Photo 365 #104: Moment

November 19, 20148 Comments

Life is but a series of moments. Each day I find myself recording moments for posterity, though sometimes my recordings are strictly internal (which means they usually disappear within 24 hours, as my memory is terrible). Still, those little moments are what make life worth living, are they not?

“Peek-a-boo!”

“Raaaaaar!”

These two images are from the first night we spent in our new house. We had no furniture, other than a collapsible picnic table and an air mattress. What we did have were great friends and happy kids, and we made a boatload of memories that night. We’ve made more memories in our new house in the year since these pictures were taken, and the thought of all the memories we’ve yet to make thrills me to pieces.

Photo 365 #101

November 16, 2014November 17, 2014Leave a comment

We had our first significant snowfall this weekend, and as a result, we didn’t go anywhere for most of the weekend (the lone exception being a trip to the store this morning for some milk). I was quite happy to stay inside because it was brutally cold outside (though it wasn’t a whole lot better inside), and yesterday the roads were quite slick.

Miss Tadpole is concentrating awfully hard. 🙂

That blur just above the blue robot is his head flying off. 🙂

Instead, we stayed inside and played with the newfangled Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em Robots that Bubbles got last year for Christmas. It was certainly an entertaining way to spend the afternoon, and the boys loved watching Bubbles and Miss Tadpole pop each other’s heads off. 🙂

How did you spend your weekend?

Photo 365 #100

November 15, 2014November 17, 20142 Comments

Last night was Miracle on Main, my hometown’s annual Christmas kickoff. Among other activities, they had a whole room set aside for Santa to see visitors:

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Thumper didn’t say a whole lot, but that was okay, because Cricket did all the talking for him. 🙂 It was quite possibly the most adorable Santa encounter I’ve ever witnessed (at least with my kids).

Do your kids like going to see Santa? Or do they scream in terror at the sight of him?

Photo 365 #99: Mystery

November 14, 2014Leave a comment

Tiny Bubbles was nothing if not curious.

tinybubbles

These days, it’s Cricket and especially Thumper who like to go exploring in places they shouldn’t.

Photo 365 #90: Water

November 5, 20142 Comments

Water. It’s everywhere, both around us and within us, in one form or another. For today’s Photography 101 challenge, I’m once again relying on older pictures, but they’re two of my favorites, and they’ve been in my mind quite a bit lately.

Both photos are from one of our many camping trips last summer. We haven’t been able to go camping this year at all, aside from the kids camping out in the yard a time or two when it was still warm. We did, however, find some adorable camping-themed picture frames this summer on our trip up north, so Seymour asked me to get a couple of our camping pictures printed off to put in them. Perfectly enough for this challenge, one frame was horizontal and one frame was vertical.

Lovely horizontal picture, featuring a pretty smile from Miss Tadpole. 🙂

Last summer we camped at Pine Lake several times and on our first trip…

Photo 365 #88: Home

November 3, 20144 Comments

Today is the first day of the Photography 101 course on WordPress, and I’m really looking forward to participating. There are supposed to be a bunch of tips and tricks, and frankly, I can use all the photography tips and tricks I can get. There are also different themes, and today’s theme is all about home.

For me, home is more than just a place to rest your rump. Home is where your story begins, and stories are all about people. I can’t imagine home, whether in town or in the country or even on the moon, without these crazies with whom I share space:

: Thumper and Cricket are enthralled by Scooby Doo.

: This guy’s had my back for so long now I’m forgetting what life was like before him. 🙂

: Tadpole and Bubbles like to get up to all sorts of shenanigans.

These guys have given me more stories than I know what to do with, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. What does home mean to you?

Photo Friday: Halloween!

October 31, 2014Leave a comment

That’s right, it’s All Hallows’ Eve. For the first time in a very long time, we didn’t hand out candy tonight. Not that we ever had many kids stop at our house before, but since we’re in the country now, it seemed rather pointless to buy candy for trick-or-treaters who will never stop.

This is also the first year we took Cricket and Thumper trick-or-treating. I found a Scooby Doo costume for Thumper at a local secondhand shop, and Cricket went as his best pal, Shaggy. Miss Tadpole was a goddess, and Bubbles wore his football uniform, a Rebel football player one last time (this year, anyway). He went trick-or-treating with his dad, though, so I’ll have to wait a year to get a picture of all four of them together in their costumes.

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The boys were disappointed this morning when I wouldn’t let them wear their costumes to daycare, but while my stitching was good enough to hold up through this evening’s candy hunt, I didn’t trust it to hold out all day, especially the way Thumper likes to romp around (his costume required a bit of sewing (by which I mean about four hours’ worth because I had to hand sew it all) to make it wearable). I needn’t have worried, though – he faceplanted while tearing down a darkened street on the final leg of tonight’s journey and split a seam in his shoulder, but my stitching held up perfectly. 🙂

What do you do for Halloween? Do you hand out candy, or take the kids around, or both, or neither? Don’t forget to check out Charnele’s blog and see what she’s up to on this spooky holiday. Happy Halloween! 🙂

Photo 365 #85

October 31, 2014October 29, 2014Leave a comment

And now, a point of clarification about yesterday’s reference to Cinnamon Batman. Cricket has been insisting lately that he is Cinnamon Batman. The other day, he came up to me and we had the following conversation:

cinnamonbatman C: “You can’t call me Cricket – I’m not Cricket Kauffman anymore. I’m Cinnamon Batman, so you can call me Cinnamon Batman now.”

M: “Why Cinnamon Batman? Why not just Batman?”

C: “Because I like cinnamon toast, and Batman likes cinnamon toast, so that’s why I’m Cinnamon Batman.”

If he had his way, he’d wear this for trick-or-treating, but since the high is only supposed to be around 40°F and since there’s no way we’re getting anything warm underneath that shirt, Mr. Cinnamon Batman is just going to have to settle for being Shaggy to Thumper’s Scooby Doo. 🙂

Photo 365 #84

October 30, 2014October 29, 20142 Comments

I walked in the living room a couple nights ago and found Cinnamon Batman sitting quietly with his as-yet-unnamed sidekick. They were watching Scooby Doo, Thumper’s favorite show.

2014-10-21 18.34.03

This is proof that they can sit nicely together in the same space. It’s also proof that Thumper needs a bit more practice at dressing himself, given that his shirt is on inside out.

Oh, well – he’s happy with his style, so who am I to complain?

Photo 365 #80

October 26, 2014October 24, 2014Leave a comment

It’s taken a while, but we’re finally unpacking some more of the boxes from when we moved, including the ones containing our Nintendo and the games that go with it. Well, the Nintendo emulator, anyway – our actual Nintendo was apparently damaged during our move.

Anyway, Seymour, Bubbles, and I enjoyed a rousing game of Duck Hunt the other night, much to Thumper’s amusement. I’m still not sure which was more entertaining – the game or Thumper’s reaction to it. He was absolutely enthralled, and the only thing that got him to stop shouting, “He got him!” or, “He missed him!” was when we turned the game off and sent him to bed.

It was pretty hilarious.

What are some of your favorite video games?