life of seven

Aliens

I took this picture of Gideon a couple of weeks ago because he needed a black and white one for the concert he is playing in. It took me forever and like three or four different tries on different pianos in different outfits before I finally got this one. I was unhappy with everything I had done before. Finally I had an inspiration in the middle of his math lesson and quickly brushed his hair and let him wear the shirt he had on, and sat him at the piano just to see if it would work. I had one foot on the window sill and another (stockinged) foot on the piano, and precariously balanced while he looked up at me. For some reason the lighting and the pose worked really well, I thought. You could tell that the piano was a piano, an issue I'd had with other closeups- the piano just looked like a big black object of some kind in the background. Also, his black suit kept blending in, so there wasn't nearly enough contrast for a black and white. Here, his blue checked shirt actually looks interesting in the black and white conversion and adds contrast. 

Finally pleased with a photo, I sent it in and showed it to the kids. And, while they really liked it as well, they said it kind of looked like he was looking up in the sky at aliens. Wow. Nothing like kids to keep you humble. Now I can't un-see that when I look at the photo. Oh well. I still like it anyway.

Yes, It's Grand

That is what we said as we were walking up to it. Photos don't do it justice, particularly my photos, since, for one thing, I don't think I have the right lens for landscapes. Since I rarely have both an opportunity and a desire to take photos of landscapes, I just make due with my 50 mm. Or is it a 35mm. I need to ask my sister Amy which one it is that I have. Also, I should ask her which lens is best for landscapes. As you can see, this really matters to me. Haha. One day I may feel like playing around with my camera more, but for now, I feel like I want to get better at just getting the best angles, figuring out where to stand depending on where the light is, discovering what works best when we are all on an outing together and no one feels like standing and posing while I try to take picture after picture and still feel like they didn't come out right. These are the things I prefer to focus on for now (haha, focus, get it??), rather than what lens should I experiment with, or how to edit photos better, or whatever. 

It can be a challenging balance to document our vacations and events without feeling stuck behind the camera and not enjoy them, and to try to get a nice photo in when the sun is glaring overhead, or it's indoors, or no one wants to turn around and at least look at me for a split second. Being a lifestyle photographer, especially a wedding photographer, sounds like the most stressful job in the world. But hopefully these photographers know more about their cameras than I do.

Back to the Grand Canyon: we had about an hour to spend at a viewing spot, plus the thirty minute drive in and out of the park. I'm surprised I have never visited the Grand Canyon before. It's not too bad of a drive form where we live, about twelve hours. However, it seemed to take us more like twenty. At least, it felt that way. Oh well, as you may be able to see, we made it.

Some Days

 

Some days you just can't take a bad photo. We wanted some family pictures and so we went out yesterday afternoon until close to sunset and every photo was like gold. Except of course the bad ones which I deleted. Hee. Fall light, made even warmer by the yellow and orange and red of the bushes and trees and grass seems too good to be true. Everywhere I look this year it seems like a painting where someone exaggerated the reds and golds. Just the most beautiful fall I can remember, both from nature and life itself. It's all so, so, good. God is so good.

I will treasure these pictures forever. Some days make you just want to stop everything and hold down the pause button to savor, savor savor. I guess that's what a photograph is for.

Rainbows

Apparently rainbows was the theme when I last took pictures, unknowingly to me until I uploaded them onto my computer. You can see our makeshift "Waldorf Room" as we call it, put in quotation marks, because I don't really follow the Waldorf philosophies of education. I love the Waldorf aesthetic, if it could be called that, and many of the ideas are very sound, in my opinion, but I am far from being familiar with that whole education path, which is why I find it funny, and rather tongue-in-cheek when I call this room a "Waldorf Room." It's basically the room where I put our "good" toys, and don't generally let kids play in there unsupervised. Hah, it's an ironic sort of room (and I love it). 

The photos started when I realized too many days had gone by without some great pictures of Clementine.  Well, once again there she was all wrapped up next to me so here are some more sweet wrapping pics. The carry I mainly use is the front wrap cross carry, sometimes pulling the rails over her for support, often leaving them as is as you can see in these pictures. I haven't put her on my back yet. I don't feel the need to put my newborn on my back yet (yes, she's stil a newborn- please tell me 8 weeks is still a newborn! sniff) and read some articles about how newborn back carries aren't very safe, even for the experienced baby wearing folks. Whether or not this is true, I felt it rang true for me and feel much more comfortable waiting till she is four or five months old and can support her head and chest better to place her on my bvack. Plus, I can't kiss that soft head of peach fuzz when she's not in front of me.

Don't get too excited about the sweater you see here: dessine-moi-un-mouton. Yes, I know there's only a half a sleeve left, but the truth is it's looked like this since before Clemmie was born. I have not knit a single solitary stitch on it. I bet it would help if I had the sleeve on needles though. Today, maybe. I love the colors I chose for this. It too is a rainbow of sorts. Subtle rainbow, in not so obvious bold and saturated shades, is maybe my new favorite colorway, in wraps, and sweaters, and "Waldorf Rooms."

 

Outings

 

A Sunday afternoon walk through Old Town...I'm behind the camera with Clemmie: clearly I need to take some pictures of her, too. Not an easy task since she's always, always in her wrap. Talk about a life saver. As I've mentioned before, wrapping and Clementine go together like...hmmm...milk and cookies. On second thought, considering we've recently discovered Clementine has a bit of a dairy sensitivity, perhaps that's not the BEST example. I probably thought it up subconsciously since I'm craving milk and cookies, or milk and anything, since I cut it out two weeks ago. Oh, for a real latte...soon enough, I'm sure...

Out for another walk, this time around our neighborhood. It was hat weather this day, and the scrambled search through the house for headwear triggered the knitter in me, desperate to knit up dozens and dozens of cabled, fairisle, stranded, colorful, striped, warm and cozy hats. I still have been unable to knit more than a stitch or two a day, it seems. So busy with the kids and my hands always full of Clementine. She's not in these pictures again, because, you guessed it, she's in her wrap, enjoying the sunshine (wearing a hat). 

I have been taking the camera on outings ever since I started this blog, something I've never done before. Around the house, especially if it's of an inanimate object (namely, not a kid dashing around) I am pretty comfortable with my camera. At events, where I don't know the great spots for a photo, with lighting coming every which way, and all sorts of chaos (photographically speaking) of people crowding and dashing around, I feel a little overwhelmed trying to get a shot. I'm not a "bold" photographer, either. I get nervous if people watch me take a picture, or worse yet, if I point the lense at someone not in my family. What's the name of that phobia, I wonder? Anyway, I'm practicing, but I'm definitely not happy with it. Practice makes perfect, hopefully! Having a career of being a wedding photographer or something sounds like a nightmare. Thankfully I can only get better at photos on our outings because I'm certain they can't possibly get worse!!!

Photos for an anniversary

Last night Ben and I celebrated our anniversary. We've been married 16 years. That sounds like such a big number. I feel like I should only be 16 years old, not married for 16 years. Of course it would be very strange for me to be married and homeschooling my 7 children at the age of 16, but I am just saying how I feel. It is crazy.

I printed out all the pictures of Clementine from her birth and I put them in a photo album, as well as framing some of them. That was the gift that I gave Ben for our anniversary. He feels like I do about photos- loves, them and is worried about not having them accessible. We have lost more pictures than I ever care to think of through the computer crashing or losing hard drives. I have made a vow to never let that happen again, so I am trying to turn over a new leaf and keep them organized and put into photo books. This is a very difficult vow. It seems to take SO MUCH TIME to organize the pictures and decide which ones to print, which to delete, editing them, and framing some. Then, once they're framed, what do I do next? I'd love to put them on walls, in the hallway, on the staircase, but it is hard to make it look right. Oh well, at least I am attempting. I'll try to get the frames hung this weekend and see how they look. This is an ongoing source of guilt for me and at least I sort of have a plan now. The plan is, try to keep up with it and don't wait for iphoto to organize itself. Hah.

We went out last night to dinner and then we saw the movie, "The Hundred Step Journey." We loved it. I definitely recommend it. I saw the preview and knew it would be a movie I would like, and so I decided to read the book while I waited for it to come out. Well, I didn't care for the book very much. It was just okay. So then I wondered if maybe I wouldn't like the movie after all, but it was great. It was such a nice night, just a pretty quiet celebration, but just what we needed.

More Clemmie/big brother love:

 

Gardening and the Eating of it

Photos of our garden are brought to you by Cate- aren't they wonderful? She gave me permission to share them here. 

The crazy amount of growth in our garden this week is brought to you by an abundance of rain- a huge amount for Colorado's dry climate. That's fine by me- it has been the nicest summer I can remember, with only a few of those "it's so hot I can't stand it" days, and lots and lots of those cooling afternoon rains. I love it- so this is what Seattle's like! Maybe. I'm expecting well dry out here again pretty quickly, and get back to the normal summer activities of swimming, getting wet, wading in creeks, putting feet in kiddie pools, and everything else one does to stay cool on those hot, dry days: namely, get wet.

But this is a garden post so I'll give you a little update. We harvested the first of the basil last week- I didn't get a picture, unfortunately, but I made a huge- HUGE batch of pesto with it. Despite the huge batch, and my fears of, "What are we going to do with all the pesto I'll have to make this year?" I forgot how much my family loves pesto. Add a couple of friends over for dinner who also love pesto, and we made short work of that huge batch. Of course, I wasn't trying to conserve it this time, the way I usually do when I have to buy the expensive basil at the stoe, so I didn't dilute it with as much olive oil as I normally do, and I let the kids have pretty much as much as they wanted. They loved that. I am thrilled that there should be many more batches of pesto in the future.

I made fried zucchini from our garden as well, coating it with panko and parmesan cheese and then frying it in olive oil. This wasn't as big of a hit. The kids were rather ambivalent about it, despite dipping it in ranch dressing, and I must admit I wasn't all that crazy about it either. Maybe I just need to  do the simple sauteing in olive oil with a little salt, or garlic salt, and eat a healthy side dish and not get too elaborate with it. Come to think of it, I'm not exactly crazy about zucchini (though I don't dislike it) so I am going to have to get creative using it all up. Why again did we plant so much? Well, there's always that old stand by, zucchini bread, which also happens to freeze great.

Judging by the photos, I better get to those snap peas before the are overripe. Fortunately, I will have no shortage of helpers getting those all eaten up. All of us love them.

Are my garden updates soon going to transition to "How I used up the vegetables this week" updates? I'm starting to think so. That's okay. The eating is what the gardening's all about.

 

Weekend blogging

Another full weekend:

There was a fabulous down pour (we get those so infrequently here in Colorado that when one hits all the kids love to run outside and play and splash in it). The dog loves water and she was right with them, splashing and running through puddles. Goodness, our grass sure needed that rain. Everything is greener now. Our garden is on well water so we have all the water we need for it, however, rain, full of nitrogen is so good for the soil as well.

Besides the afternoon rain, there was lots and LOTS of outisde playing, visiting with puppies, more gardening, and finally the weekend closed with a fabulous Sunday brunch with friends. Oh, how I love to make breakfast. It doensn't feel like a chore, it is a treat: sipping coffee, slowly stirring eggs, flipping pancakes.

Thanks to this blog, I documented the whole weekend. So grateful I have an outlet for picture taking, besides the yearly album and just filling iphoto with pictures that won't get seen. Though I have only been blogging for a few months, I have a pretty good feeling I will be doing this for a long, long, time.

Evening Garden

Evening garden photos this week, for a change. I seem to take an awful lot of photos in the mornings, and write about my mornings as well, but nothing much beats a summer evening while the sun's setting, does it?

Garden this week- same story, third or fourth (or fifth?) verse- more weeding. More, and more, and more. The weeds have really been kept at bay, thanks to the very hard work of my family (Not me. I have barely pulled a single weed). It really will be worth it in the end, though.

We pulled up the bizarre cinnamon basil that accidentally got planted instead of about half of our regular basil plants, and replaced it with some new basil plants. So, half our basil is ready to begin to start picking, and the other half is just getting started. 

Our carrots had some sort of bug eating them and we are spraying them with soapy water and sprinking them with cayenne pepper.

Two of our tomato plants caught a virus (huh?) and so we pulled them out so it wouldn't spread to the others and replaced them.

Other than that, things are going great. Deer have seemed to have stayed away, we have avoided several hail storms over the last couple of weeks, and I have been able to take some beautiful, fun photos. How nice that we will always have these of our first "real" garden.

One day I will learn to take a lovely photo without backlighting, the sun either rising or setting behind the subject. Until then I will keep on taking lovely warm, golden, hazy softly lit photos and trick people into thinking I might know what I am actually doing with my camera. It's not a big secret, folks. I don't much care what type of camera you have, or what your knowledge of photography is. Just see that you have the warm glow of natural light behind your subject and click, click away. You can't go wrong.