Stubborn as a mule

I am really trying to practice photography everyday and my very favorite subject is my baby (toddler) boy Rees who despises having his picture taken **by me** But I found this great spot off in our back yard that I wanted to practice with for some upcoming outdoor sessions and here's what I got...

Seriously what is going through his mind right now? I have promised him the sun and moon to smile. Seriously things he's never allowed to eat, drink or play with I had promised (is that bad lol?) and still NO smile. I just don't get how a two year old can be so stubborn.

Then I got this. He was just coming off of a laugh from a fall that our cat took (it was hilarious) but by the time I picked up my camera he had managed to turn it into a smirk. Aghhh

The there's this one. I just love his big beautiful browns in this one!

Another flower picture

I can't help myself. I am addicted to taking pictures of my flowers right. Spring is the best time of year. It perks me up and pulls me out of the winter blues when the flowers start blooming. So here is a picture of a perfect lilac from my gigantic bush **tree** behind my house.

Spring has sprung

First of all thank you so much for all the well wishes and prayers that have been shared with me for my father. His surgery went well and he's coming home tomorrow!!! I am so happy that this chapter in his/our life is coming to a close and hopefully life will be much happier/easier/more enjoyable for him after a really tough year!

After work today Rees and I went out and played in the yard. I decided to take some snapshots of my blooming flowers. This is the 5th year for my pond and the flowers (perennials) are very mature and bloom really early every spring. I have several different varieties planted so that it blooms all summer long. The purple phlox is five years old. I purchased it at the end of summer at Walmart for $1 because it was 95% dead and I was being cheap and thought that I might be able to save it and guess what...it's gorgeous. So keep that in mind when your shopping for new flowers, don't be afraid of the clearance section.

This is one of my new favorite pictures. Isn't this flower so unique? I don't know what it's called but it spreads like wild flower around the pond every year and it looks like a pondish (remember when you add -ish to any word it makes it a better word LOL) flower.

close up of this flower

Pond waterfall with it's water irises and lily pads which the frogs are taking full advantage of right now. And one of my favorite plants the Hosta. Love this flower (the green one with white tipped leaves)

Phlox that I paid $1 for at Walmart in the flower clearance section.

My right hand man trying to fill the pond with water from the hose. I wouldn't let him and this was his reaction.

Bernie is starting to show his age

This is Bernie the 8 year old Shetland Sheepdog that Mat and I purchased a month after we got married.

Isn't he beautiful? Please overlook the dreadful hair cut he got from our new Petland store in town. We will not be going back there! We were laying on the couch the other day and I was petting him and I just suddenly noticed how he is starting to show his age. He is and always has been severely overweight (by about 40lbs) but now I see grey starting to come out in his beautiful coat. He is such a phenomenal dog. Bernie has truly been our best buddy. Rees can do anything to Bernie and we never have to worry about Bernie biting or anything of that nature. Sad to say after Bernie we will be a pet free household.  I never thought I would feel that way,but Rees keeps me busy enough animals require so much time and I just don't have that to spare! But Bernie is such a great dog and he is a huge part of our family!

Hidden treasure

So I woke up this morning with photography on my brain. I had a busy day planned so I had to get little man up and moving quickly to get it all accomplished. So I get a cute outfit together, bath Rees, fix his hair, go find a GREAT location which happens to be in my back yard and I didn't even know it!!! Then I hike up to the old barn with Rees, my camera and a few props and by this time I am already whipped! Then I get my camera geared up and my precious little son says to me "momma Rees wanna go home" What? No say it ain't so. He's had enough before we even began. I beg an beg him to just look at the camera and nothing! I was really excited about how beautiful the spot was that I had found but I didn't really get the "perfect" shot that I was hoping for but I was happy with this one. I'm going to try again when daddy is home to help! 

Latest Scrapbook Pages

My latest scrapbook pages. I am so behind! I have really enjoyed going back through these pictures though :)

Where does the time go?

Is it the middle of April already? I'm in total disbelief that summer is here already. The flowers are blooming, people are wearing shorts and my son has suntan marks? What happen to spring? Kinda like we bypassed it all together but I'm really not complaining I just can't understand how my to do list is just getting longer and longer and time is passing by so fast. I have been out in my flowers a lot this week. Rees never wants to come inside so unless it's nap time we're outside, which works for me!

My dear friend and I went to Columbus for a Kelby training seminar on Photoshop CS4 on Monday and we learned so much. It was a computer class but I already feel that my photos are so much better from my new found knowledge not to mention we shopped too so it was a great day. We're already looking for another one to go to.

Since it's spring/summer and all my mind is just over flowing with new projects I want to do. I have already tackled painting my patio tables and they turned out so cute. I bought them from Hobby Lobby 3-4 years ago and they were rusted and the paint had worn off so I bought a pretty color of light green and painted them and I love how they turned out. And since I purchased multiple colors of paint from the clearance rack I decided to go on a painting spree. I even painted one of my flower pots LOL! Who knew terracotta was a paint color? Probably everyone but me! I even found 2 perfect chairs at the flea market last weekend to spray paint. I am over the moon about one of them. It is the perfect chair for pictures so I can't wait to drag it outside and get Rees' pictures on it!  That's it that's all folks! Have a great week.

What beautiful feathers you have!

This guy wanted to strut around for me and show off his beautiful tail feathers. Isn't he gorgeous? My mother and father in law have 4-5 of these on their farm. Well actually outside their back door. This guy was waiting around for bread to be thrown out.

Catching up on my memory keeping

I used to be obsessive about scrapbooking ALL of Rees' pictures. I'm not sure when or why I started to slack off but I'm really regretting it now. I am playing catch up now and it's really overwhelming! I do love to scrapbook and now that I do it digitally I enjoy it even more. I'm going backwards doing the more recent stuff first then working my way back!

Easter memories...

Talk about a scary wake up call

Around midnight lastnight it sounded like our house was going to blow away we jumped up out of bed and ran to the door to see quarter sized hail bouncing off the patio. It was really freaky. Our windows sounded like they were going to brake and we were sure our cars would be dented up, but luckily ours weren't but our neighbors didn't get so lucky.

Random

Yesterday when Rees and I hunted Easter eggs and my mom and dad's my grandpa (my dad's dad) stopped by. I had my camera out taking pictures and when I got home and looked at my 100's of pictures I ran across this one. I just really liked it so I thought I would share.

Happy Easter!

Our Easter has been a lot of fun. We have made a bunny gingerbread house, colored eggs, hunted eggs, deviled eggs and we're getting ready to go to our family dinner. Here's how our egg coloring went.

New blog design!

Well, sadly Rees' birthday month has come and gone so I had to give my blog another makeover. I am loving this color scheme. It just makes me happy. These pictures are from one of the 3 Easter sessions I had with Rees!

Our bunny shack

I bought this gingerbread Easter bunny house over a month ago and have been looking forward to making it with Rees all month. I already decided that it didn't matter what it looked like that it was the experience that I would cherish. And experience I got! From start to finish this project was fun/sugary/hilarious/wonderful and did I mention a ton of FUN!!! I let Rees do everything. To my surprise he was really into it. I didn't figure it would keep his attention as long as it did and he even took his daddy right to it when he got home from work. Although he ate for of the decorations than he put on the house, but that's okay he had a lot of fun.