Whoops....

I know that I should have made a photo a day work, after all it's just one photo a day.  Try as I might I almost never make it past February or March. It first starts with not getting to edit the photos, then goes to I forgot a day so I can make it up, until at the end I am avoiding my camera.  I do that often, for as much as I LOVE to take photographs, I have also in a way become my own worst enemy.

I start by not wanting to haul my cameras with me (and they need a good cleaning and tune up too), then it's 'the kids won't work with me', until finally I just give up.  I rationalize it, that I can't do great in the moment photos (no iPhone), I don't have a decent point and shoot (for those that don't know me I have pretty high standards for even snaps -- something I am working on). The result is that, me, queen of capturing the everyday, hides from taking photos for the rest of the year.

This year I have a new plan, it's to start my photo a day with Halloween, maybe even a few days before, the goal is to make my 'few' weeks of diligence pay off by capturing the magic of the holidays.  Who knows I might even make it through the hump and take it a full year.

Day 40 (366): FUN

John was so excited when he came home from school today.  One of his classmates has a parent that works at General Mills and he learned all about grains and how they make Cheerios.  He thought the beard net was funny -- so of course we had to take a photo.

Day 39 (366): Up a Tree

Who knew it would be great tree climbing weather in Minnesota in Feb.  This has been such an odd year.  We are getting soft, because this year 30 feels cold and normally that's when we would shed our heavy coats! Who know I may have to order the b/w one larger to grace the walls of my office as it's a prefect photo of John.

Day 37: (366): Friend or Foe

John and Kate have the typical love/hate relationship of siblings. Kate wants to be just like John and at the same time LOVE to torment him. I suppose it's the nature of the younger sibling. Having been the oldest I can and do sympathize with John a great deal.  However, Kate is smart and finds ways to annoy him all the time.  That's why I can't be certain if I caught them in a friendly moment OR one when she was trying to torment him.

Day 36 (366): Shopping/ 52x2 Week Five

I have a cyber friend who is fantastic photographer (in Ohio) -- she does a great job of doing everyday photos, but getting all FOUR kids in one shot each week.  I have to say compared to her mine have been blah. However, I decided to take my camera (yup the big one) with me to Target this week.  That was sort of hilarious, Target was busier then usual and well the result was not what I had hoped for, but there is always next time~!

Day 35 (366): Frost

Today we had the most beautiful frost on the trees.  We typically see this in the Spring and Fall, not during Winter. I know I should not complain about the mild winter, but you know seeing brown and dull all week has sort of gotten to me, at least when you have snow you don't see the brown tress and grass as much, things feel tidier somehow!

Today I tried my hand at a macro -- the dried plant looked like a bee ready to take off!

Day 34 (366): Karate

When you have kids you wonder what kind of Mom you will be.  Will they love soccer and make you the quintessential soceer Mom.  Will they take to the ice and play hockey or is baseball their game?  I never thought about Karate, but here I am a Karate Mom.  I could not be prouder of how hard he works and look at those kicks -- ouch I may have been able to do them twenty years ago, but not now.

Day 33 (366): Dinner Part II

I have always admired those who do photographs to go with their recipes I think I could be one of htem if I didn't leave the photograph until it was nearly dark on a very dull grey day.  However, I will say that one of my goals this year would be to photograph the production of a few of our favorite recipes and start a book for the kids.  I know they are little now, but one day they will be grown and on their own.  They may need to know how to make dumplings without a mix, or just how to make their Dad's favorite cookies.

Day 32 (366): Dinner Part I

I made it the entire month of January without missing a day, but the first of February came and it was just that sort of day. You know the one where EVERYTHING seems to go wrong out of the gate and you never stop going from one thing to the next.  Well that was this day, so I cheated and took two photos on day 33.  The goal is this has to be fun and it has to have a bit of flex or I will cave and give up.

Day 31 (366): Zingo

Kate love to play games -- one of her favorites is Zingo.  Although she knows the 'rules' she makes up her own.  Today we had to do the cards by row, and we had to put the last tile on at the same time.  Her thought is if we do it that way we both win.  She's may not like losing, but at least she likes everyone to win!

Day 30 (366): Snap

Kate is practicing her snapping -- it's really cute to me and Vince, but it really annoys John.  The result is she just tries more and more, she is a pretty determined gal when she wants to be!

Day 29 (366) - Little Artist

Kate loves everything to do with art and creating -- Painting being one of her favorites.  Today she was experimenting with how to make colors. I was making Pumpkin bread in the background - her picture turned out better the bread.  If anyone has any ideas why half the loaf stays in the pan (despite using something for non sticking before I put the batter in) I would love to hear from you. I normally can figure all these things out so much better.

Day 28 (366) - Curious

I love evenings as life is winding down around here.  What I find the funniest thing is how Boni stakes her spot out underneath my husband's legs.  She sits there and watches what happens and, to me, it seems like she is saying what on earth is that thing you have that is making that odd clicking sound!

Day 27 (366) Getting Ready

Getting ready for school, it's hard to explain, but this is such a typical 'John' expression that it just totally melts my heart.

52/2 Week four - Hanging Out

I seem to only be capturing those quite moments. This is pretty much the only way I capture them both together at the same time right now.  I can't wait for nicer weather AND my point and shoot to come back from repair (or we hope it will they say up to 8 weeks so who knows).

Day 25 (366) Little Mommy

Kate loves to take her dolls and her puppies with her everywhere! Although I pick just one each day I had to share the entire set - because she posed them for the photo~

Day 24 (366) - Pool Time

Kate has been sick this week -- so today we she was a bit stir crazy after three days of being in bed.  She wanted to turn the bathroom into a 'pool' and I was more then happy to oblige~

Day 23 (366) - Homework

3rd grade is harder then 2nd or 1st, because there is a great deal more homework that John needs to do.  This year he is learning how to study for tests, besides the weekly spelling test, and how to write reports and do power point slides. He always bites his lower lip when he is concentrating on things -- just love that I can capture these little quirks~

Day 22 (366) - Nook

I love my Nook.  I have not used it as much as I would like, but I do love that when I have it with me I always have a book to read.  It's also great for kids who like to read on car rides at night. No lights needed to see the text!

Day 21 (366) - Wii

This is just for me - it's not perfect (if it were I would have been able to get the game on the screen) but it's really the quite of the house right before John goes to bed.

Shannon

Day 20 (366) Crashed

Kate was so worn out from her busy week she crashed while sitting on the couch with Vince. I love that she looks so peaceful when sleeping.

Day 19 (366) Legos - For Girls

I love that both my children are into playing with Legos. Kate loves to take her brothers legos. It's almost a game, but now she has her own Legos, She wanted pink Legos and got some for Christmas this year. I am excited that they are starting to make more sets for girls, so now she can have her own Legos and stop sneaking into her brothers room to play with his!

Day 18 (366) - Silly

I love when Kate makes her silly faces -- she loves to do everything but look normal when she see's the camera!

Day 17 (366) - On Point

John has an event at his school each winter, "Reach for the Stars", it's a combination of a Science Fair/Talent Show/Art Show.  The students who participate do a project and submit it for review.   This year we started out by trying to do stop motion, but that didn't work out like he wanted so two days before the project was due we changed gears to just do a single photograph.   He chose to do a photo of our hunting dog, Boni.  This was the image I took to show him what to do with my camera and help set the settings.

Day 16 (366) - Kate's Baby

Kate LOVES to play with her dolls, tonight for dinner she had to bring her doll, the doll's food and everything else to the table. I love these days hope we still have many  more ahead of us~

Day 15 (366) Lego Club!

John is a Lego Kid.  He really loves them and even when he's not playing with them he's reading the Lego Magazine~!

52/ 2 Week 2

Who knew that trying to remember to take a photo with BOTH children in it would be so hard. Once again I found myself on Saturday trying to find a time/place/and two willing children for a photo opportunity.  Today they were constantly trying to pick fights and at one point (just before this photo actually), Kate even declared that John could not watch our TV, it was HER TV today.  As I put away the 14th load of laundry, well OK it may have only been the 6th, I headed downstairs and figuring that I could do two next week to make up for missing this week.  After all while the goal is to do it within the week, the more important goal is to have 52 photos both of  my children. Then it saw them. They were both sitting side by side, there was no blood on the ground, no signs that fighting of any kind had just occurred. I grabbed the camera and too the shot before either one realized I was there!  I hope that this week I can be ahead of my deadline, but don't count  on it.

Day 13 (366) - Cooking

Kate loves to help, to dress up, color and do all things 'girly'.  I loved it today when she came into the kitchen in her petti-skirt, hair up and ready to 'help'.

Day 12 (366)

Really no words are needed for the sign Kate made and hung on her bedroom door tonight -- It says it all~

Day 11 (366)

This is how many miles I drove between January 4th and January 11th.  It's amazing how much you can drive in one week and never really go anywhere~

Day 10 (366) - Smile

I love his smile~!

Day 9 (366) - No Snow

The weather this winter has been amazingly warm.  Today it was over 50 so we just had to get out and do something.  The down side to no snow is that most day's it's too cold to be outside having fun, but it's not super cold either!

Day 8 (366)

I have been keeping up with taking the images, but some weeks/days I don't get them edited and posted.  In order to get caught up I may be posting a lot this week!~  We go through a ton of Ketchup here -- and so that night I photographed something that was meaningful and full for once!

2x52 - Another Photo Project

This is the first of 52 times I plan to photograph the two of them together. Better late then never, as they were a bit squirmy all week, so I procrastinated... the result was that when Saturday came and I wanted to photograph them, they were sick.

John seemed fine and even went to Karate in the morning, we car-pool so I did not drive this week.  Then an hour later he came home, nearly crying, as he had thrown up three times at Karate (you can tell it was run by Men that day no one called and even the Dad who drove car-pool said nothing to me).  He went an laid down, which resulted in a 20 minute tantrum by Kate.  The reason for this monumental event, was that John was watching 'her' show on 'her' T.V.   Now I won't fib, she has tantrums frequently (I think it's part of being a girl and the off-spring of some pretty stubborn parents- but what do I know- I am just a Mom), but today's was particularly difficult.  I was starting to wonder if I could find that <a href="http://momastery.com/blog/2012/01/04/2011-lesson-2-dont-carpe-diem/">Kairos Moment</a> today - that one that makes up for all the harder parts of being a parent.  Just ten minutes later (though it felt like a life time) I came back down after cleaning up to find my moment.  My little girl fast asleep before noon on a Saturday an her brother nearby!

Day 6 (366) - Four Legged Friends

I am pretty sure that our two dogs would say they are our children and sometimes I think they even have expressions and act just like John and Kate.

Doing a photo a day will be challenging, and sometimes (like today) the photo doesn't happen until right before bed, but that's OK. The point is to document all aspects of my life, and by that extension my children's lives.  Our dogs are such a huge part of our lives and no year would be complete with a few photos of them.

Day 5 (366) - The Toys

Kate is clearly the easier one to photograph, at the moment. Just wait until I start to ask about Star Wars, Legos or Light sabre's and I will get John in front of the camera just as much.  Tonight as I was putting the toys away I looked at Kate's face and realized how sad she looked.  She loves playing in the tub with her toys, what she doesn't know is that I am sad too. Not much longer will she want to play with them, and that makes me sad too.  I have had the stacking cups for nine years now -- they were John's first tub toy. I have photos taken of him using them in our old house.  Done on my old Pentax camera with FILM (I know that seems so long ago, but yet it wasn't).  Oh where does the time go?

Day 4 (366) - American Girl Dreams

I think if Kate could have a room full of dolls she would not be happy.  She is busily planning and telling me exactly which American Girl Dolls she likes and why.  I guess she figures if she tells me at least four months ahead, that somehow I will get her one or her birthday.  Don't tell her, but we may forgo the party this year and take her to lunch at the American Girl Doll Store and... well you guessed it get her an American Girl.  Right now she want's the Girl of the year (because she has gymnastics stuff) or a just like me doll with red hair and curls.

You have to wait until May to find out, but stay tuned as I think Kate and her dolls will be a regular theme this year~

Day 3 (366) - Back to work and school

Today we went back to work/school, and let me tell you I cannot wait for summer.  We will still have to be out of the house at the same time, but I won't have to pack all the extra stuff like boots, snow suits, my shoes, hats, mittens .... Well you get the idea.  This morning I snapped a photo of just what Kate and I have to haul with us each day -- I am starting to feel a bit like a pack animal and cannot wait for her to have a real locker and keep snow pants at school, like her brother does, so we don't have to take them back and forth each day.

Day 2 (366) - Light

I am a gluten for punishment, but I am not only  now doing two different photography challenges this year,but I also added in another 52 week project.  What can I say I love to be busy, and after all challenging myself with photography is a way I relax.

This is a 52 week challenge where the theme is light -- what could be more light then the candle from a birthday cake.  My husband had a birthday, he turned <del>49</del> 29 for the 20th time since I met him!  Kate loves to be right in the thick of things and I just love the look on her face!

Shannon

366 - Photo a Day!

I am doing a photo a day, again.  This time I hope to make it past February.  There are a few reasons I think this year I will succeed.

1. I got a point and shoot so I can take some snaps of the kids and always have a camera with me.

2. I am learning to let go of perfection -- this blog is a sign of that. I did have trouble getting it going, but once I realized it did not need to be 100% the way I wanted it to start, it was so much easier!

3. I have not only the<del> 365</del> 366 goal, but am doing my two in 52.  I hope to capture ONE image each week of my two children together. This is easier said then done (as with most of us) but I do have to say I have it much easier then many of my friends who are doing this along with me.  My friend <a title="Mach C Photography" href="http://machcphotography.com/four52/" target="_blank">Chelsey</a>, has twin boys who are six months and two older children, but all four are 5 and under so if she can do it so can I.

4. I am not doing this project alone. There is an amazing group of photographers who are going along on the 366 and the 52 week project with me.  Each week I will blog about another person who has taken on the wonderful task of documenting their children's lives with me!

Thank you for reading and see you tomorrow!