Love Project ~ February update

Happy Leap Year! Today being the last day of February, we stopped by Good Shepherd Alliance this afternoon to drop off our donation.



We had the bags filled with laundry detergent, toilet paper, canned fruit, juice and iced tea bottles, diapers, soup mix, and a few other things which were posted on their urgent needs list. It was a really good feeling to do something to help our community, and I look forward to making regular donations to GSA in the future. I plan to make it back again once I've filled up more bags of donations. They made it so easy for me when I dropped off - a guy was outside waiting to accept the donation and he gave me a receipt on the spot. Made it convenient since the kids were waiting in the car.

In March I'm going to work on helping my brother plan Andy's memorial in Hershey. It probably will take place in April, but I'm sure he'll need help getting the details lined up ahead of time. It will be a wonderful way for us to honor his life with friends and family in his hometown.

Shades after swimming

Took this little snapshot with my cell after swim class today. Vivi was having fun entertaining herself with my sunglasses while I got changed.


Reminded me right away of the video my dad took of me when I was about 5 years old and I was doing the same exact thing with my mom's shades. Except hers were way bigger.

It was the early eighties, after all. :)

Photography Improvement Project

I have a dream of becoming a really good photographer. But yet, I have not done anything, other than a quickie Photography 101 course that was just so-so, to further that dream.

Until now.

A blogger I used to read, Jill of Baby Rabies, had a promo to join a site called ClickinMoms in a recent post she wrote. I just signed up today for a Free 7-day trial and while the kids were napping, I started reading through the Forums.

There is so much incredible information from professional photographers, amateur photographers, and moms just like me who want to become better at taking pictures of their favorite subjects: their kids. I'm loving it so far.

This afternoon I took some snapshots of Ben and the kids on the deck before dinner. I'm excited about learning more about photography and look forward to seeing my blog images get better and better as time goes by and I work at practicing.




Practice makes perfect, right?

Or at least in my case, practice will at least help me to improve. :)

Baby Drew ~ sleepy after pictures, not during

I brought dinner over to Molly and Tim tonight and also was on hand to help with Drew's newborn photoshoot. He did a number (well, a few actually) on the new {expensive} swaddle blankets Molly bought for the shoot, and unfortunately was wide awake for almost all of the picture-taking, so not many sleeping baby shots were captured. It doesn't matter ~ all the pictures are going to be amazing. Mol and Tim make really cute kids.

All that peeing and pooing wore him out! I got to hold him before and after his pictures were finished and I didn't want to put him down. He's so snuggly and cute. And so gosh-darn handsome. Dontcha think?

How Owen does playtime

All dressed up for Brody's birthday party

Our friend Brody turned 2 today and we went to his "rock-star" themed birthday bash. It was so much fun! The kids had a ball playing with Brody's train table and other toys. The guitar cake was definitely a hit.

Vivi wore a cute outfit that Mommy put together all by herself (as fashion-challenged as I am, I was kinda proud of this little number.)

{Cardi: Children's Place, Tunic shirt: OldNavy, Skinny Jeans: Children's Place, Legwarmers: BabyLegs, Shoes: Old Navy}

After the party, Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Hillary came over to hang out with Owen and Vivi while Ben and I went out to dinner in DC to celebrate his birthday. It was a very fun date night, and we thank them for coming over to watch the kiddos for us.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

(snap shot from my phone)

Ben's birthday is today! To celebrate, Owen baked a cake in his kitchen!

(The cake is in the oven, if you didn't notice.) I guess he was dehydrating some fruit (and bread and butter) while the cake baked. Way to multi-task, bud! :)

60 degrees at the playground in Feb!

Today Vivian and I packed a picnic lunch and picked up Owen at preschool. We headed over to our favorite playground to eat lunch and play outside. Such a beautiful day!


I was so proud of Owen when these two boys who both looked to be around 4-5ish, came up to him and were acting mean towards him. I don't remember exactly what they said to him, but it was something to the effect of, "we don't want to play with you!". He simply smiled at them and laughed, running the other way.

Tonight at bedtime we talked about it and I told him how he did exactly the right thing in that situation. I think he understood what I was trying to teach him, but two seconds later he was describing for me how rocket ships have fire shooting out from them. :)

Pierced ears

I had this done today at our pediatrician's office for two reasons:

1. I remember getting my own ears pierced and how dramatic I made the whole event when after the first ear was done, I thought it hurt so bad and was terrified of having the second one done. Thankfully, I got over that quickly and did leave with 2 pierced ears rather than just one. We thought we'd make it a little easier on her and just have it done when she was a baby so that she wouldn't remember the experience.

2. This way Ben and I won't have to listen to her beg to get her ears pierced from the age of 4 on. It's already done.

She hardly cried at all (the nurse was very quick with the actual piercing after we talked for awhile about the process and how to clean them, letting Vivian touch her blue gloves, etc.) and she has not even so much as touched them. Not even when I clean them and turn them for her.

Reading with Grandma before bed