Bathtime Beards

Heard some comotion coming from the kid's bathroom today and I walked in to find a 5 year old with a giant beard and a one year old, well, eating his beard. Yes, dad might have had something to do with this... 

A little break... kind of

I've spent pretty much this whole week in bed. I used to be one of those people that didn't get sick. I was always at work. Then, my baby started pre-school.

I'm writng this post and then I'm off to catch up with this house. Walking around here keeps reminding me of this great story my friend Janet shared on facebook once. Enjoy. I'll be back next week!

A man came home from work and found his 3 children outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn around garden, The door of his wife's car was open, as was the front door to the house and no sign of the dog, walking in the door, he found ...an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, the throw rug was against one wall, In the front room the TV was on loudly with the cartoon channel, the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing. In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door. He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened. He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door. As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap and more toys strewn over the floor. Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls. As he rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pajamas, reading a novel... She looked up at him, smiled and asked how his day went. He looked at her bewildered and asked, 'What happened here today?' She again smiled and answered, 'You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world do I do all day?...
''Yes," was his incredulous reply..
She answered, 'Well, today I didn't do it.'

Story and photo via here

Week One Photo Class

I've been having so much fun with my "homework" photoshoots that I thought I'd share. I found these photography classes and signed up for the Babies, Toddlers, and Kids online mini course. I really should have taken Photo 101 and Photo Workflow first, but I'll just have to do those next. 

I initially had looked for some photo classes locally, but, if you have little kids like I do, you might know that going out on your own is not necessarily easy. If you want to improve your photo skills and are in a similar situation check out Nicole's Classes. It's all online, so you don't have to leave the house. You'll have homework and get some really good feedback. 

We went to Celebration this past weekend and I did my second week homework photoshoot. It was Owen this time. I'll share those soon! I hope everyone had a good weekend! BTW, did anyone get to go paint at Anthropologie on Sunday? (I didn't find out about it until Saturday night, so I just put it on the Facebook page)

Alphabet Traffic Jam

My 3 year old boy and I play cars almost every single day on his Ikea Rug. One day there was a horrible traffic jam and the cars were all lined up on the roundabout. "Mama, looks like the letter O" And so it started... we built lots of letters out of cars. I love when we can play and learn something at the same time.

Book of School Projects

My husband's an artist, so a couple of years ago I decided to put together a little book with pictures of his artwork. Our three year old saw it a few months ago and said "Where's mine?" Hmmm... that's right you're a little artist too. Throughout the year he had been bringing home lots of projects from school. They would hang on the fridge until the next pieces would come in. The older pieces would move to a pile in the cabinet. He's only 3, and he was bringing at least one piece a day. We have years of this ahead of us. I can't possibly keep every piece of paper he touches so I decided to take his advise and do a book for him. I scanned some pieces and took pictures of others. I kept the format simple, white background in all pages, showing one piece per page. The beginning of the book shows a picture of him at school and some of his classmates with their names. At the end I have his graduation picture with his teachers and a scan of the ribbon given to him that day.

The book was printed by Blurb, a service anyone can use. It turned out great and came pretty quick. I decided on the square format with the image wrap hardcover. It took a few hours to do all that scanning and photographs but now I have a neat archive of his artwork for the year. (I'm thinking I'll still hang on to a few originals though :))

Update on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 at 11:39AM by Zig & Zag

Here are some additional pages of the book for those of you that wanted to see more. The page with the green background is the one where I left blank space. I cut out some original handprints, and glued them in there.

There are a few call outs in the book like "Valentine's Day," etc. I kept them simple, since it's all about his work, not mine.

I love to see the interest in the book. If you have a comment or question please go ahead and leave it here. Thanks!