we have new babies.....

well, one baby so far....and a cracked egg.

i checked the grill today and this is what i found

 scraggly hair (feathers?), 

 unopened eyes,

and a huge yellow mouth....

looking for mama to feed it worms....

if it wasn't so ugly, i would say that this baby bird is cute.....

but man, this bird is uh-gleee!!!!!!

i will check tomorrow to see if any of the other eggs have hatched 

because i don't want to stress mama out...

ten on tuesday....

(scroll down to see 14 days of valentine)
after reading suzanne's blog i was inspired to post ten random pictures every tuesday

we are expecting a huge snowstorm starting tonight. it is supposed to impact about 30 states across the nation.  they say it could be more than a foot of snow.  we haven't had that much snow in one storm in quite a few years.  

however,

they have been wrong in the past, in fact, about 3 years ago, they predicted 8-10 inches of snow. they announced the schools closed the day before the storm, don got up an hour early for work and we got 2 inches.....

don isn't holding his breath on this one.....

have a happy tuesday.

and since it is the first day of february, i am posting 

the 14 days of valentine

one heart a day...starting here...

actually that's four hearts, but who's counting???  :)

fun frame idea....

i got this 

huge frame from hobby lobby.  it was completely cracked in half on one side and was in the clearance aisle....the original price was $79.99 it was marked down to $31.97.

i hunted down the store manager because i didn't think that it was enough of a bargain because i'm used to goodwill and thrift store prices....i showed him how it was completely separated and asked him if he could do better on it and he gave it to me for 90% off.  $8.00.  8 smackeroos...

that's more like it.

i did not take a picture of this before i glued it but imagine it completely separated on the right side.

i glued it and then filled it with wood putty.

then i painted it heirloom white... 

and the crack is barely noticeable.  

after another coat of paint, i hung it in the goodwill, thrift store decor room sitting room 

and did this to it

i went into the back yard and cut a couple of branches off of a tree and stuck it into the back of the frame.  i used picture putty to hold the branch in place.  then i decided that i didn't like the branch on the right side so i changed it around...

i think it looks really organic and green.  and different!!

i like it...

i've added a dollar store bird on top of the frame 

 and a small nest made from moss...

have a great thursday....

just a little peek at what i've been up to in the last month....

two weddings.  the first, a darling couple who got married on labor day weekend....

on a cold gray, windy day

which didn't stop us in the least from having loads of fun.

you will see more on them in the upcoming week.....

the following weekend, another wedding that i found out about the day before i shot it....

i love spur of the moment.  it was another gray windy day, but a bit warmer...it was in a pretty little chapel in a strip mall located on a freeway.  because it was so spur of the moment for them to have me take their pictures, they hadn't planned for a place to take photos after the ceremony.   well, as luck would have it (and i do get lucky so many times) there was a field between the strip mall and a gas station.  can you believe the color???

the older little boy came up to me in the chapel and whispered to me "i didn't wear any socks"  and started giggling.  so being the 'have fun at any cost' type of photographer i am took the 

boys behind the strip mall

and had some fun. 

older sister wasn't very happy about mama getting married again

but little sister was having a ball.....

more on them soon too.....

i think my favorite of the day was the one where grandma started to lose control of the situation.  

i really think those make the best pictures of all!!!!

there always has to be one with a finger in the nose, doesn't there?

this lovely couple with the cutest little boy was the brother of the bride and came to my house 

the following weekend for their pictures

and we road tested the blue sofa...i love it....

and them.....

and that was half of my month....more soon!!

oh, deer.....

this little doe wandered into our yard a couple of weeks ago at about 7:30 in the morning....

don saw her out of the upstairs window while job hunting and quietly brought it to my attention.   

 i grabbed my camera and started shooting through the window.  deer are skittish so i had to hurry up and change lenses so i could get closer......

 i also had to lock champ into his cage because he caught a glimpse out of the window and started growling and i didn't want him to scare her away.....

 she peeked and poked around at the edge of the woods

you will have to excuse the quality of the pictures, if i had gone outside i would have scared her away so i took them through the window....

see that blue basket??  the little boy next door is twapping wabbits with it.  the same wabbits that are driving my dog insane!!

he hasn't been very successful yet.

she hung around for about 15 minutes before trotting off into the woods.  it's nice to see that there is still that part of nature in our backyard.....

oh, and i can't believe it's july 1st already.....summer is flying by.  ugh!!

missing in action......

wow, it has been a long time since i have posted.  my life could not have been busier these past couple of weeks.  three birthdays, 3 photo shoots and austen has had 9 baseball games in the past 2 weeks.

on top of this fabulous wedding i told you about before, 

i was able to reconnect with some wonderful old friends 

by shooting their son's high school graduation party.  

don and diane, it was so great to see you both again and it has been far too long seeing as i had never even met your boys.  who are fabulous, by the way!!!  

if you are from michigan, you know about the university of michigan/michigan state rivalry in college sports.  and if you follow sports at all in michigan, you either root for the wolverines or the spartans....the rivalry is legendary and don and diane have two sons who went to university of michigan and their youngest who just graduated from high school will be starting at state this fall.  so theirs truly is a house divided.  :D

you both should be very proud.  your sons are fantastic.

baseball is fun but, really...9 games in 10 days????  we barely had time to breath. 

i love this shot of the ball hitting the glove......sa-mokin' hot.

they did well and lost the championship game by one run!!  he still has another few weekends of games coming up so life will continue to be busy around here.  

in a side note, austen got his report card today and his final marking period was all a's and b's.  in fact, his report card for the entire year had just two c's and the rest a's and b's.  quite a feat considering that we almost held him back going into 3rd grade.  you can read about that here in a post from my old blog from  april of 2007
this boy.....

got one A, four B's and one C on his report card this semester. we couldn't possibly be more proud of this great kid. he has come so incredibly far this year. last year we had actually talked of holding him back in third grade because of his progress (or lack thereof) in school. he was doing terrible and was working at a second grade level or lower in most of his subjects. he hated getting up in the morning and would whine and tell me he didn't want to go to school. he was frustrated when it came time to do his homework and he would lay his head down on the table and sob. he was required to read for 20 minutes every night and we made him read out loud to us. his face would get red and his eyes would start tearing up and usually would collapse in a heap because he just couldn't read.

teacher conferences were a nightmare. grades going down every semester and she told us of lack of participation from austen. it spilled over into his home life as he was so unfocused that asking him to simply clean his room brought a torrent of tears and temper. his teacher finally asked us to have austen tested for ADD. 

we did this toward the end of third grade and after months of waiting (and through the summer) we finally got a call from the school social worker who informed us that austen did indeed have ADD. we got this news about two weeks into his fourth grade school year. i took him to our doctor who started him on concerta for the ADD. we decided not to tell his fourth grade teacher that we had started the medication as we wanted to see if there would be any difference in his school work. about 4 weeks later we had his first teacher conference. while we were waiting for the parents ahead of us to finish their turn, my stomach was sick. i felt for sure that there was going to be no change and he was just going to struggle through the rest of his educational career. but when we walked in the room, his teacher greeted us with "i cannot believe the change in your son over the past month". 

i almost started sobbing with relief. we let her know that had started on concerta over that last month and she told us that he was on the perfect dose...not sleepy or lethargic and had a healthy appetite. she told us that he was participating in every aspect of the day. he volunteered to read to the class and raised his hand when she asked questions of the kids. this also spilled over into his home life as he readily reads to us daily and can clean is room in 10 minutes flat (without crying). he comes home from school and doesn't need to be told to get started on his homework, he just does it. and he gets good grades to boot. he still struggles in math some but we are working on that. we had a conference with his teacher last week and she tells us that he continues to improve in all of his subjects. we are beyond relieved....and so proud of our son.....

father's day was so much fun....i had a photo shoot with a family where i have literally watched their girls grow up.  

this one

and her sister

and their cousins here

and here

could not have been cuter.  i could have just eaten them all up.  

i mean, really, how stinkin' cute are they???

oh, yeah, i got to watch some nature porn too....

more to come soon....i promise!!!!