Peahead Prints

if you like chocolate (and who doesn’t) you might not want to continue reading! this will surely add to your addiction and i mean ADDICTION!

if you have ever eaten a truffle, ever in your life, if it wasn’t from the 5th Avenue Chocolatier, it wasn’t the real deal. i was hooked at first bite! creamy chocolate heaven, wrapped in a semi-sweet powdery goodness…it really is like a little wooden box of heaven.

5th Avenue Chocolatier is owned, and has been since 1974, by the wonderful Whalley family, fortunately for me, they are like family to me (not fortunate for my hips!). their stuff is out of this world, rich, creamy, and just to die for! you really have to give it a try!

this past week we came home to one of the best surprises EVER!! besides a bag full of my favorite truffles (i have a standing agreement with the Whalley’s that when i shoot their family they pay me in chocolate) there was another surprise for me (and for kira)

that’s right! a solid chocolate camera of goodness!

kira really got a kick out of it! it was killing her to have to hold back and not take a bite…and then i let her have at it!

and she did

she really did a number on it!

lindz felt left out…we gave her a “fake” chocolate face…you have no idea the tantrum that would have persued if she got her hands on this bad boy!

thank you Whalley family from the bottom of my now big old chocoate filled butt!

you MUST ger yourself some of these treats!! head over here to grab some! need a gift? is there really anything better than chocolate? send someone their own little piece of bliss!

putting these two in a room together for more than an hour can be very dangerous! but i agreed to hold the first sleepover, at my house that is.

of course i obliged for all the wrong reasons. not so the girls could laugh and play into the wee hours, making memories to last a lifetime. not so that they could roll out the sleeping bags and have a night all to themselves, chatting about lord know what and staying up WAY past their bedtime.

nope. i didn’t hear sleepover. i heard photo op!

kira was not cooperating, i don’t blame her. poor aly is new to the whole photo session thing, kira was running for the hills faster than i could say cheese.

not my al. she just a tad bit of a ham.

i seriously considered photoshoping out that little barbecue sauce stain on her little arm, but then it just wouldn’t be aly that way.

thanks aly for being such a good subject. you have NO idea what your in for now!

in case you haven’t checked out the photoblog, i just had to share this little gem of an outake.

got 5 more just like it. baby girl held that little pose for about 15 frames. apparently she was making a point and wanted to make sure we all got it!

well in two days she will be!

I just love her little teeth

their so cute, i think i might be ok if she doesn’t get anymore, ever

she’s always blabbering about something, and looking at me like i am a weirdo

she’s just down right silly

and i just love her

i never kept a baby book for my first and i surely never even started one with lindz, never had time to even pretend i was going to keep up to date with this one. lucky for the two of them, photo files are dated. this way when they are 20 or if someone asks when my kid took their first step, i can check the archives in case i forget.

i have officially filed “eats finger foods” under august 23, 2009.

lindz loves her some cheerios, i think?

Not sure why she checks each one but she does. leave her be aboout it.

she gets a good grip and opens REAL wide. apparently she thinks she is eating her first plate full of filot mignon and not an itty bitty o.

almost ready.

delish!

or not!?

all that work for this!?

think she has any idea? lets try that again.

way to go lindz! you’ve got it now!

she’s losing it!! why is that “o” still on her finger and not in her mouth!? how is she not getting it in the big gapping hole in her face, even with the help of TWO hands!

good save! she is surely enjoying her treat now!

oh lord! not again!

now its wet and stuck to her little fingers.

and now its stuck to her face! AGAIN!

this is going to the start of some LONG snack times and tons of clean up. there must be 298 cherrios in her seat. she cleared the tray 5 times over. i was so proud thinking she ate them all up!! mama was boosting about how good little baby girl was doing with finger food.

just when i thought it was time rename all those saved files marked 8.23.09 to some later date….

we’ve got chewing people!! something made it in there! officially marked successful in my digital baby book of memories.

way to go little one, you take as long as you need t eat your “o’s”. gives mama some blogging time

it has been years, too many for me to count, since i put a paintbrush on canvas. since i have picked up a camera i have never looked back. today i decided to go back to my “still life” days and make some art to pretty up my house, still on canvas but without the old brush and paints. much easier clean up i might add. 

Now to pick a print size for these 3 beauties and find a home for them on a baron wall that needs some life. this could take a while.

if i didn’t have such an devoted love for photography i surely would NEVER allowed this to happen

if i didn’t love capturing memories, all memories, i would have said “noway. you are no going out in the rain, getting soaking wet, splashing in muddy puddles and making more laundry and big mess”

but with a camera in hand, it makes all those little OCD voices stop.

grab a camera, think memories and do something you never would have done before!

i think my “shooting lindsay” days are over! she is officially on the move and fast as lightning!

and she’s out of here!

 gone are the days of staying put. it’s all down hill from here. better go find my kids!

alot of people will ask me how i get my kids to take such great pictures? and although i do, on occasion, get that one, sometimes two, keepers that actually journey from my hard drive into a frame and onto my wall, it’s not easy. i am 99.9% sure that photographing your own children is by far the hardest thing to do as a photographer.

it’s frustrating. exhausting. a true pain in the butt.

today i had a delirious moment. i thought it might be “the” day i got a picture of the girls together. i have only waited 8 months to do it! i pulled out the stand, rolled out the paper, fluffed up the fur and quickly cleaned up my rug rats and attempt the “shot”.

for all you doubters who don’t believe that i have to beg, bribe, and threaten my children (child that is, lindz is just starting to run from me and at 8 months old has not yet learned the art of negotiation) today i introduce you to “a session with my kids”. straight out the camera and outtakes included, of course.

i took 187 pictures (not kidding) in our 37 minute “session”. here is just a little tidbit of what i got.

apparently Lindsay smelled like “something”. Kira couldn’t put here finger on it but it was something gross.

p.s.-she was fresh from a scrub down, clean diaper and all. Kira’s first attempt to get out of the shoot. but apparently still smelly.

not sure what they didn’t understand about SIT UP! I said it loud enough to wake up a sleeping cat 3 blocks away.

we’ve just started and lindz is already sooo over it!

how dare i think it would be easy to get them looking at me. even as i sing, dance, whistle and basically act like a fool.

lindz saw something that looked edible.

she’s really a lost cause now!

the rug is itchy.

my back hurts.

im hungry.

oh just forget it.

oh wait someone wants a solo now that i have given up. i didn’t want yet another portrait of just k but i better grab it while i can.

i don’t even know what this is. and i really have nothing to say about it.

she agreed to continue only if “blankie” can be in the shot! just what i needed, a shot of a blanket. but i agreed. i had to deal with it if i was going to be able to continue.

back to being hungry. note the bag of goldfish.

and of course. my last resort. let her play the games we ALWAYS have to play. whether it be one, two, three…OPEN.

freeze dance.

or the ever popular “kid picks the pose”

not sure who she thinks she is!

and then, like clockwork, i get the “mom i’m really done face”.

and i pack it in, hook up the camera to the computer and say a pray, or two. sometimes i find a nice surprise.

when did that happen? .00534% success rate, i’ll take it!

there is nothing better than a warm night at a carnival. i am not sure what it is about it but it is just the epitome of summer. the smells of spilled beer, burnt zeppoli’s, porta potties and ride exhaust. the rides, aka portable death devices (rides that can be easily packed up and taken around the country should not be allowed!) the waiting in line for ridiculously over priced tickets. it’s the same story every time we go. and we go ALOT. if there is a fireman’s fair within a 20 mile radius we’re there! and each time we go i wonder why.

it’s the same thing over and over. it never really changes. but the kids love it. every glow in the dark necklace is just as exciting as the first. and the routine never changes.

the girls wait anxiously. their love/hate relationship spikes during a bought of anxious boredom.

love

hate

boredom

looks like love, but i’m not quit sure

last year was the first year the girls really “got it” and they wanted to go on every ride, over and over and over and…you get the point. i was enormous and miserably pregnant last year so i didn’t get to enjoy the excitment as much. i was on official purse patrol, the entire summer!

i thought i was going to have my turn but this year the girls got to enjoy the attractions on their own. i did do the “big” slide though. do those potato sacks need to be that itchy? really? can’t we come up with something a little less harsh on the coolie and just as slippery?

they rode the typical kiddie rides. dumbo (kira has not yet been to disney world, she doesn’t know yet that it’s not the real deal…and don’t any of you tell her! october will be here soon enough!), the carousel, the monkey maze.

by chance we met up with huner and lizzie, the girls cousins. boy were they excited and just in time to fill up a tub, of fun. doesn’t look like much fun to me. looks like an accident waiting to happen.

i vaguely remember asking hunter to watch out for girls and if they wanted the ride to slow down, that HE was in charge of stopping this barf machine from spinning. he happily agreed .

apparently he did not understand what i was saying!

i saw my little precious thing spinning wildly and i got more and more nervous with every turn. but she was having fun. i bottled up the anxiety and just kept clicking.

i’ve told you that aly has a really hard time sitting still. it is very apparent that even while spinning at the speed of light, she finds it necessary to want to evacuate the tub, not out of fear, she has none, but because it might add to the fun she is already having!

good lord, she makes me nervous.

we yelled.

she listened.

just watching them made my stomach queasy. i thought for sure that would be the end of the evening. nope back to the monkey maze. 47 more times. we were surely done now. exhausted, filthy and feet aching. nope. a fair is never complete without a big ball of sugar on a stick, an hour before bedtime.

it’s sticky and almost void of any flavor at all. it dissolves before it even hits your taste buds, so why do we bother? as nasty as it i, you just have to spend the $6, take a taste and then toss 3/4 of it in the trash. and as you walk to the car, you spend 36 minutes discussing how gross it is.

then we went home. soaked in the tub and watched the filth filter down the drain. got in jammies and called it a night. i think a post fair shower is a close second to the just got home from the beach shower. i love summer. whens the next fair?