Itchy Fingers

My mom used to tell me that I had itchy fingers because I couldn’t just sit and do nothing.  I would have to be doing something.  Chloe reminds me of that all the time now.  This is before, before when she could sit still long enough for me to actually take a picture of her:

I have thousands of pictures of my beautiful baby, looking straight at the camera for mommy.  I loved that period.  I got gorgeous picture after gorgeous picture.  Now she’s so itchy that all my pictures look like this:

Busy playing and discovering her world; always on the run.  Another sign that she’s growing up.  My only secret weapon for any photo session is. . . .ice cream.  Now that’s something to sit still for.

Of course, she doesn’t mind posing for the camera when she’s taking pictures, but then I get shots like this.

One of four pictures she took of her hand.  The other ten pictures she took were of the shopping cart, and my butt (*those have been erased, not long after she laughed herself silly*).

 

Something extra thrown in for fun:

 

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In other breath-taking news, I have a new toy!  It’s a Wacom tablet, and it’s gorgeous.  I’m ecstatic!  No more running away from the pen tool (check out my curves!)!

 

 

Family Photos

I have one more week of vacation left. I’m going to miss it. We’ve been having such a good time. I’ll let you in on all of it next week, but I thought I would share a couple of the family photos we took today. We rarely go to a studio to do professional photos because it’s so hard to find a photographer that is good with kids. The girl we had today was phenomenal. She had a great relationship with Chloe and it really shows in the photos. I’ll be back next week, enjoy the photos!

A White Christmas

Christmas picture rejects

Every year we mail out the chessy, but extremely cute, photo of our little girl in lieu of an actual Christmas card. So today we treked out to Cascades park in her Christmas best and took pictures for our “card.” While I’m working on making a really cute photo into her Christmas card – enjoy the ones from the reject pile.

Chloe: House Designer

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Of course, tucked away in ACDSee are all of the many, “mom, seriously, stop taking pictures of me” and the “I’m not posing for you anymore” pictures.

Day in the life of a Princess

Later that day, daddy says to mommy: “you could learn face painting, and I could do balloon animals. It would be like a carnival at our house everyday for Chloe.”

Late to the Party

I know I’m late to the Halloween picture posting party. I have about 5 different posts in my head, but haven’t had a chance to start them yet.

I think Chloe likes the dressing up part (and the part where we stopped by Coldstone to get some ice cream) more than the collecting candy part. The Saturday before Halloween we went to the Main St and the businesses were handing out candy. We collected about half a bucket full then stopped to get some ice cream. It’s interesting to watch my daughter eat ice cream – she is so methodical about her sprinkles. She’s really careful about the placement of her sprinkles and how much she puts on.

Halloween night she got to do the door-to-door thing. Another half a bucket full and we stopped at gramma’s for some picture taking.

This is me at our office Halloween party. Somehow it was leaked that we would be celebrities so we took a week and switched it up to keep everyone on their toes. We were all flowers and made a bouquet – complete with huge pink ribbon and florists. We won “Most Creative.”

And though it’s not related to Halloween, it is huge news. Chloe has learned how to write her name! We are so proud, and she is too. She does it all by herself and loves to practice it. Here’s proof:

Grow Old with Me

Four years ago we had a wedding. It was a very long, challenging, stressful, blissful day. I woke up at 3am that morning and it was non-stop until well past midnight (one day I’m going to have to tell you that story). I look forward to many, many more years together – with our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren. I love my husband; he is perfect for me.

Mid Autumn Moon Festival

Highlights of our moon gazing night.

Moon Cake (this one is red date with egg yolk and walnut)

Chloe wanted to wear her fancy yellow dress.

Celebrating Ghost Day

Today was Ghost Day (link to wikipedia explanation).

Here is Chloe praying. There are offerings, as you can see, at her feet. There’s bananas, coins, tea leaves, and pork (they get tossed out onto the pavement later so that the spirits can “eat” them). My mom even told us stories about how when she was a little girl all the children would go out in the neighborhood and people would throw coins and fruit at them – and they would take them home. She said her family was poor so they could only afford to throw pennies, but when she would go out and catch them all the kids were so excited to get money. So, in honor of that, my mom threw the coins and bananas at Chloe. Chloe loved it and even helped throw bananas and pork at daddy.

We burned paper clothes and paper coins and paper money for the spirits. Unfortunately there was a lot of wind so we had to keep relighting the clothes and money.

I believe this white paper is fabric to make clothes, but I’m not 100% sure on that. We mostly give clothes and money, so it’s probably one or the other.

I don’t know if you can tell (I know I don’t look all that happy in this picture), but I was really nervous about letting Chloe “help.”