What a Life!

I went out and tried to take portraits of the boys this morning. Portraits for people to frame and display prominently in their living room. Yeah. Those portraits.

I haven’t really done that before. All of my shots have been candid with whatever the boys were doing [and wearing] at the time. But I knit those sweaters and my plan was to take portraits of the boys in them. Yup. That was my plan.

With the time change, the boys were up earlier. The sun was up earlier. And I just decided it was a good day. I got the boys dressed, loaded them up in the car, and found a nice field. I got the boys out, grabbed my camera, and here came a friendly farm dog. Ben, of course, freaked out, so that was the end of that.

I then drove to the other side of town where I thought there would be less farm houses and thus less dogs. I found a nice field and got the boys out. By then it was an hour and a half after sunrise. The sun was bright, and the wind was blowing hard. Probably 30 mph straight-line wind with gusts above that. Ugh! In order to have the sun at my back, the wind had to be at my back too. Not fun. Then boys wouldn’t look at me because the sun was so bright. So I gave up and went home.

When we got home, I let them head out to the back yard to mess around. I’ve taken many pictures of them out there, and while there is the fence and other buildings to keep out of the pictures, I thought I might get lucky.

Joey got the tractor out and sat on that. I got some cute pictures of him doing that, but then Ben had to play with the soccer ball in the background, as though I needed more things to keep out of the pictures. I would tell him to play with it behind me, and then I’d start taking pictures and he’d go right back to where I didn’t want him to be. Needless to say, he is no longer in possession of the soccer ball.

I put Ben on the tractor and tried to take pictures of him there, and then I headed out to the park* and tried to get some of him there. The picture above pretty much sums up how it went. It’s not that he doesn’t like having his picture taken. He just didn’t want to have the sun in his eyes. And I couldn’t get good exposure with the sun to his back.

I was so peeved with the whole thing, I decided it was a good opportunity to go for a walk and burn off some frustration. I took the camera and the boys sweaters along, just in case. We in a sort of loop on our walk, which means we spend time walking in each direction – north, south, east and west. Regardless, I swear the wind was blowing at my back – which means my hair was being blown in my face – the entire time. Grrr.

On our way back, we went by a church that had some hay bales out on the lawn where they’d been selling pumpkins. I tried a number of different things, but keeping the parking lot and buildings and sidewalks out of the background while getting Ben to sit in a certain place without a dumb look on his face was not easy, to say the least. They had this wheelbarrow out there, and I put the boys in it in front of a stack of haybales. It could have been a good shot of the two of them together, but Joey wouldn’t sit still and ended up dumping the whole thing. I brushed the dust off their knees, put them back in the stroller, and headed for home.

I didn’t even bother to download the photos right away. I had formatted my camera card before we set out this morning so I wouldn’t run out of space. When I finally downloaded them, there were one hundred fifty shots. So it’s not like I didn’t try or anything.

If you want to see some of the shots I did manage to get, you can hop on over to Flickr and flip through them there. I did get some that I think are at least as good as what I would have gotten at a place like JCPenny. And they are technically better than what I had to choose from last year. But I’ll probably be heading out again to try and do better.

*When we talk about going to the park, that means going to where they have a playground with swings and slides and such. One day we were at someone else’s house where they had a swing set in their backyard. Ben in came inside and exclaimed, “Aiden has a park in his backyard!” Thus we have a “park” in our backyard.

Halloween is my least favorite holiday. I hate having to come up with costumes. And then you have all that candy sitting around. Just what I need.

But for all the trouble, the boys did have a good time. My intention was to send Steve out with them and then enjoy an hour to myself while handing out candy. I was so tired. But at the last minute, I decided to go along. My costume? A weary mom.

Joey caught on very quickly. He’d climb out of the wagon, stick his hand out for the candy, and then stick it in his bag, except for one piece that he’d chew on. We’d get to the next place, he’d put the candy in his bag, get new candy, and keep one out again to chew on. When we got back, there was no difficulty figuring out which bag of candy belonged to Joey.

After a while, he started jumping the gun and getting out of the wagon while Steve was still pulling it up to the house. Silly little boy! At the end I had to carry him – he was so tired he’d topple over in the wagon at the slightest bump. Ben went to bed only a couple minutes after Joey, but when I went in to tuck him in, Joey was already sound asleep.

More pictures over on Flickr, including a closer look at Joey’s little leopard costume. [Ben wore the same costume he wore last year.]

Joey turned two last Thursday, and I made him a cake Saturday. Click here to see pictures – it was a blast!

It’s rained all week, like we live in Seattle or something. I mean, I understand a front going through and bringing rain with it, but that usually lasts for about a day, not a week. I’ve managed to run errands once when it cleared a little, but I really need to go to the grocery store. With a forecast of rain and a high of 48 degrees, it’s not looking promising.

I did manage to go for a couple walks this week. During warm weather, I usually walk five times a week, first thing in the morning. When it gets cool, I try to go later as I prefer to walk when it’s warmer. But, if I go too late in the morning, Joey falls asleep during the walk and then won’t nap. Or, if I wait to go after Joey’s nap, often he sleeps late and I don’t have time to go. The sun happened to break through the clouds twice this week, and both times, I immediately dropped what I was doing, dressed up the boys so they’d be warm, and went for a much needed walk.

Ben’s been pacing like a caged animal, but every time I put his jacket on and send him outside, it starts to rain. Public radio has been campaigning all week, so I haven’t had classical music on like I normally do. So it’s either eerie silence or country music which is fun to listen to but doesn’t calm me down and help me think straight when I need to figure something out.

The weather seems to be undecided as to if it’s going to be warm or cold. Today we have a high of 48 with rain all day – tomorrow it’s supposed to be in the 60’s with sunshine. Night before last, my feet were cold all night so yesterday I got out the electric blanket. Tomorrow morning I’m sure I’ll be wishing it was still packed away. There are stacks of clothes in the bedrooms because I’ve had to get cool weather stuff out to be worn, but then we have warm spells so I can’t put the warm weather stuff away yet.

Oh, and did I mention that the sun has been up for almost two hours, but it’s so dark the lights have to be on?

I think I’m about to lose my mind.

Ben reading a “story” to Joey from last year’s Thomas the Train catalog. [You knew that was a storybook, now, right?]

“Toot-toot!” [Joey adding sound effects.]

Joey broke my glasses Monday. When I found them, they were folded incorrectly and one of the hinges was bent to the point of no longer being functional. I have no idea how he did that to them. I’d had them since December 2001 so it’s not like I didn’t get my money’s worth.

I had my eyes checked last November, but my vision hadn’t really changed so I didn’t get new glasses. But then Steve got new glasses last month and everyone else seems to have rectangles instead of ovals, and I was beginning to feel a little out of fashion. People talk about fashions past – like rolling up your jean cuffs in grade school – and I smile and nod, remembering when everyone did that, but not mentioning that I was never one of the people doing it. [It just seemed like such a pain, re-rolling them all the time so they’d be tight.] Now that I’m a stay-at-home mom, I’m rather out of the loop, so by the time I actually notice that my look is not up to date, I fear I have achieved official oddball status. I don’t want to be an oddball, but I didn’t want to spend $300 just to get new glasses either.

But then Joey broke my old ones, and the place where I had my eyes examined last year (the same place where I bought the long-lasting old ones) said my prescription was good for two years. A mere $178 later, I am no longer an oddball. At least when it comes to the glasses I wear.

[And yes, that is a self-portrait with the camera held in my hand. And yes, I’m wearing St. Brigid which still is not finished – the neckline needs, well, some work, if you know what I mean. Click on the picture to go over to Flickr where you can see pictures of me wearing the sweater in its current unfinished state. The fit is by no means what I was expecting, but I think it will be okay. It’s just the neckline that needs, shall we say, adjustments, before I add the ribbing.]