Fresh Toth

Oktoberfest, Bier Run

Seriously, how cute is this dog? It's the Peters' puppy, Scooby.

Last Saturday, we woke the boys up at 5:30, got in the car, picked up our friends Charles and Stacy Peters, and headed for Nashville. I naively thought that the boys would fall asleep on the hour+ car ride. No dice. Oh well. They were well-behaved, considering.

Kevin, Charles, and Stacy ran in the Bier Run 5K in Germantown. Stacy works for Caterpillar (tractors) and they had a corporate team running. She was running for them and suggested we come too. I was nervous about riding to the race with them because I didn't know how the boys would do without a lot of sleep, and what if we wanted/needed to come back early? Anyways it worked out great. It was a lot of fun and I loved hanging out with the Peters.

Stacy at the beginning of the race.

Kevin at the end of the race, and below at the finish line. Kevin won 5th place out of the 1000 runners, and 1st place in his age group. We are so proud of him. His finish time was 18:13 and his pace was 5:53. Wow.

Here are our friends Charles and Stacy at the end, and then at the finish (below). Stacy is seriously amazing. Stacy won the race! She was the first female and finished with a chip time of 19:57. That's a blistering pace of 6:26. Remarkable. And this was only her 3rd 5K. She is so fast. Loved watching Stacy, Charles and Kevin run, and win. :)

Here's Stacy with her the prize. (The mug, not the pup.) It was a huge bier stein. And the most hilarious part was that she went to the bier tent and they filled it up for her. All of the runners got a cup of bier at the end of the race, but this was like 50 cups worth. So funny to see this tiny girl with a ridiculously big cup of brew.

After the race we all walked around the Germantown street festival, which was a lot of fun. The boys loved looking at all of the people. We enjoyed good conversation, some gyros and of course a funnel cake. A full day, and we were home by 1:00 - just in time for a round of afternoon naps.

Financial Markets

All I have to say is: I'm glad we're not retiring anytime soon. Our savings have tanked! And that's despite our wonderfully diversified portfolio, thanks to Kevin.
As I listen to the radio, I say, "Oh, man!" because Caleb is around. (And what I really want to say sounds terrible coming from the mouths of babes.)

More Wedding Photos

More pictures from David and Katie's wedding that I shot, nearly a month ago now. I'm done editing all of the digital pictures I have (he's sending me the film I shot to scan and edit). Here are some of my favorite shots. There are a lot of pics, I should have made a slide show. Oh well.

Niece and nephew at the rehearsal dinner.

David and his twin sister taking a picture of his bride, Katie and her twin sister.

Members of the bride's family at the reception. Bride in the background.

Wedding favors were frisbees. They love Ultimate.

The Monday after the wedding the bride and groom drove us (family and friends) up to Sonoma County to tour several vineyards and tasting rooms. The scenery was gorgeous, of course. I like this shot of the statue with grapes in hand, through the grapevines.

The bride and groom on the grounds of one of the vineyards.

And finally, proof that I was indeed there. My self-portrait in David's glasses

Perfect Morning

We slept in. I thought I'd set my alarm for 6 to get in a long run before the boys woke up, but I guess I forgot.

It was 8:30 by the time Joshua roused us from the bed. I had a yummy breakfast of coffee with a pear-ginger scone I'd made the day before. Delicious. Caleb had one too. Then I made protein pancakes for Kevin while he did yesterday's dishes. We fed the boys and I cut a few flowers from my cutting garden and added them to my little arrangements in bud vases. This is one of my favorite routines each morning.

After a while, I put Joshua down for a nap while Kevin and Caleb started working on the yard and I took Hannah with me. It was one of the best runs I've had in a while. It was beautiful weather, in low 70's, warm but with lots of shade. Hannah's the perfect running partner. Keeping me company, but not goading me to go faster or slowing me down. And I feel pretty safe with her next to me. Anyways it was a good, strong run. My pace was 8:52 for 9 miles. Better pace time than some of my recent short runs.

So that was my perfect morning. Beautiful and quiet, full of my favorite people. But now at least two of them are crying and/or have no pants on. Back to reality.

I take it back

I've been saying that Joshua is so much different than Caleb. He is different, of course. But not because Caleb was such an easy baby and Joshua is a difficult baby. Caleb was an easy baby. And Joshua does have more of an opinion about certain things than C did. But little J is the sweetest cuddle bug at times. And he is so easy.

For one, Joshua will stay in his bed, happily cooing, laughing, talking, and bouncing for an hour after he wakes. I know it's bad that I even know that- to let your babe stay in his bed for a whole hour- but it's happened before that I've been really busy with housework and forgotten he was even awake. Caleb never did this. He woke up cranky and crying. Just a grump when he wakes up. Still is.

And now that Baby J can walk, he does laps around the house with this toy or that, or just with his little hands tucked up on top of his bowl-full-of-jelly-belly, walking around like a little T-Rex. He's so happy to get to where he wants to go, he can entertain himself for a long time with just the sheer joy of getting from one end of the room to the other. "What a happy baby," I say to myself, as I sit on my bum at the computer, trying to finish up some work.

He is a happy baby. I have to laugh out loud when he stops mid-stride to break out a little bounce-dance. This often happens in the afternoons while I'm cooking and listening to NPR. He'll walk through the kitchen and the story will be over and switch to a short musical interlude. Joshua will halt his onward march for a bounce, bounce, bounce move, complete with hands in the air, then keep walking. Caleb will follow suit sometimes asking, "Do you like this song, Mama?"
One habit of my baby's that I love/hate, is his love for my hair. Fistfuls of it. When I'm holding him, like in church today, it's sweet that he grabs a tuft of my hair and snuggles into my neck. But when I'm changing his clothes or putting him in his crib and he won't let go of his iron grip- that's when I hate his love for my hair. I tried to give him a "lovey" but he's rejected it wholeheartedly, even after a three week attempt to attach him to it. Too bad I can't/won't make a hair blanket for him. It'd be less painful for me, if a little gross for him.

The other angle of this "good" baby/"difficult" baby debate is my level of training him. I was much more conscious of training Caleb in all situations than I am with Joshua. Sometimes I just want it quiet so I pick the path of least resistance. This path is not a good one. If it's too easy, then there's a reason. So I've renewed my commitment to training him. And when I expect more out of him, he gives me more. He's finally picked up signing "Please" when he wants something- and that's after just one day of vigilantly requiring him to sign it. And he says Thank You (sounds like day-doo), now too.

So I take it back. I take back all the times I've said and thought that Caleb was so much easier than Joshua. Joshua is a pleasant, sweet baby. It's been difficult with them close in age, but that's getting easier now and anyways, it's no excuse to neglect the training that I know will benefit them.

Weekend in ATL

We went to Atlanta for the weekend. My friend from college, Patrick Gosnell, got married to a beautiful woman at the Callanwolde Fine Arts Center on Sunday. Kevin's sister, Laura, lives in Marietta with her husband and their son, Elliott. They are our closest family, and we love finding excuses to stay with them. They also watched our boys so that we could attend the wedding in peace. Elliott is just 2 weeks older than Joshua, so it is great fun to see them play together. And Caleb loved baby Elliott. My favorite is hearing C tell Elliott, "It's alright. You're okay. You don't need to cry, Elliott." He has ceased telling this to Joshua, who seems to be going through a crying-tantrum spell. (A bit early, if you ask me. But since I noticed that I was coddling his little outbursts, I've turned to ignoring them and now his tantrums have lessened.) We had fun catching up with the family, going with them to their delightful church, and chatting about everything we have in common. Thanks for your hospitality, Clarks!

Is it a job if I don't get paid?

It's really, really late, but I can't help but share a few photos from the wedding I shot last weekend.

I flew out to San Francisco (Oakland, actually) to shoot my friends' wedding. I graduated from photo school (Bachelors of Fine Arts) with David, and he has been dating his girl, Katie, as long as I've known him. He just finished grad school (MFA) from the San Francisco Art Institute (an incredible school with a top-rated photo program) and they got married September 6.

For some reason, of all the photogs he knows, he and Katie asked me to shoot the event. When he called 6 months ago, I thought I might get to hand out programs or arrange flowers, but he asked me to be the photographer, because he and Katie "like my style" and I am "responsible." Needless to say I was incredibly flattered, and terrified. David and I were the two who stayed at the lab until they made us leave and he was even worse than I about nitpicking about little color variations in our prints. I've been agonizing about this whole thing for a while. Well, maybe not agonizing. I mean, I still procrastinated the actual planning of the thing, not borrowing books from the library about flash photography until the week of, but still, I thought about the wedding a lot. And David tried to reassure me that whatever I did would be fine, and much appreciated. But it didn't cover up the fact that in a theatrical "aside" David muttered under his breath that when it was all over, he'd still "critique the heck out of the pictures."

I did it, it's over. I planned for it, making a detailed outline of the schedule with little sketches of ideas for compositions. I went to the site of the garden wedding the day before at exactly the same time of day to measure light and scope possible locations for the formal portraits. There were some difficulties- the light was really spotty coming through the trees during the ceremony. The bride's face was lit up most of the time with a horrendous highlight that looks like a big orange splotch. I tried to wash it out with my flash, but it just wasn't strong enough. Oh well. And I missed a couple of things at the reception b/c I'd forgotten to change my flash batteries and though the flash was dead, I kept on shooting. So the first dance pics are all pretty blurry. But it's over. Now for the editting.

Above are a few of the first ones I've gotten through. It's taking me forever to edit all of the pics. I need some batch-editing software. It exists, I've learned, which is exciting. Guess my want-list for Christmas just got bumped. Photoshop is great, but I long to be standing over a smelly tray of chemicals, methodically swishing them over my print, then blinking, carry my tray into the light for a first glimpse. Instead I sit on my rear, eating rice cakes or whatever not-chocolate the mean matron-of-the-house bought as "snacks" and watching A&E's Pride and Prejudice.

Fun times at the "Jump-Jump"

Yesterday Kevin's battalion had a family event at an indoor play-place with inflatables. I took the boys up and down several of the inflatables before Kevin got there, which was pretty comical. Holding Joshua while spotting Caleb up the steep slippery stairs and then precariously holding one on each leg on the way down, making sure they don't slam into each other. Some of those slides are pretty fast. Caleb didn't want any more slides after just three times down. Although Kevin was only able to make it for the last hour, at least he came. He quickly helped Caleb get over his fear of the big inflatables, and freed me up to take some pics for the battalion. I was sad to see him leave again this morning. He'll be back Friday. It was a fun time and I'm glad that the battalion is doing some events. We actually haven't been to any unit functions because the only one they've had since we've been here (a year) was cancelled. I finally feel like part of the unit and I've been going to the steering committee meetings, even though I have nothing to add except the date and location of the upcoming playgroup. It's good to be involved. I'm particularly impressed with the battalion commander's wife. She's got to be the most approachable person I've ever met. So nice to have someone like that in leadership. Now if she can convince her husband to help the unit make good on the SF rumor/lie that although the guys deploy a lot, "When they're home, they're home."

Maybe it feels secure?

More than once I've walked in to find Joshua sleeping blissfully in this legs-locked position.

Summer fun

Caleb finally got over his fear of water spraying in his face, which means watering the garden just got a lot wetter for me. Despite my pleas to not spray mama, I still got it a few times. But how can I be mad when the boy is laughing so heartily? Notice the band-aid. It was a week long phase that he went through, insisting he needed the bandage for his ouchie, despite said ouchie having long since scabbed over.

Our friends Ellie and baby Saedi came by last week for a visit. I wish their mama, Michelle, would believe me when I tell her how much fun it is to have the kids play together. Caleb and Ellie tucked themselves into his tiny bed and took turns reading to each other.