August in Photos

I know I'll never get around to writing everything down that we did this past August but since I finally got the majority of our family photos edited I thought I'd share some favorites.  Since I doubt most of you want to peruse all 572 personal pics (that's just the ones that I edited as jpg's and doesn't count client sessions!) I condensed it to a few collages.  I can hear all the sighs of relief.

Gracie: Soccer Star?

Grace's first soccer game was last Saturday and we had typical soccer weather: cool and gray clouds.  I was expecting a game similar to last year's hilarious start to the season where the kids had no idea what they were doing and the coaches were on the field telling them what to do the entire time.  Not this year!  This year we watched a soccer game.  As in, the kids knew how to kick off, throw the ball in from out of bounds, how to do a corner or goal kick, etc.  What a world of difference.  The one thing that stayed the same from last year was the herd mentality where there was no real teamwork in passing the ball but just a big group of kids following the ball around the field.  They did try to differentiate between defense and offense by having two kids hang back a little which sort of worked.  Grace didn't understand the defense concept at all and kept trying to run after the ball.  This year she is a go-getter!

I am so proud of Gracie this year, she really stepped up to the plate and is a fully participating member of the team.  Last year she took on the role of looking cute and staying out of everyone else's way as they played the game.  This year she is running hard and getting into the action.  I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw her getting into the middle of the action time after time.  She never stopped running and never hung back.  She may be the smallest on the field but she is determined not to be the slowest!

I did get Grace to soccer pictures by 8am on Saturday morning, but since I didn't buy anything apart from a team photo I took one quick "nice" photo after her game.  Her "small" uniform swims on her and she had to wear last year's shorts because this year's won't stay up even when we cinch them as far as they go.  At least the socks aren't as ginormous as last year and fit much better!

Back to School!

Back to School season is in full swing at our house.  Last Tuesday Grace started first grade and today Ethan started preschool.  It's a big year of firsts for us, the first year Grace is in school all day and the first year Ethan is enrolled in preschool.  For Grace the big deal is eating lunch at school and for Ethan it's the fact that he has a can of crayons with his name on it in his classroom.  This year I got smart and took both kids' back to school pictures separately and before the big day.  Less stress for Mommy and allows for more creativity!  I didn't forget my camera for the actual first day of school either, but I just went with the flow and concentrated more on documenting the experience.

We did Grace's back to school photos the Friday before school started after we dropped off her school supplies in her classroom.  She picked out five apples in Safeway before our photo session, one for everybody in our family and one for her teacher.  On her first day of school we all walked to school together and got a few snaps of her in her new classroom.  She was so excited!

 

 

 Ethan and I met a few friends at his preschool the week before he started as well.  He mostly wanted to play on the playground but we did get a few good ones!  This morning we dropped Grace off at school and then Mommy, Daddy, and Ethan swung by Dutch Brothers for a hot drink treat before heading to preschool to play on the playground until it was time for Ethan's class to begin.  He was soooo excited and couldn't wait to hang his backpack on his hook.  When he got to his desk he found his crayon can with his name on it and was just over the moon happy.  He told us that we could go and happily waved goodbye.  Such a big boy!

 

 

I Heart Faces: Back to School Challenge

It was a tough call to choose my favorite back to school image from my kids back to school photo sessions, but I think this one of my first grader fits the bill.

Click the logo above for more back to school photo fun!

Mommy and Ethan

I was challenged to take some photos of me with my kids after reading a blog post about the "missing mom" syndrome when mom is always behind the camera.  I'm actually not that camera shy, but taking a self portrait is NOT easy!  Especially when you try to do so with a 3 year old!

So tonight Daddy and Gracie went to their first Girl Scout meeting and Ethan and I were left home.  That's happened a lot lately since school started and Grace is gone all day.  I told Ethan we could make cookies together this evening as a treat and he also wanted to make tea together.  While I was steeping the tea and in between batches of shortbread cookies I remembered my camera.  So here we are, in the midst of baking cookies in our cluttered kitchen on our dirty floor using natural light from our sliding glass door after 7pm when there's not much to be had.  But this is us, and our real life and I love them even though they are far from perfect.  The focus is off on some because Ethan was more excited about running to check behind the camera with me then staying put for me to focus on.  The first photo is actually one of my favorites and I almost deleted it because it was a mistake.  Love it anyways!