guess the artist

the kids painted today, and as always, i love how you can see their different personalities coming through in their artwork!

recreating the beach

i haven't gotten all of the pictures from our vacation off of austin's laptop yet, but i do have some. this is just one of the 800 or so i need to look through eventually. lyra absolutely adored the ocean, and to my surprise didn't actually eat much of the sand.
despite half of our days being rainy and cold, and the unexpected few days of coughing, burning eyes and onslaught of dead fish (courtesy of the red tide), we had a wonderful time. sitting on the beach, my toes buried in the warm sand, watching my children play for hours, never getting bored, listening to the waves crash endlessly, i felt such calm and peace. with 3 little ones and a frequently out of town husband i tend to get overwhelmed and over stressed easily. i haven't reached that level of calm in a long time.

since coming home i've tried to think about the things that made life so much more peaceful there, and find small ways to bring it back.
one- less internet time. i really don't need to care what everyone else in the world is doing all the time. my kids are here, they're amazing and need me now.
two- less STUFF. the simplicity of the beach house kept a state of calm i want to recreate. i have begun to purge excess toys and junk. i was able to keep the beach house clean and organized, and it never felt like the mild hum of chaos that our lives here inevitably turn in to. i have to fight my own overwhelming desire for more and more stuff though. i am always fighting with two strong desires within myself. one, a life of self sustained simplicity, and the other for things- pretty things, shiny things, things i didn't get growing up. my goal is to find a way to live in harmony with a few nice things and lessen my desire for more. and i really hope i can help instill this in my children as i learn it myself.
three- less obligations and wasted time, time spent running around, filling our days with stuff that doesn't matter. doing more by doing less. just going outside and chilling, exploring and relaxing, versus planned activities that entail me loading up three kids, getting frustrated, griping because we're late. i'm tired of getting frustrated and angry at my babies, about stuff that in the end doesn't matter.

i am by nature, NOT an organized person. but i also shut down in chaos. so, in order for me to keep my house clean, and keep up with the children and their needs, and still be the kind of person and mother i want to be, i need to simplify. i need to recreate the beach, here at home.

summer's bounty

i am so thrilled that we finally have a freezer and a vaccuum sealer! i spent yesterday washing, cutting, freezing and sealing up ripe fruits for the winter. it makes so much more sense (ecologically and economically) to get things in season and save them, rather than pay higher prices for fruit to be shipped halfway across the world during the winter here. so far i've done strawberries, blueberries, peaches and raspberries. next in line are 8 mangos. they're not quite ripe enough yet.

my first photoshoot!

i think everyone knows how much i love to capture just about every moment of my own family's lives with my camera, but i had the chance today to take portraits for a friend. it was a challenge, but so much fun and i hope she and her family and happy with the results. the full photoshoot can be seen on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/23644519@N02/sets/72157621264255195/

isn't she beautiful?

and her children are simply gorgeous!

fun photo session with the kids

i finally got my 50mm lens this week! i took the kids and my knowledgeable friend daniel, along with the new lens, down to the downtown square area for some pics today. considering it was high noon, these turned out really well! the kids had a blast too :)
the rest can be seen on my flickr page http://www.flickr.com/photos/23644519@N02/sets/72157619016867034/

Happy Easter!

Archer's 5 year portraits continued :)