Friday Foto Finish Fiesta - My favorite elf

I was feeling a little artsy-fartsy with some pictures I took while Kiddo and I were working on our holiday treat tins for the teachers and staff at her school.......





Want more Friday Foto Fun? Drop by Candid Carrie's!

Phriday Photo Phiesta - The Man in Red

Of course I have taken Kiddo every year to see Santa, and of course I have taken pictures of the event every year as well. So, without further ado, here's the Santa and Kiddo picture retrospective! [Ed note: I just looked back in my archive and realized I posted this same retrospective last year. Whoops! So, please ignore the repeating of photos and chalk it up to the ever-increasing addled state of my careening-into-older-age brain. I mean, in ten days I'll officially be in my late 30s........ At least there are NEW photos from this year included!]

The first Christmas, six months old, rather scary Santa. What can I say, I was new to the whole gig - I subsequently learned that there are Better Santas and Creepy Santas and that having four shopping malls within driving distance and a few other Breakfast With Santa opportunities each year, I wouldn't have to settle for Bad Santa photo ops after all.



(Yes, Kiddo's outfit that year included a beret and a faux fur, bolero sweater. It was too much and yet adorable and it had been a gift from a dear, old, high school friend of mine. I couldn't resist!)

The next year, 18 months old, a different mall yielded a much better Santa -



Two and a half and quite eager to chat Santa up -



Three and a half and a particularly jolly Santa, despite the voluminous, fake beard -



Four and a half. I ran out of time that year, so had to settle for a less-than-spectacular Santa, who I think might've been hitting the eggnog a bit too enthusiastically prior to his shift...



Last year, when she was wearing glasses. A Real Beard Santa for the first time, too!



And from this year's visit, we have:

The unfurling of the list which Kiddo created in scroll format and proceeded to read to Santa in its entirety. Fortunately we went to see him in the middle of a weekday thanks to a half day of school, and there was no line so she was able to spend as much time with the Man in Red as she wanted. She even asked him what his favorite cookies are and has now informed me we have to set out ginger snaps for Santa Christmas Eve. Ginger snaps, really? Santa couldn't have said chocolate chip or perhaps Girl Scout cookies, which I have coming out my eyeballs?



I like that this shot is reminiscent of the one from when Kiddo was two and a half. This is where she was pointing out her missing two front teeth to him, as per the song.



And the official "Kiddo and Santa" shot for this year:



I'm thinking we may not have too many more years left where I'll be able to do this, but you can be darn sure I'm going to keep the tradition going as long as I possibly can!



Want more Phriday Photo Phiesta Phun? Drop by Candid Carrie's!

Phriday Photo Phiesta: Doggone it!

This is Teddy. Teddy is an 18 month old Cockapoo. Kiddo's honorary grandparents adopted him about a month ago. Kiddo's grandpa had to go to the hospital unexpectedly earlier this week for emergency spinal surgery. (He's doing very well and is expected to go home this weekend.) So, Teddy came to stay with us on Tuesday night for a few days.



Teddy loves his squeaky alligator toy. Kiddo picked it out for him as a present and gave it to him that first weekend he came home from the animal shelter.



Did I mention the alligator squeaks? It has two different squeakers inside. One is loud and sustained, the other louder and sustained-er.



He also loves his toy Kong. It doesn't squeak, but it is irregularly shaped (kinda like me) and heavy (ditto) and bounces unpredictably when it lands (ditto again), so not the best toy for playing Fetch in the house.



He loves to play Fetch. Especially with the squeaky alligator.







Kiddo loves Teddy and thinks dogsitting is a fantabulous thing. Hubby loves the dog and has taken him running in the evenings after dinner. I love him because he makes me get out of the house and exercise, and because I look less crazy when I'm walking around and talking aloud since when he's there, I'm not talking to myself, I'm talking to the dog.



The crazy cat is the one member of the family who is not so fond of the dog. She's decided that avoidance is the best policy, along with sitting just out of reach and glaring a lot, plus major hissing whenever he gets too close. She's not peeing on anything other than her kitty litter yet, though, so that seems to be a good sign. (*knock wood*)

Teddy is not crazy. He's mellow, well behaved, doesn't bite or chew on things, doesn't bark much (except at the cat), doesn't seem to shed and is crate trained. He loves to just be where the people are. Even, it turns out, when where the people are is in the shower.

*


Being as near-sighted as I am, at first I thought I'd missed a spot while shaving near my ankles. Whew, close one.



I haven't been to the gym much this week, but I have been going for 2 or 3 long walks each day, along with lots of hurry up and pee so we can go back inside because it's dark and cold and drizzling and I'm freezing, shorter walks.



When we get a dog of our own (and that seems a foregone conclusion), it will be *after* we fence the back yard in so that doggy business can be conducted without the need for hurry up and pee so we can go back inside because it's dark and cold and drizzling and I'm freezing walks in the early mornings or later evenings. Also so Kiddo can play Fetch outdoors with the dog without worry of him spotting a squirrel and taking off for Parts Unknown.



Speaking of Fetch - gotta get back to it. For more Phriday Photo Phiesta Phun, be sure to drop by Candid Carrie's!


* About the shower: yes, I know it is hideous and horrible. The pink tile - ugh. The grey and pink tile floor - double ugh. The stained, grotty grout - quintuple ugh. Kindly just notice the cute dog and not the rest of it, mmmkay? Thanks.

Phriday Photo Phun Phiesta: Photos, the Next Generation

Wow, I've totally deserted my blog of late, sorry 'bout that. I have many excuses, truly I do. It appears I last posted on a Wordless Wednesday a week ago, and now here we are with a Phriday Photo Phun Phiesta. I would have phantabulous photos to share, if I hadn't had my excuse-laden week happen. (By the way, I'm totally about to plagarise myself from a comment I left over on the fantabulous Andy's blog. Oh, and she is having a giveaway right now so you might want to pop over there, but then again, *I* want to win the giveaway, so maybe never mind, not to mention then you'd see this next bit in its orginal context....) Anyhow, I’ve been hit with a double whammy this week, part one consisting of a massive allergy attack following my lawnmowing escapades of Monday afternoon, which resulted in two subsequent days of red, watery eyes, red, stuffed up, Rudolph-would-be-jealous nose and a permanent fog from massive doses of antihistamines that would only clear for a few brief seconds during “damn, I think I actually just sneezed my nose off” sneezing spells. Whammy Part Deux came the day before yesterday, when, coming off the heels of my allergy attack, I was at the gym and pulled something in my lower back. Well, okay, fine, I actually began to pull the something in the shower before going to the gym, when I dropped my little scrubby bath puff thingy and had to BEND ALL THE WAY OVER to retrieve it from the shower floor and my back said “BEND ALL THE WAY OVER? WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? SOMEONE YOUNG AND LIMBER? HAHAHAHAHAHA!” and twanged ominously. But, since hurting oneself at the gym at least sounds like one isn’t utterly pathetic and my back did twang ominously again while stepping down off the elliptical machine, I’m going with that. Annnnnnyhow, however it began, I pulled something in quite a painful way two days ago, and it got progressively worse as yesterday wore on, so I’ve been hobbling around slowly and heavily, all hunched over, for the past 24 hours, cursing myself for choosing to put the ibuprofen (along with all the other medicine-type things) waaaaaaay up on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet so Kiddo can’t get to them because, as I’m presently about 2/3 of my height, I can’t reach them either. Kiddo has proved useful in other ways, though, such as fetching me icepacks from the freezer…

"Wow!" you're no doubt thinking to yourself, "this blog post claimed to be full of Photo Phun and so far all I've read is Heather whinging on about her hunchbackedy sneeziness!" (Oh, and by the by, have you ever had a massive sneezing fit while suffering from extreme lower back pain? Ouch to the nth degree, let me tell you!) "Hmmm," you further are thinking, "When and where are these phun photos going to appear?"

Well, fear not, dear reader, because Kiddo has stepped up to the plate, pinch-hitting for her Rudolph-Hunchback mama. You see, Kiddo is a shutterbug in her own right, albeit one with a fairly lame, low-quality digital camera. Kiddo has been snapping pictures like mad all week, and since *she* took 286 photos this week to my 0 photos, she is going to be featured here today.

On with the show!

Here's proof that I am, in fact, Quasimodo:

Working hard on my computer, if by "hard" one means "playing Farm Town and Farkle on Facebook" .....



Sitting at the table, trying to read, eat breakfast and remain upright all at the same time:



(You'll note the abundance of wadded up tissues next to me in each shot above; sorry her camera isn't high-quality enough to capture the Rudolphian/W.C. Fields nose itself.)

As I was turning out to be quite a boring subject, Kiddo turned her camera to more exotic species of wildlife in the form of Chompy, one of the rabbits that frequents our yard. These were from Chompy's daily visit as taken out one of the office windows:







Once Chompy had ventured on to yards beyond our own, Kiddo found herself another model. This is Buster, a member of her Stuffed Animal Entourage...

Posing on top of a TV tray,



on top of my rapidly dwindling supply of Puffs Plus in my office,



on a placemat on the dining room table,



and in EXTREME CLOSE-UP!



Kiddo also took many self portraits.... This one's my favorite.



So, there you have it. Photo Phun courtesy of the Next Generation Shutterbug in my house! Hoping you are all having a much more upright kinda Phriday, and for more Photo Phun, pop on over to Candid Carrie's!

Phriday Photo Phun - Phabulous Photographer Phriends

My brain is liberally coated in pink paint this week, as are the walls of Kiddo's bedroom. (One more coat to go up - today! - and then the painting in there is done and we're more than 75% of the way to achieving Kiddo's dream bedroom theme: The Pink Safari. The safari animal photo decals Hubby ordered for her room will have to wait a few weeks until the paint has sufficiently cured before Kiddo can stick them up...) While rose-colored glasses might be a great thing, too many coats of primer, trim and pink paint make one's brain woozy and unable to render a decent photograph. So, I am going to take this opportunity to share some older photographs that are just spectacular with you now, instead.


Like these:


©



©


©



Aren't they amazing? No, I'm not tooting my own horn here, as I am not the talented photographer who took the above shots. That woman would be my former high school chemistry teacher, Susan M. Neider. I recently reconnected with Sue (hmmm, feels a bit funny to call her anything other than "Miss Neider" even after all these years!) thanks to the wonders of Facebook and discovered that since leaving the high school chem classroom, she has gone on to take many, many wonderful photographs and has several books of her work published. I've been ooohing and aaahing over the different pictures she's been posting to her Facebook page for weeks now (she's doing an incredible series of flowers at the moment) and I decided that I wanted to share her work with you. (And no, by the way, this isn't some sort of 20+ years too late, making-it-up-to-her-for-being-a-less-than-stellar-chem-student thing, either.) (Not that I was a stellar chem student, mind you, because I wasn't, but that had nothing to do with her talents as a teacher - she was one of my favorites! - and more to do with my little, pea brain's utter inability to distinguish between all those pesky electrons and protons and atomic masses and bonds and such. It was much too busy daydreaming and distinguishing between the nuances of the various Duran Duran and aha songs back then, or mooning over lines of poetry...)


So, I asked Miss Neider Sue if she'd mind lending me some of her photographs for my Phriday Photo Phun, and she graciously obliged and lent me pictures like this:


©


She also takes really cool close-up shots, like these:


©


(That's eucalyptus up there. Isn't that cool?)


©

(See the teeny, tiny bird footprint in the middle? How cool is that?)


She also does stunning black and white photographs, like this one of Old Faithful:


©


Miss Neider Sue took a black and white picture of me once, too - she did all the "formal" photographs at my junior prom - but I don't think you can use the word "stunning" in the same phrase as "1980s, New Jersey prom fashions" and not be immediately struck by lightning, so I will reserve it for the geyser above and not the geyser that was my bangs in the mid-late 80s. (I think I still might have that picture someplace, but it isn't anywhere I can locate and furthermore, we haven't unpacked the scanner yet anyhow. You'll have to use your imagination and picture the big hair, big make-up, and Gone With the Windesque, pale pink polyester brocade, leg of mutton sleeved dress on your own. Trust me, whatever picture you have in your head right now? Not as bad as my total look was that night...)


I should note that all of the pictures above in this post are copyrighted images and are only being used with the photographer's permission. However, if you want some of them for yourself, you can just click here for a list of all Sue's books currently available on Amazon, where the pictures in this post can be found, along with many others. (They also might be available at your local library; her titles came up in a quick search I just did of ours...)


While I'm on the subject of Phabulous Photographer Phriends, I would also like to direct your attention to this blog right here. This is my friend Donny's blog. Donny is currently at the Naval Academy and will be serving in the Navy when he graduates. He also is a very talented musician, generous and kind soul and all around good guy. (And I'm not just saying this because I had a delightful lunch with his mom yesterday, either. Or because his younger brother was th owner of one of the strong backs and pair of willing arms who helped us move all our stuff out of our old house and into the new one back in May. Or because I sang in the choir with his mom and dad.) Now, Donny's busy doing Naval Academy type things right now (he's teaching sailing to the plebes) (doesn't that sound all cool? I don't think I can quite pull it off, but I got that as a direct quote from his Facebook status, so it's legit whether or not I can pull it off successfully) (and besides, my dad was in the Navy on an aircraft carrier himself back in the day, so I guess that gives me the familial coolness needed to say "plebes" though I would've mispronounced it had I not heard his mom say it out loud yesterday...)(not that you'd be able to tell I was mispronouncing it from reading it anyhow, right?) Annnnnnyhow, one of Donny's many talents is photography, and he started this blog for his pictures. While he doesn't update it often enough for my personal taste (something about, y'know, doing Navy things and teaching plebes and serving his country and such), you guys have likely not seen any of his pictures yet, so they'll all be new to you. Doesn't he have a great eye? My favorite of all the photos on his blog is the one of the elephant from the San Diego Zoo post - I would totally frame that and hang it on my wall, loving elephants the way I do. The other animal shots, like the gator and the camel, are great too - I love how he captures the personality of the animals - or is that animality? Well, you know what I mean. Told you my brain is fried after this past week of major home wall renovations. Oh, and for the record? I really, really hate wallpaper.


Okay, I shall leave you with one last picture. This one is one I actually took, even, back when my brain was only marinating in one layer of primer and several gallons of wallpaper removal solution. An action shot of Kiddo when she was out "scootering" in the neighborhood earlier this week:





She was doing one of her self-styled "Famous Tricks" at the time, and somehow miraculously still didn't end up with bloody knees or palms. Whew. That was my favorite part of the trick!


Okay, back to painting the Pink Safari I go! TGIF and for more Phriday Photo Phun, be sure to swing by Candid Carrie's!

Phriday Photo Phun - Love is in the Air

So, we're moving. (And there was much rejoicing.) Thursday, to be specific. This means that today was the last spring Friday morning Hubby and I will be awakened by the sounds of, to put it delicately, extremely amorous waterfowl on the pond behind our property.

Now, over the past nine and a half years we have very much enjoyed the view out of the back of our house. It contains a small pond with a copse on the other side, so we have seen many different forms of wildlife throughout the years. Deer, rabbits, foxes, groundhogs, beavers, snakes, frogs, toads and all manner of birds from geese, ducks and gulls to more exotic looking herons. You name it and chances are if it is a native species or a migrating species that passes through western NY, it's been out back at some point. It's downright bucolic.

Except, that is, when it is spring and love is in the air. Love, that gets downright loud, especially in the wee, small hours of the early morning. Love that can easily awaken one from an already fitful sleep (due to, of course, the utter Freaking Out Levels of stress about the upcoming move). It is moments such as these when I can look forward to our upcoming new backyard view, that includes the back of someone else's property and nary a pond or woods full of breeding wildlife to be found.

In case you think I'm kidding, I submit the following photograph of one of the trees in our yard, snapped on my walk back up to the house (the last time I'll take Kiddo to the bus stop on a Friday morning in this neighborhood!) about 20 minutes ago................

Birds do it, bees do it, and apparently even sometimes snails do it...

Let's hope the new neighbors aren't exhibitionists... though that would certainly make for some good Phriday Photo Phun pics though, now wouldn't it? The kind that are more of the sort that certain Google searches seem to be seeking when they drop by my corner of the blogosphere, rather than a pair of smooching snails. Bow-chicka-wow-wow!!

Wanna check out more Photo Phun, or play along? Pop by Candid Carrie's weekly Phriday Photo Phiesta!

Also, please drop by my dear bloggy friend Em's Comments For Cans post sometime today, leave her some commenty love and force her to drive over to donate the cans of food she's promised to buy with the tail end of her SUV positively dragging on the pavement behind her!!

Bonus Phriday Photo Phun - KGW edition!

Yep, it's officially the start of Spring Break for us. Also known as Kindergartners Gone Wild!

As evidence, I give you my own Wild Child, recently returned home from Caribbean Beach Day at her elementary school, rocking out to her Boyz in the Sink CD in her room:













Oh yeah, it's kuh-RAZY up in here! We will be road-tripping for the first half of Spring Break, not to some southern, sunny, sandy shore someplace, but rather to NJ, where we will be hanging out with my side of the family. Hubby isn't coming along, as he has to golf work and all, so it will be a Smith Chicks Road Trip starting bright and early Sunday morning.

Right now, though, Hubby's out on the deck manning the grill and I'm sitting here with all the windows open and the sun still shining in and we're thinking after dinner, we may head up to the beach for the first Abbott's of the season. (Oh yes, Abbott's is the best stuff on Earth as far as "frozen dessert treats" go. Well, Del's Frozen Lemonade is pretty good stuff, too, but we only had access to that when we were living in New England, and Abbott's is a hometown treat for us now.)

If you too are Spring Breaking this week, hope you have a great time, and wherever you are, I hope you are having as lovely a day as we are in our corner of the world! (Except for you, Em, what with your rain, hail and tornado warnings, etc... I just hope you have good weather watching but nothing dangerous going down!)