Boys vs. Girls

I never would have thought that I'd be a mom to boys. After I had my daughters, I pretty much figured that was it.

Girls.

Nothing but dresses, bows, pink fingernail polish, doodled hearts, lipstick, sparkly earrings, boyfriends, to-die-for shoes and overzealous emotions.

And even though my boys have been in my life now for a couple of years, I still find myself shocked that I have sons. So, now instead of talking about cute haircuts at the dinner table, there's talk about farts....there's jock straps in the laundry with our unmentionables. There's spiral passes alongside of our spiral curls. And boogers on fingernails instead of polish.

I know you guys are laughing...and those of you with sons are relating. This is life. The way it is. Not just my house, but yours too.

So, every once in a while, the girls of the house have to break out and find some feminine sanity. And, on Friday, we did what all girls do as if it's imbeded into our DNA....

We went to the mall.

We ate fattening mall food and chatted about boys. We went into all of the accessory stores and picked out super-cute earrings, and visted every shoestore just to try on high heels.

That's when I saw it...just as we were rounding the corner to leave.

A photo booth. And it was calling my name like my mom used to beckon me from down the street. We each took a turn and the only rule we had was one picture had to be a good one -- the rest was fair game. The only thing more fun than taking these pictures, was trying to cram 3 people into a 2'x2' photo booth.

But we did it. And it was sooooo worth it.

Aftermath

I absolutely love to travel. I love seeing new places, the character that makes those places unique, the people, the sights....all of it.

What I DO NOT like, however, is the aftermath. The unpacking, the laundry, the putting everything away, the laundry. (I know, I already said that, but there's so much of it I had to say it twice.)

As if summer wasn't obvious enough, it literally slapped me in the face as I was doing our Aftermath Laundry:

3 girls + 8 bikinis = AYKM?!?

This picture would make my Grandma slip into cardiac arrest. I can hear her now: "What on Earth do three girls need 8 swimming suits for?? You can only wear one at a time!!"

PS. I have a gazillion images that I'm going to be editing over the next week, so check back for some of the World Series!

PSS. That Wall of Pictures behind the banister is our stairway. It has 105 pictures on it, goes from floor to ceiling, and none of the frames match. No, really. Pictures from my childhood, Chris' childhood, the girls, the boys, our families, and our friends are all on this wall. I love this wall. But I hate to dust it, so I don't. =)

Vacation Day 3

I am not ashamed to admit that I have been whooped by an 11 year-old and a 7 year-old today, so you only get one picture.....and you'll have to wait until tomorrow for a more elaborate post.


PS. I love reflective surfaces.

Vacation Day 2

Today was pretty much more of the same...sun, pool, sun, beach, sun, rain, sun, beach....you get the idea.

What I've learned about the weather in the south is it pretty much changes every 10 minutes. It's the weirdest thing. It can be sun one minute and a shower 3 minutes later....while it's still sunny. And as quick as the rain came in, it's gone again.

The other thing I've learned is don't even bother with make-up or hair. The humidity is something like 2000% during the day. This morning, at 10:15am degrees, it was already 87 degrees. Disgusting.

So, to battle the heat and humidity, we camped out at the beach. Duh.

Taylor has learned the art of body surfing. She can ride a wave in from pretty far out, just by acting like a board. And Harley...well, she's dug in the sand more the last two days and built more sandcastles than I ever thought possible. By the time she was done, she had a mini Vegas, right on the beach.

Tomorrow starts business....the Softball World Series.

Vacation Day 1

Even though I got up yesterday at 4am, drove 14 hours to the beach (a trip that was only suppose to take 12) and was up until almost midnight last night, I still got my happy, vacationing butt out of bed this morning at 6 to watch the sunrise.

Someone (a-hem) had the brilliant idea to take the girls to the beach first thing this morning to search for seashells. Well, and I wanted to watch the sunrise. So, it was a win-win.

Delicious light and broken rules

While I was posting one of my last blogs, I realized that I couldn't remember the last time I did a shoot with my own kids. I mean, I have the big moments on file -- birthdays, games, etc. -- and a few random moments captured. But, I can't, for the life of me, remember when was the last time I took them out and did a fun shoot.

So, tonight I had a couple of hours to kill -- just us "ladies". Chris was at a coaches meeting and the boys were at their mom's house. So, for a little while, it was back to the three of us, searching for a way to keep busy. Any way other than dishes or laundry.

As a photographer, my favorite time of day is the very last hour of daylight. That hour where the light turns into this delicious golden blanket that covers every crevice of the horizon. The kind of light that makes you want to stand facing it, with your eyes closed, just soaking up every last ray. That light does magical things to the colors in the sky and does it's own sort of mojo in images.

That light makes me want to sop that creamy, butter-y mess up with a biscuit.

As a photographer, I have broken more rules than I can count here. I've cut appendages off, I have blown highlights, I've over-exposed my skies (intentionally) and I've broken THE #1 rule.

The Mack Daddy.

"Do not, for whatever reason, shoot toward the sun. Keep it behind the lens."

My professors are probably blogstalking me right now, steamingly irrate at the fact that I've broken the sacred Backlight Law of OIP facilty and staff. They are probably all sitting at a Round Table meeting, severely disappointed, contemplating how to revoke my Golden Gallery award. Ok, maybe not that much.

But I love love love love (infinity) what that backlit sun-full-ness does to my images. I love what happens to the colors, the lensflare, the golden cast that everything soaks up. I just love it. I love it when single strands of hair sparkle and catchlights in the eyes are sparkly. I love the halos of light that envelope your subject.

I do. I love it. And I will continue to break those rules so long as I get these kinds of images.

Now.......if I could just get the boys to give in to a shoot like this....

Edit:

I'm not sure when they got to be so gorgeous. I mean, don't get me wrong, I've always thought I had cute kids, but when did that transition happen with Taylor???? Have I been in a coma the last year and been completely unobservant of the whole thing? She went from "cute kid with dimples" to "daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang!!!" right before my very eyes!!! Seeing these images makes me want to lock her in her bedroom until she's 40 or beat her up just so the boys aren't interested in her amazing green eyes and darling freckles. What will the next 10 years be like for me?!!??!

Seriously.