Capturing the moment vs. living the moment

I am becoming one of those annoying camera ladies. You know exactly what I mean. The one that has a camera glued to her face and is always yelling, "Look at the camera! Look at mommy! Do that cute thing you were just doing again but this time do it slower!" Yep, that's me.

Well, today I was taking a walk with Violet and Baby #2 (no, I'm not pregnant, that's just what I call the girl I babysit for privacy reasons) and the most amazing thing happened-- the Rodeo riders marched right in front of our complex on their horses. And my first thought was, "Oh, I have to go get the camera!" Then I almost slapped myself in the face. Seriously? Was I going to tear Violet away from a literal parade of animals so that I could take a dumb picture of it? No way. So we walked to the street and Violet waved at the horses as they walked by, hyperventilated the entire time, and cried when they were all gone. No, I didn't make that last part up. As it turns out, we caught the tail end of it, so if I had gone all the way back to the house to get the camera, we would have missed the entire thing.

I guess cool hair just runs in our family.

Brandon's hair is now even longer than this. Maybe he will style it like this for Mom's family pictures in a few weeks.

A common view

Violet loves to play with my ring. For some reason she really likes it on her big toe. She's weird.

You can bruise my strawberries, but you can't bruise my pride

I am a sucker for a sale. So when I saw 50% off chocolate-dipped strawberries the day after Valentine's, I knew they had to be mine. Why not do something romantic on a day other than February 14? I must have been beaming with romantic thoughts when I went to pay for them. Apparently, the cashier was not a romantic. Maybe he had just been dumped or something but for some reason, he thought he could ruin my post-Valentine's day. In a jealous rage, he tipped the box of pretty little strawberries upside down to scan it. After a couple of seconds and no beep, he looked at me and said, "Hmmm... they're not scanning." So he SHOOK the box up and down in front of the scanner and when every last strawberry had fallen out of its cupcake wrapper and bruised the one next to it (you could actually see this happen since it was a clear plastic box), he finally put it down, took out the handheld scanner, and scanned it. What a jerk.

If cheese makes you vomit, then don't read this

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who made this Valentine's day great.

To Brandon, for being so sweet and taking me out.

To Mom, for watching Violet while we went out,.

To Dad, for going to Mexico and leaving Mom with nothing to do but watch Violet.

To Poodle, for getting Violet a hot pink dress to wear on Valentine's day.

And to Violet, for actually posing for a picture.

It was a good year.

Violet's words

Violet has been saying some words for quite awhile now. The only problem is, when people ask me what words she says, I can never remember any. So I figured that I would get them down while I can remember them.
Book (bok)
Look (ook)
Throw (drow)
Ball (ba)
Shoes (shish)
Kitty (teeyee)
Keys (kish)
Trees (teesh)
Clothes (lothes)
Toothbrush (tadush)
Mama, mom
Dada

and of course... No. Which she usually says while lying on the floor.

She is also quite fluent in animal language and can make lion, bear, rhino, lizard, dolphin, turkey, bird, and monkey noises.

First attempt

Remember the poll I put on my blog a couple of weeks ago? You probably don't, because a whopping 3 people responded to it. But the majority said they wanted to see more photography on my blog, so here I am posting some pictures that I took of my pregnant friend and her family.

I was a little disappointed with some things. First, the lighting was terrible. It was a perfect overcast day until 10 minutes before the shoot when the sun came out and became very harsh. Also, I have realized that my lenses aren't the best for portrait shooting. Now I'm thinking about getting a new lens, but the one I want won't be able to autofocus with my camera. I'm not sure what to do about the lens, but one thing I know is that I want to get much better.

Dear Martha Stuart's butt,

Consider yourself kicked. I threw a perfectly cute baby shower without your supervision.

Hanging balls of fluffiness








Maternity pictures taken by me




Tons of food, including the Barnaby's inspired Chicken Mill Valley in a Phyllo cup

And best of all, Mrs. Preggo loved it.

Rejected

Brandon and I applied for a hiking permit to Coyote Buttes a few weeks ago. Wait, make that three hiking permits (apparently babies need permits, too). Well, we were rejected. They only give out 10 per day, and over 200 people applied for our top picks. Sigh.

What to do now? We could try a walk-in. It's over 30 miles from any town, but hey, we might be in the area, right? Or we could apply for South Coyote Buttes, which requires 4-wheel drive and topographic maps. I just don't think our little Corolla could handle that.