Birthdays at Mama Peggy's House

Yesterday my dad's side of my family gathered at my Mama Peggy's house to celebrate mine and my little brother, Jarrett's birthdays.

She does this for all our birthdays... cooks a big, delicious home-cooked meal and we have cake and presents and celebrate together.

It's so nice to see everybody and eat yummy food and laugh and love.

Mama Peggy has a great old swing on her front porch that's been there my whole life and it's pretty much everybody's favorite place to gather, especially the little ones.

Yesterday, I got lucky and captured that picture up there that I LOVE with my crappy camera phone.

WHY didn't I have a decent camera in my hands????

Oh well, it's still precious and I'll treasure it and it's horrible pixelation (is that a word??) forever. ;)

I Heart Faces Dramatic B&W Challenge

This is the first time I've entered an I Heart Faces Challenge, but when I saw what the challenge was this week, I couldn't NOT enter.

This is my April bride and this is my absolute favorite of the bridal shots I did for her.

I love how her veil is blowing in the wind and I love the mood that's created by her facial expression, as well as the starkness of the field, backed up by the trees.

And the reason I'm posting this to my personal rather than my photography blog is because her bridals can't be posted there until after the wedding! :)

Go HERE to view others entries!

And We're Trying New Disciplinary Techniques

I hate spanking.

Spankings put me in a bad mood and when I give spankings, I immediately feel like I need to give another spanking because I'm so upset that Emma got me to the point of her needing a spanking.

Does that make sense?

And just so you know, spankings are very infrequent here, as I HATE giving them.

And Emma has gotten so lazy about listening without arguing and following directions and all that not so fun for her stuff.

So, I'm now at the point where I am SOOOO tired of fighting with her and arguing with her, so I've made some decisions.

I enforced them for the first time last night.

She spent the night with my mom the night before last and when she came home yesterday, my mom told me that, as always, Emma did not want to listen to her AT ALL, she was a little on the wild side and THEN to top it all off, she CUT HER HAIR!!!!

A big chunk, right outta the front.

I was so angry.

I was too angry to spank her, because I'm always scared that I may spank too hard or too much or something when I'm THAT angry.

So, I came to the conclusion that spankings really don't work anyway.

They scare Emma half to death and they make me feel like I just wanna jump off a bridge.... not really, but seriously, I get in a funk when I spank Emma.

So, I told her that for TWO DAYS she was not going to watch any of her "shows" (aka any of the 7 cartoon networks we have on our tv) or her dvds.

Friends, you would really have thought I was holding her down on the kitchen table and sawing her arm off.

It was SO MUCH worse than if I had just spanked her.

Seriously.

She lives and breathes her "shows" and dvds.

She cried off and on for two hours and told me at least a hundred times how sorry she was.

So, this morning, she and I both COMPLETELY forgot about this punishment.

We got up and did what we do every morning...

-She and I got Noah up and I changed him.
-We went to the kitchen, I made both of them a cup of chocolate milk.
-Noah and I came upstairs to watch Sesame Street, eat muffins, and for me to check all my internet stuff.
-And Emma went and got back into my bed and promptly turned my tv to her cartoon of choice.

About thirty minutes into this routine, the light bulb came on and I jumped out of my chair, flew down the stairs, ran wide eyed into my room and glared at Emma... at the tv... at Emma... at the tv...

And without me even saying anything, Emma said, "Oh, Mommy!!!! I FORGOT, I FORGOT!!!"

What could I say, I forgot too.

So, off the tv went and all has been well and good.

I can't wait to see if this actually works and she behaves better the next time she's away from home... and when she's AT home.

I did tell her, though, that from this point on, when she misbehaves, breaks a rule, or deliberately doesn't listen, I'm either going to take away her tv or take away a favorite toy.

I hope it works....

Suggestions?

Happy Birthday To Me...

There are no pictures to accompany this post. There will be some, though... later.

This past week has been mentally awful. I find myself in tears several times a day over the smallest thing... a song, a smell, a word, a thought... It's truly unbearable at times. I'm so thankful for caring friends and for Emma and Noah. They give me purpose and new reasons to smile all day long.

And today, my friends, you all have made me smile SO MUCH! I don't look forward to birthdays anymore, but it's definitely better than the alternative and when I woke up this morning, I would have truly been content to have stayed in bed watching tv and reading my book all day long. However, my family was coming over to my mom's to cook-out for my birthday, so I got up... got ready and went.

I'm so glad I did. It was refreshing and wonderful. It was great to spend time together and know that they each loved me enough to show up for me. :)

And the fact that I've gotten TONS of happy birthday messages on facebook and through texts today has just been truly overwhelming... in an amazing way. I didn't know that many people cared about me! Seriously!

And just a moment ago, my breathe was truly taken away... one of my FAVORITE photographers left me a happy birthday message!! Hello people, she's in AUSTRALIA!!! My heart dropped into my toes when I saw it. I had no idea she even knew I existed. She has thousands of followers, yet she took the time to tell little ole' me Happy Birthday. My day... week... month... possibly year has been totally made. :)

Meeting BrinkleyAnne for the first time

Wednesday was a special day. I got to meet 4 day old BrinkleyAnne. She's Amy's (one of my best friends since middle school) newborn baby girl. Amy and I have wanted little girls since we were little girls and I got pregnant with mine 6 years ago, but Amy had to wait a little longer for hers to enter her life. So, needless to say, this is one spoiled little princess! Her room is perfection and she has almost as large of a wardrobe as my 5 year old Emma has! It was a really special day.

I also did her newborn pictures while I was there. A bunch of them are on my photography blog.

These are my favorites...

Sweet Babies

I know a lot of kids grow up fighting with their siblings and resenting them for one reason or another...

But mine just love each other SO very much, I can't imagine they would ever be that way.

I hope they always love each other like this.

There's nothing that feels any better as a mother than to see this kind of love flowing between the babies. It's amazing.

Want an Awesome Camera???

So, I was looking at awesome camera bags.

I found this site...

Epiphanie

THEN

I saw that they're doing a give-away for a Canon 5D!

I'm a Nikon girl, but... yeah, I'd definitely take this Canon.

It's awesome!

Click here to check out this contest!

Snow!?!

We are supposed to get SOMETHING tomorrow and it MAY be more SNOW!

I love snow, but I'm really over it already.

It's March. I'm ready for warm weather and spring flowers.

And what is the deal with all our snow coming from Texas? I thought Texas was hot and never got such things as snow.