2 | 52 . 1 | 365

I am plunging in on the 10th day (though not making this a ten on ten). 365.

(and week 2 of 52)

I was trying to find a theme as my boys are very fickle when it comes to being in front of the camera.  It couldn't just be about them. SO I thought maybe I would focus just on b+w photography.

However, as I was taking these photos this morning I realized that focusing on composition, using light and shadow, to convey mood and emotion is perhaps even more important to me.

What creative projects are you working on?

xoxo

1 | 52

my youngest, bright and blurred.
the imprint of a snow angel on a hillside:
                      a gift to the snow encrusted mountain side from my middle.
my boys, my loves.

xoxo

4 | 52

this one. wraps his eyes around my heart, even when he doesn't mean too.

as a matter of fact, all three of them do. xo

clickety-clack call of the week's end | weekly stills

weekly stills.
1. lego obsession
2. much needed coffee
3. craft supplies
4. long neglected christmas cactus
5. neglected homework
6. the oldest, mr. crabby-pants, staring off onto the lacrosse field
7. a fence
8. rainbow loom madness
9. the middle.
10. portraiture of the oldest.

 joining in with beetle shack & angels love red hair
p.s.... i cheated a wee bit. most of theses are from my 365/ 10 on 10 project here.  xxoo

tuesday's notes | oh tannenbaum!

 Dear Boys,

We need to work together a bit more. Seriously.

I will love you until my dying breath, but truly, when you three are arguing with each other (as well as with me) over the size shape and variety of tree we want to bring home for this holiday season, I am so ready to jump ship and swim to the shore in the New Year.  I know that three of us are particularly visual and creative, AND strong-willed opinionated souls, but thats why we need to work as a team. We could storm castles with our out-of-the-box ways! But when we are feeling fractious and divisive -well lets just say that there is nothing as cheerless and merry-less as that.

All things being equal, we did, in the end, pull it together.  You younger two realized the need, at least this year, for a tree that is not the size of Mt. Everest, and I was forced to let go, temporarily anyhow, of my need to control the situation when my perfect tree was sold to someone else while we were bickering. In the end, your dad and, you, mr. oldest, saved the day by just taking the tree where we had some kind of consensus and purchasing it. Phew.

Then we all relaxed! It was amazing! 

And thank you for allowing me to kill time while your dad had to run go get cash, with my camera and you all as models.  See how much fun we have when we are not bickering (and I realized, how much you all need a haircut before the 24th). 

 cheerio for now boys!
love you three so very deeply!
xxoo

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This is a series called tuesday's notes. You are welcome to write along if you want, just leave a comment with your blog address if you decide to write one and I will be sure to come say hello. These "Notes" can be notes to your self (future, past or present), notes to the rude person who cut you off in line, notes to your children, note's to your parents... I think you get the idea. Would love if you "wrote along!" xo

november's middle | portraits of the boys

so busy these days and for the million photos I seem to take every week, I can barely find one I am satisfied of my three so I have been avoiding posting their weekly portraits. However,  as I am aware that I will never quite be satisfied with anything I do these days I am posting them, none-the-less:

-hard to believe the oldest will be in high school next year.
-I caught my youngest playing with a simple boat he had made in class for the american holiday, Thanksgiving (note the boat's name "The Mayflower").
-and the middle, clutching his drink and trophy during his end of season celebration of flag football.

I can scarcely breathe when I think of December! hope this weekend is treating you well! xo

42 0f 52 :: portraits of the boys

the boys, up in the san diego mountains. 

the younger two helping collect eggs on a early Saturday morning.

 the oldest squinting in the sun just as he is about to take a hay ride. 

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52 series at Che+Fidel

a short story and other news

Hope this midpoint in the week is finding you well! 

A small short story I wrote is up over on Anchor&Plume Press' blog today.  

I would love for you to check it out and let me know what you think. 

In other news, the above photograph was taken by my middle when we were camping at Morro Bay. He entered it into the school's art contest and he won! He is thrilled to bits. It now is being sent off to compete in the regional art contest. The best part of all of this was watching how proud he was when he found out that he won. It was so very sweet to see. 

Made my day sparkle. 

xxoo

the clickety clack call of the week's end

It is early here on this Sunday morning and the youngest has crawled into bed with us. He smells of boy, and in particular of a Saturday spent in the heated Indian Summer Fall, playing sports, relentless movement from morning till early evening. He smells of a slightly sweet sweat with a musty aroma of yesterday's dirt trapped under his nails and peppered across his brow; the smell of memories in an exhausted autumn sun, too tired to bath, too tired to keep eyes open at dinner.

Last weekend he smelled of nothing but roasted marshmallows and the unseen cloud of a campfire.

All of these smells are filled up with memories for this mama, sitting here, sorting through photos and listening to the sound of our youngest breathe a sweet sleepy early morning breath. In my mind I am sorting memories of this moment, memories of this weekend and last; sorting memories of the arch of my life, the pulling back of the bow and the taught string that sends an arrow flying high towards its intended target.

So I write some down. Trying to trap the scents on paper as one would trap a firefly in a glass jar, trying to momentarily hold onto to something that really is intangible, that exists only on the threshold between day and night, in those stolen moments of the sun chasing the moon through the heavens across the sky.

how has your weekend been? xo

a boy. a birthday. seven

 "Mommy. Mama. Mommy." he breathes raspy on my neck, his sweet boy face close to mine and his arms tight around my neck. "Mama. I can't wait for tomorrow. I cannot wait to be seven," he tells me for the hundredth time today, the millionth time this past hour, "I can't wait!"

"I can't wait for you to turn seven either!" I exclaim as he begins to pull away from me.

 He stops. "Heeeeyyy.....You are supposed to tell me you don't want me to turn seven, you want me to be five again." (Which is what I had been telling him all day.)

Happy birthday my sweet seven five year old. 

(I think his long Lego-ed limbs give his seven-year old-ness away)

xxoo

30 of 52. portraits of the boys. 2013

29 of 52 :: portraits of the boys

the boys in their element, in the mountains of colorado.
               The oldest is scheming with his youngest brother to help the younger build a "dam" with sticks and rocks in the creek. The youngest is working hard on his dam while the older two are hiking with their dad. And the middle, happy as a clam having caught a lizard.

blog love: Erogene's glorious captures of her two littles; Belinda's beautiful black and white captures of her three; Greer's beautiful girls outside in the winter;  and sweet little smith all tuckered out.

how has your week been? xxoo

what is happiness

happiness is a walk in the woods with my boys, high above the world. contentment. happy lucky me watching them build dams. running with their dad. freeing themselves, momentarily, of the chains of the day to day. stretching out, making-up stories, heralding their imagination to the moon.

mothering, a round, full circle

in a round.
in a circle.
i come back around
to my childhood,
to my home,
looping back,
to the beginning,
to the place where my mother's illness grew.
where the ALS* spread slowly,
taking her body away from her,
taking her away from us.

like the seasons that circle us,
where the cycles encircle us.
round, i spin back
and also forward,
dusting away the thick motes of memory
and the holding pool of hope in my hand.

so i come back,
back around, in a circle,
walking through my childhood
my home. circling around in my mother's thoughts.
circling around death
 and life.

and the strength of my children.
and the strength in my children,
circles, back around,
back around, from my mom to me.
a circle, round, holding me
in.

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*ALS is also known in the states as Lou Gehrig's Disease, however abroad it is know as MND (Motor Neuron Disease). There were many visits to Colorado last summer and fall as my mother was dying from ALS. She died this past November of 2012. This is my first visit to Denver since her death. So in this trip, I am very much thinking of her.  

linking in with Lou for her Nature in the Home Series. 

hope you all are well. xxoo

28 of 52. portrait of a boy.

The youngest. Thoroughly enjoying licking the spatula after making brownies for his middle brother's mini-birthday party last weekend.  We have been traveling this week, driving many hours out of California, across the desert, returning to our Colorado, and the mountains my husband and I grew up with.

Blogging has not been getting done as I had planned due the busy-ness of packing, traveling and sporadic internet connections.

So just one sweet photo of one sweet boy for this weeks portraits. Promise to do better in the coming days. 
               xxoo

climbing into July.....

Climbing into July.

The house slowly descends into chaos. 

Cushions piled high, then higher still. 

Boys who long to jump from heights, 

dreaming of parachutes and catching a little wind. 

A mama who gasps a bit too much, but pulls out her camera anyway.

foliophoto with bedsidesign. xo