I Heart Faces: Hilarious Outtakes

This week's challenge theme on I Heart Faces is "Hilarious Outtakes."  Here are some of my faves.

I was playing around with some buttons on my camera, trying to see the difference between the settings, when my friend told me to look over at G.  Daddy had left a chocolate wrapper on the table and Gracie was sneaking some little bits.  This pic is when she knew she had been "caught."  Cheeky little girl :)

She is absolutely OBSESSED with spoons right now.  She never wanted any of the blankies or lovies to cuddle with, but she takes a spoon to bed with her.  Here she is in Santa Cruz, spoon in hand.  Maybe it's just because a few little boys in my family are really into Star Wars, but it looks to me like she is wielding a light saber.

I was trying to take advantage of the cloud covering and the red tutu, so we hopped outside for a bit for some pics.  For whatever reason, lil G would NOT keep her tongue in!  I have 6 shots in a row with that tongue out.  And this one makes me laugh every time :)

 

Oh my, how I love my little girl!

To see more great pics (and there are some absolutely WONDERFUL ones!) go to:

Hands on Fun

Another I Heart Faces photo challenge, "Hands on Fun!"  I knew exactly what I wanted to do for this one.  Take a lil looksie!

How precious is this little girl?!  Baby G was 3 days old, celebrating her very first Thanksgiving.  Everyone else was visiting with each other while she was sleeping peacefully.  I was so blessed to walk in and find her like this, with no one's help positioning her fingers.  It still is one of the sweetest memories I have of my little beauty.

For more AMAZING pictures go here: 

I Heart Faces: We Heart Kisses

This week's challenge at I Heart Faces is "We Heart Kisses."  This is one of my favorite pictures ever because Baby G is giving Baby A a kiss, but Baby A looks more than a little scared!  Too cute!

 Go see more photos showin' some love at 

Adobe Lightroom...

is AMAZING!!!  I am using the trial for 30 days, and though there is MUCH more to discover, I have finally found a way that I like some of my wedding photos!  Yay!!

Here are a few I've played around with a bit this evening:

I know they are no where near what other people can do, but I think it's at least an improvement...right?! Or am I delusional? ;)

i heart faces "family" challenge

I've decided to start taking more pictures, and especially more creative pictures. I found a great blog that has contests every week, so I am going to try to take up the challenge of doing it every week, whether I post them on their site or not.

The theme on http://iheartfaces.blogspot.com/ this week is family. You can see more entries here.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Daddy and Baby G. Baby G was so happy that day, just smiling away, and Daddy was taking such joy in his little girl.

Reading Challenge Wrap Up

With all that's been going on the last month, I'm proud to be LESS THAN a month late for this wrap up post! Even though I didn't read very many of the books that I had on my list (wait, I think I only read one on there, come to think of it!), I feel very successful because I finally made time for myself and to enjoy one of my very favorite activities. It was some much needed "me" time, and I read whenever and wherever I could! In the bath, blow-drying my hair, whatever! I even once asked J to take care of the baby cuz I needed a break, and I read for over 3 hours...straight!!! I don't think there's been much in the last year or so that I have been able to do for that long!!

That being said, these are the books that I actually read/listened to:

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society (Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows)

The Color Purple (Alice Walker)

Odd Mom Out (Jane Porter)

Julie and Julia (on CD) (Julie Powell)

And the books I partially read are:

Cure for the Common Life (Max Lucado)

Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

Finding Your Purpose as a Mom (Donna Otto)

I absolutely loved TGLAPPS, and had to keep reminding myself that it was fiction! Thought they did a wonderful job of making very real characters, and I found myself looking at the last page to check to see if the end was what I thought it should be!! I NEVER do that! I guess I just needed to know that everyone would be ok.

The Color Purple was...different than I had anticipated. I hadn't heard anything about it, other than, well, just hearing about it! It was a heart breaker for quite a while, and I think I actually missed quite a bit of it. Not sure if I will go back to read it to catch what I missed, though.

I was also really disappointed in Julie and Julia. I listened to the first few chapters on CD and then took a break because of all the bad language. As much as I hate bad language in books, I think it is SO MUCH WORSE to hear it read out! At least with an actual book you can kind of skim over it, but when you listen to someone drop the F*bomb all over the place while you have your one year old in the kitchen, THAT is a different story! After a while I rented it from Redbox and thoroughly loved the movie!! So I thought I'd continue to listen to the book, just in case it redeemed itself. It didn't. One of the few cases where I enjoyed the movie more than the book!

I had two other other goals for the challenge: to read my Bible more and to read to G more. Still working on the Bible reading, but at least I am doing it MORE. And G is now addicted to books. Her favorites are anything that have bunnies in them, and Moo Baa LaLaLa (Sandra Boynton). She sometimes even goes to bed with them. Pretty cute :)

Alrighty, I am going to go ahead and post this so I can check it off my "to do" list! I actually started it December 21st (the day the challenge ended), tried again on January 1st, another time in between then and now, and obviously today. I just keep telling myself, "At least I did it!"

Reading Challenge Update

So I have always loved reading. I used to get in trouble for reading "too much" (under my sheets when I was supposed to be sleeping, in the bathroom at school, etc). And in all my years of reading, I don't know that I have ever stopped reading a book because I didn't like the way it was going. I always thought, "Oh, it is bound to get better." Plus, I just HAD TO KNOW if it got better or not. I couldn't deal with not knowing.

This week was the first time that I know of that I have stopped reading a book for that reason. It was Real Life and Liars. It started out with the main character smoking weed, which is not terrible to read about, but my first thought was, "Ok, if this is in the first few pages, what is next?!" So I kept reading and there is a character who sounds like she wants to have an affair and it seems like the author is justifying it because she is no longer in love with her husband, nor he with her. And then the last straw was something that I don't even want to write on here because I was so shocked by it! And this was only in the first 50 or so pages!

So I was disappointed in the book, to say the least. It could have ended up being a fantastic book, but I'll never know, and honestly, weirdly, I don't even care. I hate that books used to be the "safe" option, when there was so much yucky stuff on TV, and now I feel like my mind has been violated! I hate that it seems like our society doesn't feel like a tv show, movie, and now BOOK, is not successful or something unless it has a sex scene in it! Yuck.

I also finished Odd Mom Out, which was...interesting. At some times I felt like the author was saying that stay at home moms are really just a bunch of losers who have nothing better to do than go to country clubs and spas. Pretty sure I work just as hard as women in the work force! Yes, I sometimes watch TV while I do it, but I hate that I am being made to feel like my "job" means nothing.

And then to top it off, after the author gets you hooked on the book, like a couple of hundred pages in, there are two or so random scenes where I felt completely awkward reading! I actually showed them to James cuz I all of a sudden felt like I was reading a dirty book! She did not go into a huge amount of detail, and it was nowhere near as bad as the previously mentioned book, but still a bit unnecessary.

Alrighty, so I just had to share and vent about my reading experience thus far! On the plus side, I am loving Pride and Prejudice, and would love to read more Austen! I thought it would be a lot harder to understand (I have little patience for "thees" and "thous" :)) and I love that Austen makes her characters very likeable.

I also took an unintentional break from my goals of this challenge (reading the Bible, reading to Gracie and reading at least 10 minutes a day) because I was sick, then Gracie got sick, then we were both sick, then teeth came in, then I got sick again. Now I am finally feeling better, teeth are in and dirty books are back at the library, so hoping to start up again soon!

Okay, this was a long post, much longer than I intended it to be! So congrats for making it to the end! 2 bucky beaver points for YOU!