Snippets

My goal to post more in 2010 is really not going well! So I decided to post a few random items. It's not the best post, but at least I'm posting, eh?

Just before the holidays, our Wii broke. Nate wrote a very sad letter to my brother Thomas about the Wii being broken. My brother got a kick out of it:


To Thomas from Nathan 11 11-19-09
Dear Thomas there is bad news and good news the bad news is the Wii broke and the good news is I will be ok.
Do you like the Wii broken?
yes or no
Love, Nathan 11

Nate's "number" in school is 11 and he always writes it along with his name. {Don't get me started on the fact that the school has given my son a number. Is his name not enough of a distinguishing factor or do we need to further emphasize that school is prison by giving the inmates numbers? Do I need to have his number tatooed on him somewhere just to be certain that the teacher will know who he is?}

We have since sent the Wii away to be fixed, and it came back to us a couple weeks ago. In the short time span of those couple weeks, I have considered purposely breaking it more than eight hundred times. Even the little guy begs for the Wii all day long. He loves to play Baseball on the Wii Sports disc.

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One of the things I dislike most about my day is that I drive Nate to and from school. It gets a little old. But, it's a decision we made so that he could go to the school he's in (there are no buses from our neighborhood to that school because it's not our "area school" but in our district you can choose to go to any school you'd like). The main reason for my dislike is that the other parents who drive their kids to school are idiots. Plain and simple. They have no concept of four-way stops, and some even drop their kids off across the street and make them run across the busy street (through the traffic, with no crosswalk or crossing guard) instead of waiting in the drop-off line. This morning I almost hit a child who bolted across the street in front of my car.
But the four-way stop thing is what gets me the most angry. Every single morning people do rolling stops, don't pay attention to who was at the stop first, and just power their way through the intersection. There is no courtesy, no regard for, you know, laws. And then they will stack themselves into the intersection three or four cars deep, blocking the intersection. Ans when I don't go because there is no room behind the last car and I'd be in the intersection, I get honked at.
Grrr. It almost makes me want to walk the four mile trip twice every day. (Almost. But I've posted about that before...it's not a good option. And that street I talked about in that post? In December a little girl was walking along the street where there are no sidewalks and was hit and killed....and the driver kept on going.)

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There are about three hundred projects going on right now in my personal and my business life. I'm so very excited about them. First is the grand-daddy of them all, the Mamarazzi Boot Camp. About a year ago, I started thinking about hosting a workshop/class for moms who want to take better pictures of their kids. I have been trying to find a good time to do it, and also I wanted to be sure that I really thought about what I wanted to offer, rather than just launching into it and figuring it out as I went. I met another photographer here in Dallas who I really like, and our personalities are just different enough that we can work really well together. I had a meeting with her several weeks ago and asked her to come on board with me and get the ball rolling for these classes. Over the course of several phone calls and several hundred emails (seriously), we came up with the Mamarazzi Boot Camp. Which actually is a slight deviation from my original idea because we won't be talking about childrens' photography exclusively, but I'm fine with that -- it will be a class that everyone can benefit from. I'm excited to have our Dallas workshop and we're working on a late summer/early fall workshop for Salt Lake City.

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They released me from my "job" working with the young women at my church. It was the right timing, and I knew that it was coming so I wasn't too surprised or disappointed, although I was sad to be done with that calling. I love those girls so much. When Nate found out that I wouldn't be going to my Wednesday night meetings anymore, he said "Oh, GOOD!!" When I asked why he was so happy about that, he said, "Now I'll have more time to hug you."

What a sweetie.

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THIS little man is just super cute, but OH MAN what a stinker. :) He has recently started with "Why?" after everything you say to him. It actually cracks me up, because I don't remember Nate having a "Why?" stage. "Aidan, go eat your breakfast." "Why?" "Aidan, I love you." "Why?" He keeps us laughing.
Also, I'm pretty sure that the writers of Family Guy have cameras in our house, because this video is shockingly familiar (we have this scene at least eighty times a day, except I'm not always lying down):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNkp4QF3we8

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Somebody's turning SEVEN in a couple weeks (Feb 20th) and he is using his subtraction skills to tell us how many days are left until the 20th. He is so excited and proudly tells everyone who will listen that he is having a Lego party -- oh dear, back in OCTOBER when I told him he could maybe have a party at the Lego store I couldn't imagine he'd actually remember that. When will I learn my lesson??? :)

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Finally, I wasn't going to tell you that yesterday I was sitting on the couch with Aidan, watching Curious George, and fell asleep. He took the opportunity to do some serious damage by stripping down and pooping on the carpet (yuck, sorry to share). But I feel the need to share that because I also should tell you that while I was typing this long post, he did the same thing again. I suppose that is my BIG hint to go and do my job and PAY ATTENTION to what my two year old is doing in times of quiet.

Y'all have a good day.