Selfies, Officially a Habit

I caught Nathan and Anneliese the other day, lying on my bed with their kiddie camera in outstretched arms, taking pictures of themselves. You know, to text to Daddy at work. (I have no idea where they would have learned such a thing.)

Oh, the things we never ever ever would have done as children. Toddlers of a new millennium.

Nathan Pics, Another Round

Been sorting through pics all afternoon, and the shots Nathan takes on his camera (or ours) continue to make me smile. Oh, the things he is moved to capture on film.

Anneliese, his favorite subject.

Other favorites: James, Finn McMissile and Francesco Bernouli

A jumperoo non-fail (yes, it has been replaced).

Proof that we do iron. Sometimes.

A puppy-baby nap on the bonus room floor.

And of course, the requisite self-pic.

A portrait of the artist as a young man? Hmmm.

Charlotte, by Nathan

Know what happens after a year and a half of letting your son play with his own "toy" camera and then learn to take pictures on your "real" (but mostly indestructible) one?

You finally find a good picture of his baby sister on the sd card.

Your daily Charlotte: three months ago

Nathan, for the win.

The World Through Nathan's Lens

I went through the pics on the cameras last week and there were a ton taken by Nathan. I found lots of shots of his sisters, his toys, his clothes, and our house, all taken from his height.  It's actually kind of fascinating, the things he finds photo-worthy. 

(He might say the same about me.)

So here are a  few pics of the world according to Nathan... these made me smile:

the beloved orange shoelaces

classic Mommy

baby sister Charlotte

I promise my driving is better than this picture indicates

Bowden, from behind

smiley self-portrait

happy sister Anneliese

Mommy and Nathan

I love seeing the world through his eyes, a little bit. :)

Youth Choir Paparazzo

Nathan and I went to a youth choir rehearsal to take some pictures for our church's new website.  He was a little bit excited about seeing his teenage fans, and a lot excited that I was going to let him "help" with the picture-taking.

And perhaps I was a little bit paying attention to the youth choir, and a lot paying attention to Nathan being their paparazzo.

And because it makes me smile, here's the rehearsal from his perspective:

I think he does a good job of capturing the excitement and splendor of teenage girls singing worship music around a piano, yes? ;)  He's pretty much an artiste.

Tuesday Mood Miscellany

I'm in a Mood today.  I started off this morning feeling great, but then expensive construction surprises and church exhaustion (don't you hate it when church gets in the way of church?) got the better of both me and Mark for the day.  I can't quite bring myself to make a happy-things list, which is usually a surefire way to force a good mood out of myself.  But I can at least think about some other random things than what's frustrating me at the moment.  Right?

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Someone please tell me I'm not the only one who has fallen for the recent onslaught of ads for Honey Bunches of Oats Raisin Medley. After several weeks of painting with the radio on (and not changing the station for commercials), I couldn't resist it anymore and I had to buy some.  Even though I hate myself a little for falling for their ad campaign.  But you know what?  It's delicious.  And I just finished my third box of the week.  That's right, I have no shame.

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My couch has a funk.  It's true.  It smells like a mix of feet, butt, and that old stale dog hair that hasn't been cleaned out of the vacuum cleaner in a month (you know you know exactly what I'm talking about).  In other words: gross.  And we only smell it when we sit on one certain part of the couch.  Weird?  So we have vacuumed out every crevice, oxy-wiped every exposed surface, and febreezed the non-exposed surfaces (while temporarily exposing them to dry).  Not sure if this is nesting-related, or if my ueber-sensitive pregnancy smell palate (smell palate? is that a thing?) just prompted an odd spawn of motivation.  Either way, the funk has to go.  Pray that our cleaning efforts today will work.

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Nathan took this picture of himself standing in our new backyard.  Try not to be too freaked out.

This image might or might not have made appearances in two recent nightmares.  Someone tell me this is funny instead of freaky, ok?

Renovation, Days 12-14

We're two weeks into this renovation!  In theory that means we're halfway done.  I'm not sure what the reality is.  I'm not asking yet.  But things are definitely moving along.

Our bay window is gone! Don't worry, a new one (with no termite damage! awesome!) is on the way.  But also the hole in the house is gone, now we can work on getting the furnace fixed and running!  Words couldn't do justice to explaining how tired I am of painting in the cold.  Or how tired my co-painters are of hearing me talk about how I'll never get warm again.

Um, there's an old roof in our backyard. (But a new one on the house!  So we'll take it!)

Blogging on the back deck. Apparently I make this face whenever anyone* points a camera at me?

*including my darling son, who took this picture

These arched doorways are one of Mark's favorite things about the new house, and I have to admit I like them a lot too, especially now that the paint and trim work is done in here!  (Not in the kitchen, ignore that part.)  Also the fact that this banister is no longer black, but white to match the rest of the trim, is still making me insanely happy.  :)

My sweet girls Anneliese and Bowden love all the activity on our new busier street:

Look, I totally took pictures of the house progress this time.  Someday I'll catch our builder Brad working away and capture his smiling face for bloggity posterity.  He's kind of cute.  Just sayin'. Til then...

Uncle Brad, Coming to America

My brother and his (apparently very) significant other, Marija, are officially coming stateside* this summer!  They will be en route to Croatia <insert jealous rampage here> and will stop in North Carolina for a few days.  Just in time for Brad to see both of his sisters stupendously hot, hormonal, and pregnant.  Win.

This will also be a rare chance for my kids to hang out with Uncle Brad.  In person.  To help convince them he's not just a face and voice on a computer screen but a live human being who comes bearing hugs and tickles and laughs for his favorite** niece and nephew. 

Uncle Brad on Skype... photo by Nathan

I don't remember Nathan taking this picture at all, but apparently he was showing Brad his new camera on Skype?  And had to take a picture of that conversation?  I asked him about it, but he finds nothing weird about it.  He's three, after all.

So excited to see Uncle Brad!!!! :)

*They live in St Croix.  For those who missed it the first four thousand times I explained how that came to be, this is how it all started.
**I can say that for five more months, til Brad has two more nieces or nephews to pick favorites from! ;)

Pictures of My Sister, by Nathan

The weekly dose of Nathan's photography.

Your daily Anneliese, through the eyes of her big brother:

Bedtime already?  Oh no.

Smiling for big brother :)

Baby girl and lego truck on the go!

No one doesn't like cheerios

Knowing how much Nathan adores his little sister, and how much he wants to take her picture, makes her even more beautiful (blurry but beautiful) in these shots.  Through a lens of love.  Yep, I just said that.

Your Daily Nathan: Self-Portraits

Some of my favorite pictures I found on Nathan's camera were the ones he took of himself.  Clearly he has spent many a naptime perfecting the art of holding the camera at arm's length for to capture a handsome little self-portrait or two (or forty).

Oh yeah, he's an artiste.

Snow Pictures, by Nathan

Remember how Nathan got a little-boy camera for Christmas?  Well he's been using it all the time, taking pictures of all the things in life he finds most important (our floors, our walls, his toys, his sister, the insides of his nostrils) and his SD card was getting kind of full.  So I uploaded his month's worth of photos to the computer, and sorted through them.

Not a small project.  He had taken more than six thousand pictures.  (And that's not counting the ones on the camera's hard drive, which I can't get to yet because I can't find his camera cord.)  (Also, how do I live in a world where my three-year-old son has a camera cord?)

But after I deleted the ones that were of nothing (thousands upon thousands of black squares, seriously) and the ones that were pretty much duplicates of the ones he had taken seconds before, I got it down to about forty keepers.

And I handed the camera back for round two.

In the meantime, I thought a couple of these were sweet and worth sharing.  Nathan was so excited by the snow the day after Christmas that he took lots of pictures of it to text to people.  (As a child of this millennium, he is operating under the assumption that his camera is also a phone.  With a touch screen.) 

of course he couldn't resist the pickup truck in the snow

Anneliese on the other side of the backseat during our snowy road trip

and there were hundreds more just like this one :)

Kind of fun seeing a snow day through Nathan's eyes, don't you think?