The M. Family ~ Southwestern Pennsylvania Family Photographer

My sister-in-law decided that instead of buying the boring school photos she would hire me instead to take her girls' photos.  We did this last year and had a fun time.  Here are a few shots of our fun this year ...

Sweet girls!

Christi had her hands near her face quite a bit, so I just went with it.  :)

She found some baby acorns on the ground.

I can't believe Jordan is in 3rd grade!  She's growing so fast!

Awwww.

I'm pretty sure Terri bribed Christi with a lollipop if she smiled nice for this picture.  :)

Playing in the grass.

The girls started playing ring around the rosie and I managed to capture them in play.  What a sweet photo of them!

We really had a fun time!

Thank you, Terri, for entrusting me with capturing your memories!

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First day of school

Earlier I showed you the photos we took during our traditional day-before-school-starts photo session.  We had beautiful weather and weren't rushed.  We could take our time and explore. 

The first morning of school was not that way.  At all.  We weren't super rushed or anything.  But the weather was not great.  Rain, rain, and more rain.

I got up to see Keira before she left.  She leaves a bit too early for me.  :)  She was okay with me not taking any pictures this morning because it was so dark and gloomy.  I wished her a good day and went back to bed for a little while.  I should have just stayed up though because I didn't fall back to sleep.

The boys were mostly pretty easy going this morning.  Excited and nervous about a new school year.  New teachers.  New classes.   Neither wanted to eat breakfast.  Alex was insisting on wearing jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and a sweater vest.  He wanted to look nice on his first day.  After much convincing that the school was going to be hot (I was just there yesterday delivering teacher gifts - it was HOT!), he agreed to change into a short-sleeved shirt.

I packed his lunch and we walked down to the bus stop.  It wasn't raining when we walked out of the house, but a few minutes after standing in the driveway, it started raining lightly.  None of us wanted to walk back to the house to get an umbrella, so we just got rained on.  :)

I managed to get the boys to be still for a few seconds so I could take pictures, which they didn't understand because we had just taken pictures yesterday.  Geez, you'd think they would know by now that mom likes to take pictures.  A lot.

They were both giving me their best fake smiles.  Especially Nick.  What is up with that?  :)

However when I photographed them separately, I got some real smiles and silliness.  That's more like it.

The bus was about 10 minutes late, which means we stood down there in the rain for about 25 minutes.  At least the driver stopped to pick the boys up this year.  Last year we got missed and I had to drive the boys to school, which really bummed Alex out because he was looking forward to riding the "big bus" to and from school for the first time.

Once I got everyone off to school, I loaded up my car with hampers and baskets of dirty laundry and headed to the laundromat.  Thankfully it wasn't busy at all.  The rain may have had something to do with that.  I have spent the rest of my day drying and folding clothes.  And I'm not done yet.  I'll probably be up until 2 a.m. drying clothes.  Oy!

Hopefully the well-drilling folks will call soon and be able to offer us some possible solutions to our water problem.  (Doug said they were supposed to call Tuesday or Wednesday.  Didn't happen.)  I'd rather get public water but for whatever reason, we haven't had that option out here yet.

In the meantime I'll just keep praying that the water doesn't shut off while I'm showering.  :)

All three kids came home on time after having pretty good days.  Keira only has one teacher that she's not crazy about.  Probably because she assigned her homework on the first day of school.  :)  Nick is still skeptical about his teacher.  And Alex had the greatest day ever!  Of course, he says that all the time.

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Back to school ~ 2013-2014

Today my kids went back to school.  So last evening we went out for our traditional back-to-school photo shoot.  (This is only our second year doing them, but you gotta start a tradition some time, right?)  :) 

I asked them to dress in what they planned to wear to school the first day.  And even though I made a few suggestions, their final decisions were their own.

The kids wanted to go downtown, so we packed up and headed out.  We were kind of all over the place in our little city and had a pretty good time.

Here are just a few of our snaps ...

I can't believe she's in NINTH grade!

Alex, my baby, is a big second grader!  {sniff sniff}

Nick is now a 5th grader.  He's growing so fast!

Gotta love free printables.  :)

I'm not sure what is up with Alex's deer-in-the-headlights look here.  :)  We may need a retake of this.

Sporting their backpacks.

This last photo was mostly Nick's idea and partly Keira's idea.  Nick had the idea to lay on the steps holding apples in their hands.  Keira had the idea to put the apples on their foreheads.  I'm not sure why exactly.  But this photo makes me smile so I'm glad we did it.  Although we got a few strange looks while we did it.  :)

What am I doing on the first day of school?  After doing a little happy dance after the boys got on the school bus, I'm headed to the laundromat to wash some clothes.  We're still having water problems and are waiting for the well drillers to come out and give us some options.  Thank God for our emergency fund!  I'll then spend the rest of the day drying, folding, and putting away laundry.  Yippee!  :)  But at least it will be quiet for a few hours.

Linking with:  Sarah and Kristi for Wordless Wednesday. 

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Scavenger Hunt Sunday 09.09.12

First of all, happy birthday to my father-in-law!  We love you, Pap!  Hope you had a wonderful day!

I almost didn't make this week's hunt.  Things have been incredibly busy around here!  I've been helping Laura paint her walls in her new house, I had to take my car to the garage for inspection and a minor repair (which we thought was going to be a bigger repair - praise God it wasn't!), I had several meetings, and our church had their Fall Kickoff this weekend.  And looking ahead to this week, it will be just as busy.  There's some fun stuff thrown in this week too, but still busy.

Anyway, the Scavenger Hunt items this week are: Monochromatic, Starts with the letter ..., Upside down, Hair, and Soft.  And here are my interpretations ...

{monochromatic}

While my car was in the garage, I took advantage of the park that is right along the river.  First I did some interval running, then walked back to the garage to get my camera to see what I could capture.  These hibiscus were HUGE!  And I love the mostly reddish-pink color!

{starts with the letter ...}

We had a busy butterfly week!  We had four emerge from their chrysalis (two females and two males) and we found a recently-emerged male while out gathering milkweed leaves for our hungry caterpillars.  Alex was hanging with the found butterfly while Liza and Jason, Laura's kids, got to enjoy two of the newly emerged ones.  I took the containers to their house since I knew the butterflies would emerge while I was there for the day and I don't like leaving them that long.  (Collage courtesy of Rebecca from Simple as That - I think.)  :)

{upside down}

Monarch caterpillars hang upside down in a J form before shedding their skin for the final time and forming their chrysalis.

{hair}

This photo is from last week.  An outtake from our little back-to-school photo shoot.  Keira's hair kept blowing in her face while attempting this shot.

{soft}

Doug and I went for a ride on the bike trail on Labor Day.  While he was putting the bikes back on the bike rack, I was exploring.  I came across this cat who was feeding her baby kittens.  I assume she was soft.  She wouldn't let me get close enough to find out - she was growling and hissing at me.  So I just snapped a couple pictures and left her be.

So that's it for me.  Next week's items are sponsored by ... ME!  WOOT!  I forgot all about sending this list to Ashley.  Thankfully she keeps pretty good track of this stuff.  :)  Here's what to hunt down this week ...

1) Kiss

2) Askew

3) Fragrant

4) Simple

5) Plant  

I hope you'll play along!  Have a wonderful week!

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Week 35 in Pictures

Here we are again ... another week has flown by.  The kids started school this week, so we are all adjusting to our new schedules.  I have my days to myself now that all three kids are in school all day this year.  It is taking some getting used to.  Although I haven't really been home long enough to get used to it as I've been helping my friend, Laura, clean her new house so they can paint before they move in.  It has been fun and I look forward to helping more this week.

I'm also excited about Bible study starting this week.  Some other things on this week's agenda include: getting my car fixed and hopefully inspected, our first PTO meeting of the school year, and our church's Fall Kickoff party.  Looks like another busy week!

{Sunday}

I am totally cheating on this photo.  (I don't know why I always feel obligated to confess.)  :)  This is from a few weeks ago.  Apparently I was all camera'd out from our fun weekend to even pick up the camera.  Anyway, this bee was keeping dry from the rain on one of our sunflowers this particular day.

{Monday}

The kids and I enjoyed a morning walk on the bike trail and came across this cool spider web.  I love how the sun brings out all those yummy colors!

{Tuesday}

We cheated a little and took back-to-school photos the evening before school started.  I figured that way we'd be less rushed and it would be less hectic.  I was pleasantly surprised by how well the kids cooperated.  :)  And since I have to be fair, I created a collage with all three kids in it.

{Wednesday}

On this day, the first day of school for my offspring, this handsome fellow decided to join us and emerge from his chrysalis.  He didn't emerge until the afternoon right before the kids got home from school.

{Thursday}

This sweet little thang emerged in the morning in the car on the way to Laura's house where I was going to help her clean.  Laura's new house has all these Morning Glories in the back, so I had a flower to put her on so I could keep busy with scrubbing walls and stuff.

{Friday}

Laura and her husband, Mike, and their two kids sitting on their new front porch.  This is their first home and I'm excited to be a part of it!

{Saturday}

I took this for the Scavenger Hunt prompt, toys.  We have plenty of LEGOs around our house these days.  It is interesting to see what kinds of things Nick builds.

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It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

No, I don't mean Christmas.  I mean it's BACK TO SCHOOL TIME!  WOOT!  Does anyone else love that Staples commercial?

Today was the first time since I quit my job to be a SAHM that I had the house entirely to myself (not including the dog) for an entire six hours!  SIX HOURS!  All three kids are now in school all day.  And what did I accomplish?  Not much of anything.  :)

I got up early to see Keira off to school.  She leaves for the bus around 7:00, so I thought it would be nice to at least see her off on the first day.  Not sure I'll be doing that too often.  :)  I took a few pictures of her.  My eyes were still adjusting to being awake so it took a few before I could actually focus.

Plus it is still kinda dark at 7:00 a.m. right now.  She was pretty tired too.  It will take a few weeks before she gets used to getting up so early.

I was hoping to spend some quiet time reading before the boys got up but Alex must have heard me and got up shortly after Keira left.  He was so excited to be starting first grade and riding the big bus to and from school this year.  He must have asked me 100 times if it was time to leave yet.  Finally it was.

Nick wasn't quite as excited to be starting school today, but I convinced him to cooperate with getting his picture taken.

We took lots of goofy-face pictures that I told him I was going to put on my blog.  Another time.  He didn't care, he kept making them.  :)

We waited and waited and waited for the bus.  Not surprised that it was running late on the first day.  We watched the neighbor boy up the road get picked up and then the bus drove right past us and kept on going.  Alex was almost in tears.  We waited a couple minutes thinking the bus driver would realize his mistake and turn around to pick up the boys, but he didn't.  So I ran in the house and got the car keys and drove the boys to school.

Instead of dropping them at the drop off spot, I parked and walked them in.  Their bus was letting the kids off, so I spoke to the teacher who is charge of busing.  Then once all the kids were off the bus, we both spoke to the bus driver.  He said he knew he missed the boys and will try to get things figured out by the end of the school year.  {ha ha} I know he was trying to make light of the situation but still.  What if I didn't have a car to drive my boys to school?  They would have missed the first day of school.

I miss our old bus driver.  She was awesome.

Once all the kids were in school, the dog and I went for a run/walk on the bike trail, I took a shower, puttered around the house for a little while, waited for a phone call from a lady I'd been playing phone tag with for a couple days, didn't get the call so ran a couple errands, came home and did a little laundry and got supper started, sat outside reading and waited for Keira to get home and then the boys.  Thankfully the bus driver remembered to drop them off.  :)

So that big, long to-do list is still just as big and long as it was yesterday.  No worries though.  I have nine more months to work through it.  :)

Anyway, I wanted to get some nice shots of the kids for back to school and knew that wouldn't happen in the morning.  So last evening we set out in their school clothes to take a few photos.  First we went to Keira's school.

A friend asked if I had a fan blowing her hair.  :)  No, it was pretty breezy while taking her photos.  I have several with her hair in her face.  Her favorite subjects are math and science. She is a self-proclaimed geek.  :)

I can't believe she's in 8th grade already!  And we can share clothes.  I don't think I could wear my mom's clothes until I was a Junior in high school.  She's just so grown up!  {sniff}

Once we were done with Keira's photos, we hopped back in the car and drove to the boys' school.

Alex is my youngest and the first baby I was able to stay home with.  So as excited as I am that school is starting, it will be a little strange for a while not having him around at least part of the day.  Alex plans to pack his lunch (a peanut butter sandwich) every.single.day.   And that's perfectly fine with me.

Nick loves his teacher this year.  I knew he would since she's pretty incredible.  His favorite subjects are still recess and lunch.  :)

I'm hoping to take the "getting on the school bus" photos tomorrow.  :)

Oh, in case you were wondering, I made the signs.  I searched and searched for a little chalkboard with no success.  So I bought a frame at Michaels (on sale for 5 bucks) and some blackboard paper (3 sheets per package - how convenient).  The blackboard paper had adhesive on the back so I stuck it to a piece of cardstock then cut it down to 8x10 to fit in the frame.  I used white chalk to write on them and we just swapped them out.  I took the glass out of the frame so I didn't get any glare or reflection.  Easy.

         

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Back to School ... Edited

I seem to be a day late on things these days.  What's up with that?!  Oh well ... better late than never, right?  :)

Today (which was supposed to be yesterday) I'm linking up my Back to School edits with Shoot & Edit/Good to WOW!

I was pretty pleased with my SOOC shots so I didn't do much with them.  Just the way I like it.  :)

{Keira - SOOC}



{Keira - Edited}



{Nick - SOOC}



{Nick - Edited}



{Alex - SOOC}



{Alex - Edited}



On all of these I just tweaked up the exposure and blacks and increased clarity and vibrance - all done in Adobe Camera Raw.  I also cropped the photos of Keira and Alex a little.


That's it!  Easy peasy.  Now if I could just get the other gazillion photos edited that need done.  *sigh*  

Head over to Ashley's to see more great Back to School edits!  Next week's theme is Night Shots.  Have a great weekend!

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