hi. it's me.

Just in case you've forgotten all about me, well, here I am.  I'm back.  I have lots of photos to share.  We had some guests last week.  Sean's brother and family were here.  It was a busy house, 7 children, including our own, but it was so fun.  The weather pretty much stunk-it-up while they were here, but we made the best of it.  We told the kids the rain doesn't make you melt, it just makes your hair frizzy.  Kind of like in the photos above.  Haha.  I hope to have a blog post soon with photos of lots of cute kids.  Thanks for checking in.  

"I appreciate your friendship"  Randy Conover.

xo

Sara

this past weekend

Sean had class in Seattle.

I went along with him.

We left our children with their aunt, uncle and cousins.

Our children ended up getting bad colds and were kinda grumpy for their cousins.

Sorry about that, cousins.

Sean and I ate at Claim Jumper Friday night.

We split a salad and the best sandwich ever.  It's called the Grilled Cobb Sandwich if you're curious.

We shopped at Target and filled our cart with a lot of stuff.

Target is dangerous.  Danger with a capital d.  It's a good thing we don't have one of them Targets in F.H.

Sean left the hotel room for class early Saturday morning.

I took my sweet time leaving the hotel.

Then I went straight to Starbucks.

I had 3 grande, non-fat, extra hot, carmel macchiatos in one day.

It's a good thing we don't have one of them Starbucks in F.H.

I shopped at IKEA for a couple hours.

My new couch is at IKEA.

I will come back for you new couch.

Then I headed to the South Center Mall.

I made a bee-line for H&M.

It's a good thing we don't have a Mall or an H&M in F.H.

It was time to pick up Sean from class.

We were hungry.

We picked up some lunch from Chipotle.

I like Chipotle.  A lot.

It's a good thing we don't have one of them Chipotle's in F.H.

We made the 5:20pm ferry.

We took a little nap in the car while on the ferry.

We finally arrived Friday Harbor at 7:20pm.

We picked up our coughing, snorting, grumpy children from the cousins.

We emptied the car of our stuff.

We went to bed.

Sean woke up Sunday morning siiiiiick.  Real sick.

Stella coughed most of the night.

We missed church.

We're better now.

It's a good thing because Sean's brother and family are coming to visit!!!!!!!

Oh! and while off-island I had the opportunity to photograph a beautiful baby girl and one of her big brothers (the other two were at school).

It was my first traveling photography session.

You can see more of that session on my facebook fan page soon.

If you want to.

I would say check them out on my photography website, but that's not ready yet.

Anyway...

Here's a little sneak peek of the sweet baby.

She was cuuuute.

I wanted to take her home.

She is the baby that was inside the mom in this post.

It was a good weekend.

The end.

oh 50mm lens...

Last weekend I rented both the 50mm f1.2L lens and the 50mm 1.4.  The 50mm f1.2L lens is more than 10 times as much as the 50mm 1.4.  TEN TIMES!!  Crazy.  The 1.2 was built like a tank and was smooth and quiet and felt very nice on the camera, but seriously I couldn't get one sharp image from that beast.  I was greatly disappointed in it and I told Borrowed Lenses as much.  If I'm going to pay $1500 for a lens, it better work and it better focus.  Maybe I got a dud??  I don't know... all I know is I got better results with the 50mm 1.4 lens and that baby only costs around $350.  Now I'm wondering if there is a different lens I should be checking out, like the 35mm?  Anyway, sorry for all the camera talk, but it's on my brain right now.  I'm not sure I'm going to find a lens I like better than my 24-70mm f2.8L.

Here's some images I took with the 50's.  These are all SOOC (straight out of the camera).  Can you tell which photos are with the spendy lens??

ava's snow day in black and white

The big kids went to spend their snow day at a friends house.  

Little Ava was stuck at home with me, her mom.

First we played some Candy Land.

Then she watched a little Dora.

It was a pretty exciting episode by the looks of it.

Then she had honey nut cheerios for lunch.

Why not?  She loves them and I see that check mark on the box talking about whole grains.  Yep, I see it there.  

Then we got all bundled up and faced the storm.  

She told me Santa Claus was coming tomorrow.  That seems about right.   Snow is for Christmastime not spring.  This weather is so confusing.

Then one last photo before naptime.  

I'm thinking maybe after naps it'll be a good time to trim the ol'bangs.  That's an idea, as my sweet Ava would say.

As good as these snow days are, I would be OK if it all decided to melt...like yesterday. 

in love

I'm in love with soft curls, ruffles and this girl.  

I took away her crib yesterday.  She cried.  She watched me take it apart and saw it in pieces in her room and looked at me with the saddest eyes and said, "you broke my crib."  Then I cried and was *this* close to putting it all back together.  I have nothing against her staying in her crib, but we moved the extra twin bed in there yesterday, which makes for two twin beds in her room.  It was just too tight to try and keep the crib, too.  I put her down for her nap just now and she cried for her crib again.  It breaks my heart.  I asked her why she loves her crib so much and she said, "cause it's just so soft-tilly."  It's my goal to make her big girl bed as soft-tilly as her crib.

in my girl's rooms

I guess Ava thought the babies needed a good cleaning and maybe a little tumble dry.

I'm not really sure what to say, other than... I sure do hope my Stella doesn't end up on TLC.   You know, on the Hoarders show.

currently

My kitchen looks like this

Cabinet doors missing.

Cabinet drawers missing.

Sean says it's very European.

I find that every time I walk through I try to shut the doors...but there are none.

One week I have to live with this.  

One week until our cabinets look like new instead of like ugly-peeling-paint cabinets.

I can't wait.

just like the old days

Jonah didn't have kindergarten yesterday, so he picked up right where he left off last year.

The living room turned into what they call a "fort jump."

They had to be "bare bellied."

They raced around the loop again and again.

They jumped from couch to cushions again and again and again.

It was a day just like the old days.

jonah's valentine's

In Kindergarten they encourage the kids to bring in their Valentine's early.  It makes sense.  Can you imagine if they all brought them in on the same day and had to pass them out?  When you look at Jonah's cards I think you'd understand why that might be a bit of a struggle.  It takes a super sleuth to figure out the name of his little friends on each of his cards.  Super. Sleuth. I. Say. 

                                

This wasn't Jonah's favorite job.  I caught him trying to pawn it off on his, more than willing, big sister.  More than once, I might add.  

Stella's pleas... "Mom, he really wants my help.  Can I pleeeeeeease help him?

                                      

                                               

Stella loves this type of thing; organizing, writing names, checking off the list... She takes after me, well except for the list thing.  I'm no good at lists.  

Jonah pretty much thought this job was for the birds.  But yesterday after school and then again after dinner, he got them done.  All 22 of them.  It was painful; for both him and me.  We survived it.  They made it in his backpack this morning.  I sure hope his teacher will be able to figure out who is who.  Worst case scenario, they forget the names and just pass them out so each little friend gets one. :)

frosting

Ava got out of the car, after we dropped off Stella and Jonah at school, and she looked out at the grass and said, "it's frosting."

This morning our lawn has a layer of frosting.