Belated Valentine Love Art

Friday, February 26

I meant to post these near Valentine's Day, so here they are.  Kyla drew this for Sydney.  I think she really does love her little sister even though she doesn't always show it.

This is the valentine that Sydney made for the family.

Happy Friday everyone!

You Capture - Shapes

Thursday, February 24

I've been wanting to take of photo of this interesting artwork at the gym and the hanging spheres would have been the perfect subject for this photo challenge, but I kept forgetting my camera.  (OK, I'm adding it a little late.)

  Here are shapes from the playground.

Did you ever notice a star on your mandarin orange?

I've never lived in the city of Portland without kids so there a lots of great resteraunts that I've never been too.  This was my first time to visit the Private Garden Room at  Elephants Delicatessan.   They have home made local food that is yummy!  I had an enchilada with squash and black beans.

This was a fun challenge. Visit Beth to see more shape photos.

GPOYW & OSDS & other stuff

Wednesday, February 24

I wasn't sure when I would ever post this photo, then I saw GPOYW (Gratuitous Picture of Yourself Wednesday) over at Views Infinitum.   Perfect!  I sometimes like to take pictures from the car especially when I'm the passenger, but not usually of myself. 

I wish I had curly hair.  See the fluff and the curls?  I recently rediscovered my electric rollers - I only had to dig through five boxes in my garage to find them.  My hair is driving me crazy lately.  I really need a haircut.  The first time my kids saw my foofy hair they screamed.  Thanks guys.

What is OSDS?  It's Olympic Sleep Deprivation Syndrome!  I keep getting sucked in to the Olympics and staying up way too late.  Why do they wait until 10:30 to even start the figure skating?  I'm getting tired!  Last night I even got hubby to set up the DVR and then I still stayed up to watch.   Oh well, not much longer.  

I've been wanting to blog more, but it has been crazy busy here lately.  I usually try not to over schedule the kids and I for too many activities, but as part of lent I decided we could all handle it for one session of swimming lessons - 5 weeks.  My goal was to get the girls and I away from the screens and out exercising during the cold & rainy part of the year.   We have something every weekday afternoon except Friday: swimming, piano, drama, and gymnastics.  We almost skipped swimming today and it would have been a good idea since Syd was only in the pool for 5 min when then had to clear the place out and cancel lessons for the day after someone threw up in the pool.   Eeeew!
Well, the girls got our showers taken care of and now they are doing a Bindi Fitness video.  

I've been having some chronic back pain, but it's doing better and I've made it to the gym several times last week.   I went to this Zumba (Latin dance exercise) class, which was pretty fun and probably really good for my back, but my hips were challenged! 

That's all for now - I'm half way through our five weeks! 

Phase 1 - Complete

Friday, February 19

On Monday Kyla got her braces off!  Here is her before pic from about 8 months ago.

Here is what her teeth look like now.

I couldn't get her to open her eyes even though we were standing in the shade.  It's nice and sunny here this week!  Her front teeth look a lot better.  A lot of what the braces accomplished you can't really see from a photo, like widening her palate and maintaining space where her 2nd yr molar was pulled.   Now she has to wear a retainer at night. Not sure when phase 2 will start, probably not for two to three years.

Now she has a really big space on the upper left side since the orthodontist pulled out her very loose 1st year molar on that side.  Right before bed she asked me to send the tooth fairy a reminder email.  Hey, good idea and it worked!

You Capture - Kisses

Thursday, February 18

This week's photo challenge was kisses!   There is one person in our family who is all about kisses, can you guess which one?

When I told the girls the topic for the week, Kyla said, "I bet your going to let Syd kiss me everyday and you'll take a whole bunch of picures to see if you can get a good one!".   Hey, good idea.

Here is a blue butterfly kiss - that's what happens when you forget to adjust your white balance.

The one thing they agreed to kiss in hopes of getting to eat it was a huge chocolate kiss.  I had never seen one of these before. 

Here is my valentine from youngest daughter Sydney.

It said:

If I could hug you every time I think about you ... you'd be smooshed!
That got her some kisses.


Visit Beth's blog to see more Kisses.

You Capture - Work

Thursday, February 11

I'm a stay at home mom and I wasn't sure I could come up with any interesting photos of work that didn't show dirty dishes and laundry.  Speaking of laundry, my washer died and I was without for almost two weeks.  So I'll only show two laundry shots.  Here is me admiring my new front loader - I did a lot of laundry last weekend  and I'm still having fun watching the clothes go round.  (Thanks again grandma!)

Here is the new Bell Tower at Dr. C's University.  Those bells work every hour!

Here's me as the mom-taxi, taking kids and friend swimming.

Wow, it must be hard work to have so much fun!

Visit Beth to see the other Work photos.

You Capture - Faces

Thursday, February 4

I found the best faces while visiting with friends and family this week. 

 Happy Birthday to my Grandma!

I found sweet and silly faces.

Easting and laughing faces.

Reading faces.

And my blurry face!

Go here to visit Beth's You Capture - Faces challenge.

only if you bring back doughnuts!

Wednesday, February 3


This weekend Sydney had a friend sleep over, a first for both of the girls.  They were sooo excited.  First we went to Bingo for Books at school - what could be better than free books and root beer floats?  The girls didn't get to sleep until about 9pm with all the excitement and the big kids playing downstairs.  They even slept through the night until 5:50am that is.  I found myself struggling to comprehend why two 5 year olds were asking me for the car keys.  huh!? 


girls:   "We need the car keys - we left a book in the car and we neeeeed it.  We can reach the keys, can we go get it?   


me:  It's not even light outside yet, no you can't go out to the car!   Wait a minute let me think....   (I'm trying to remember while still half asleep - did we bring in the bag holding the very important Tinkerbell Color Wonder coloring book?)   


girls:  We really need that book, can we get it?


me:   Wait ... I'm trying to think... (it's not happening very fast though)  I think it's downstairs in the dining room in a black bag.


girls: but where?!


So I got up and found the black bag hiding in a dining room chair.  Thank goodness I didn't have to go outside.   I'm also thankful that those two smart and independent Kindergartners didn't attempt to go outside on their own (at least the car was parked in the garage and not on the street).    Disaster averted!

White

Tuesday, February 2

You know I can't resist a photo challenge, so for Scott's assignment of "white" over at Views Infinitum I leave you with these two photos.  Both are taken outside in color.
First I caught Lulu the lamb playing peek-a-boo.

Since I haven't seen any of the cold white stuff around here, I opted for some of the light white stuff.