moon ko photography

monday meanderings: fa lalalalalala...

so it begins..

the start of the santa threats. charlie was being so disagreeable this morning that i had to tell him that i was going to email santa to let him know what he had done. of course that instantly struck fear into his eyes. something i don't see very often these days. so on our way to his preschool, he asked why i had to tell santa everything he had done. and i responded with, if you would just behave and be a good listener, i wouldn't have to tell santa anything.

that pretty much shut him up for the rest of the short ride to preschool.

:)

oh, and i didn't even have to bribe him to take these pictures. he just asked to have his picture taken today. i do love this boy so.

 

monday meanderings: locks of love rejects

my oldest child has been growing out her hair for the past two years and it finally got to the point where it was driving her nearly insane. i knew how she was feeling since i hadn't gotten my hair cut either for the same amount of time.

about a year ago, i convinced my oldest to not cut her hair and to grow it out so we could donate it to locks of love. when i explained what this organization did, she agreed that she wanted to do it with me.

so last week, we finally made it to the hair stylist:

she had ten inches to donate, or so we thought.

once everything was said and done, she only had eight inches.

EIGHT INCHES?

so locks of love was out. they need ten inches.

and in came beautiful lengths. they only need eight inches. so the cutting began:

going, going...

gone.

and i think her expression says it all:

and now she walks around with a new pep in her step. it's amazing what a hair cut can do...

i should know because i got mine cut too:

and to know maybe that our hair will go towards making someone else's life a little better...well, that's just icing on the cake.

:)

i'm just glad i'm not one of those kookie people that uses hair to stuff pillows or knit sweaters with. i'm kookie...

just not THAT kookie.

monday meanderings

don't look at the dirty laundry on my bed.

or the fact that my husband has a mask on his face. i don't care what you say. it's dang sexy. and it helps him breathe.

and not snore.

or the fact i have nothing on my walls other than a lonely mirror...

my children love to sleep on their father. 

:)

i'm glad i was able to get a photo of it today.

Monday Meanderings: the birthday recap

I turned 39 over the weekend. Everyone keeps asking me if I had a good birthday and I tell them I did and give them a little smile to reinforce the fact that I had a perfectly pleasant birthday.

But in all honesty...I'm not at all thrilled about being a year older. Is anyone REALLY happy about getting older, except for kids. They don't count. They think birthdays are like another version of Christmas-even better because they don't have to worry about if Santa's watching. They can act like complete turds for the day because it's their special day and it only comes around once a year, blah, blah, blah... 

I mean what do we have to look forward to?

I have more gray hair. Yay.

With each passing summer, my shorts get longer and longer. Yay.

The fat around my belly has now converged with my back fat and they've made an eternity band of fat now. Yay.

Although my face looks my age, I'm so happy to have a chin that still thinks I'm in puberty as it breaks out every other week with pimples the size of dimes. Yay.

So this past weekend, we went up to my parent's house to meet up with my little brother and his family, my aunt and uncle from Canada, and my cousin, his wife and baby girl who came down from Chicago. It was a really nice visit, I'll admit. My cousin has a baby girl who's almost one.

They were busy chasing her around and trying to get her to take a nap. I could feel their stress of having to deal with a one year old because I remember oh too vividly my kids being that age and having to go through the same thing with each of them.

Then it hit me. There is something good about being a year older.

My children are a year older and more importantly they are no longer one! Yay!

Charlie's two but at least he ain't ONE.

And as far as I'm concerned about the other stuff like my muffin top and unusually oily chin...

Yay for Spanx and Proactiv!

Monday meanderings: poor blog

It's been neglected and at times forgotten. Every time I sit to write something I hear a, "Mom! Can I blah, blah, blah?" Or I hear Charlie crying and have to rush downstairs to make sure he's OK. Or there's the call to go to the pool, not to mention the gymnastics-3x a week- for my middle child and having to get crickets to feed the darn gecko.

It's never going to end. IT'S NEVER GOING TO END, I tell you.

We did a bit of this last night:

He scared the crap out of me and I was sure he was going to either set himself on fire or poke his eyes out. Sparklers are only good in theory. Note to self: Don't ever buy these again until the boy is old enough to drive.

But there is good news. I'm hosting Write.Click. Scrapbook this week. We're talking about getting fast summer pages done over there.

And cilantro.

You just gotta go to see what we're talking about.

Monday meanderings: the handwriting edition

I've never been a fan of my handwriting. Even as a little kid, I was always trying to change the look of it-make it look like someone else's. And it would work for a little while but it would always go back to looking like chicken scratch.

So when I started scrapbooking, I always tried to use the computer for all of my journaling. But there are still times when I have to hand write my on my layouts...

 

As you can see, I also have a tendency to misspell words and even leave out words completely.

:p

Hope you're having a wonderful Memorial Day!

Monday meanderings: the gifted edition

One of my favorite cartoons when I was growing up was the Far Side by Gary Larson. I always looked forward to the Sunday morning paper to see what he had up his sleeve for that particular week. And believe it or not, I remember seeing this one back in 1986 and cracking up at the gifted kid pushing on the door that obviously has "pull" written on it.

Fast forward 24 years...

We received some news last week regarding our eldest child...

She got into the GATE program.

Richard and I are beyond thrilled and SO proud of our little girl. I'll admit I did a little happy dance after reading the letter because now we know. Up until this time, we never really knew. I take that back- Richard knew. He will say he knew all along, the minute she was born, he knew that she was something special. But I would tell him every new parent thinks their child is special.

Duh.

And I guess my mother knew too. When I told my mom the news, she just said, "See? She just like her Halmoni (grandmother in Korean)". And I just rolled my eyes and said, "Yup. She's just like you, Mom."

So now comes the decision of whether or not to send Maddie to GATE in the fall. My only drawback to sending her is that she would be switching schools. And I LOVE her school. I've gotten to know the kids there and the teachers and faculty and know how awesome Southside is, not to mention the fact that Maddie will not see the majority of her friends everyday anymore. And there's the DAWSON FACTOR. She's liked him since she was in Kindergarten. She'll be heartbroken, for sure.

Oh decisions, decisions...

Monday meanderings: a Cosmo Cricket giveaway

Cosmo Cricket is not an alcoholic beverage. No. They are a scrapbook company that creates some of the cutest stuff (next to American Crafts.).

:)

Just go to the Ella blog and leave a comment. The drawing will close on Wednesday and three lucky winners will receive a box of goodies.

Good luck!

Monday meanderings: Tuesday's edition

I had the opportunity to photograph a wedding a couple of weekends ago. All the days leading up to the wedding, I was checking the weather and it would go from 40% of rain all the way up to 90% of rain. On the day of the actual wedding, it was raining. And not like a sprinkling of rain. It was lot and LOTS of rain. Rain that causes people's houses to flood. Rain that made our basement flood.

Needless to say, I was a bit stressed out over the weather because all of my plans of doing some outdoor shots were, well...shot.

:P

And it was dark and I knew there was a possibility of having to use a flash and I don't like using a flash but I packed it anyway.Luckily, I didn't have to use it...

Here's a short video of the wedding. Confgratulations to Susan, Cory and Preston!

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Monday meanderings: the PageMaps 2 edition

My poor blog has been neglected. I've just had a lot on the mind lately. The oldest has had county-wide testing for all of last week and part of this week at her school. Tomorrow is her last day of tests and I'll be so happy when that's over with. And we've been working with the middle child on getting her work done in a timely manner at school. It had come to the point where I had to have a conversation with her teacher about it. She's just  so darn pokey. I guess "Hurry up, Kate. Hurry up, Kate. KATIE. HURRY UP...NO I DON'T KNOW WHERE YOUR STUFFED DOG IS...YOU NEED TO GET YOUR HOMEWORK DONE RIGHT NOW. OH, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD..." just wasn't working anymore. But the good news is, she's doing a lot better now.

So after a week of this, I got some exciting news from Becky Fleck, the author of PageMaps Books 1 & 2. She has a release date of her new book, the one I was lucky enough to contribute to. Amazon.com is going to carry it and I should be getting my copy in October.

:)