? I don't know what possesses my dear husband to take these photos from the side view!!!

I just stumbled upon this one in the remnants of some of last year's beach photos. I had never seen it before. (I take so many at the beach, that it's easy to miss a few!) I'm guessing Big T took it with his phone.

At any rate, this is the photo I think my kids would choose as representing "the real me": always bugging them to "smile" or "stay still" or "do that again". And since I've started photography classes, I can't just point, shoot, and depend on Photoshop to make my pictures look good.

So I'll be holding that camera in front of my face a lot more!!! These days, even if I can't always be at the beach, THIS is me.

Every House Deserves to be Loved

There she is, weeding away in the front yard of some miscellaneous house that we looked at last year when we assumed (wrongly) ours would be sold.  It was a foreclosed house, and had sat empty for some time. The yard was overgrown and the place was a vision of neglect. Sweet Orca picked up on the sadness of the abandoned house and began weeding.

"Whatcha' doin' O?" asked dad. No response. When pressed, her response was: "Every House deserves to be loved."

Yes, sweetheart, it does.

Leftover Mom

I would venture to say that this post is actual proof of what I've been saying:  "When it comes to being frugal, I have no pride".  When I was growing up, I cannot say our family was poor.  In fact, we enjoyed a lot of luxuries other families didn't, like one of the first Apple Computers on the market (a pain in the butt to use) and a big- screen projection TV.  So I don't really know where my obsession with thriftiness came from.  But, I do remember that one of my fathers big issues was not wasting food.  Growing up in the depression-era, it's easy to figure out why he would have this hangup.

So here's the rundown of my culinary delights of the day (...or more precisely: "what I ate today shows exactly how we can afford piano and cello lessons, birthday parties, and new camping equipment"):

Breakfast:

• leftover peanut butter and jelly sandwich from Halibut's lunch on Friday (it sat in his lunchbox over the weekend)
• Herbal tea

Snack

• last bit of microwave popcorn left from yesterday's afternoon movie
• handful of 'Cap'n Crunch" that was left in the bottom of the box this morning
• remainder of Starfish's bottled water that she took out of her lunchbox this morning  

 Lunch

• Cream of Wheat cereal with leftover blackberry juice (someone ate all the berries and put the container back inthe fridge) and cream 
• smoothie made from the last bit of orange juice and the banana from Halibut's lunchbox on Friday (it sat in there over the weekend and got overripe) 
• remainder of apple the kids didn't take in their lunches 

Snack

• glob of cookie dough from the cookies we made for this week's Great Cookie Project run

Dinner

Ok, I actually had my own food for dinner - not the remains of someone else's.  BUT, I did use some leftover rice from the fridge!

Thankful

We got an unexpected surprise this Thanksgiving. While we were up visiting Grandma and Grampa, we were able to visit with cousins Jessie and Kelly, who we haven't seen in a very long time! Kelly just graduated from college in Utah and Jessie is in college in Boston. It wasn't very long, but it was a nice visit. We are happy that they are doing so well and hope we will get to see them again soon!

Snaggle

Well, it took forever, but Halibut has finally lost a front tooth! It looks like the new one was already coming in before the old one came out. It just wouldn't give up! It is such a milestone in my little guys life - he is GROWING UP! But I have to say, I'm a little sad to see these changes - I will miss his baby-teeth smile!

BRAVO!

Gigi's first orchestra concert was a huge success! After just a few short months of playing the cello, she wasn't even as nervous as I thought she'd be! The whole production was very professional and we were able to see the huge difference between the first year players and those who have been playing longer. Gigi did a wonderful job and we are so proud of her for trying her hand at a new instrument and working so hard to develop her talents!