Showing posts with label family pictures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family pictures. Show all posts

1.26.2015

Pictures of our new home from our toddler's point of view

You know those times when you can't find your phone anywhere, and then you find it on the floor somewhere face up? If you have a toddler, once you get over the relief that the screen isn't cracked (or worse), you immediately check the photo stream because . . .well, toddlers.

Recently, I discovered that Edgie had taken roughly 200 photos in one afternoon on my phone. Once I deleted all the blurry and repeated pictures, I started to enjoy looking at the rest. He was obviously walking around the house just clicking away. It was really interesting to see his point of view for a change. I thought I would share it with you. I didn't edit any of the pictures because I really wanted to keep the artistic integrity of his work.



Oh, who am I kidding? I'm lazy.

Let me introduce you to the photographer, three-year-old Edgie:



His hair looks so much better now that he let the barber cut it. The lice he contracted at preschool really did the trick: "You don't want to get bugs in your hair again, do you Edgie?"

This is our entry from his perspective. It really isn't this big, but from his POV it looks huge! Notice the sliding barn door on the den. I reeeaalllly wanted that design element, and I'm so glad we could work it in.



You don't necessarily notice all the color variations on the floor unless you're a toddler with a camera pointed right at it. All the shades of the wood allowed us to decorate with many different tones and colors.



One place we played with different colors and stains was our kitchen. Hubby actually chose all the design elements here. He loved the look of off-white cabinets and a dark island. We liked the look of stainless steel appliances, but not of the fingerprints left behind. Ours have a granite-colored finish.



The best part of the kitchen is behind those double doors in the corner - a huge pantry. So much storage for snacks (which makes a happy Hubby and boys) and for all of my fun serving dishes that I use maybe once a year.

Here's our granite. Can you see it? It's actually the opposite of how it looks here. It's a creamy white with dark flecks.



Isn't it interesting how it changes when you put your face right on it? Toddlers have long known about this trick.

Stairs from a toddler's perspective. Toddlers have also long known how scary stairs are.



When the house was being built, they were putting in this lighting on the stairs. I thought it was an unnecessary expense. Now that we're in the house, it love these! We turn them on at night for our two nocturnal wanderers. I actually fell down the last two steps one night when they weren't on. They really help!



We needed a new time-out spot. Here's the view from the new one.



We have a lot of natural light from the three huge windows in the great room. I really like it. We don't have blinds yet. I thought that would really bother me, but we have no neighbors behind or on either side of us.



Unfortunately, this is our view . . .



 . . .because we have no grass either. It makes for a dirty, muddy mess everywhere. Luckily we have boys because they totally don't mind.

And here is the view from the photographer's bed when he gets tired.



Mommy is going to have to work on getting him to fall asleep by himself. That way we won't have to turn on the stairway lights for him when he wakes up in the middle of the night and Mommy is not there. But that's a blog post for another time (and not the first).

I gave myself the unrealistic timeline of having all the boxes unpacked and put away by February 1st. I realize now how ridiculous that is. It took me about nine months to pack it all up. It should take me at least half that long to unpack and organize.

Stay tuned in February when my decorator stops by and we share some tips. The grass and landscaping are coming in the spring, and I can't wait to show you that, too.



What is your favorite design element in new homes?



4.01.2013

Want a Free Photo Book? Thanks to Groovebook and kissing the frog, it's Easy!

If you're anything like me - and well, millions of other people - you take most of your pictures these days with your smart phone or mobile device. It's just so easy to capture life's best moments on the fly without having to lug a camera around.

 
My problem becomes how to get these pictures printed in an easy way. I am constantly sending them to myself, then downloading them from e-mail, then sending them to an online site for ordering from there.
 
But then, a solution started following me on Twitter one day. It was something called Groovebook, and just as I do any new Twitter follower, I went to check them out.
 
Let's just say after stalking them on Facebook and their website for a little while, I'm a huge fan now.
 
How does it work? Groovebook is a free app that lets you choose up to 100 photos from your camera roll to put into a beautiful 4.5" x 6.5" free photo book and mails it to you monthly.

Your photos are printed on glossy photo paper and perforated for easy removal. That means you can share, frame, decorate, scrapbook and more. All this is free - just $2.99 each month for shipping and processing!


 

What I love even more is that the date and time are stamped next to every photo, and many have the location as well. Great for an anal, left-brained person like me who spends lots of time labeling her photos. Goovebook does it for me!

 
 
And it's so easy to use! Watch this YouTube video and see for yourself. As you can see, it's easy to choose and upload your photos, and the app even reminds you when it's time to choose more!
 
Just $2.99 entitles you to a 100-page keepsake photo book every month (this is a subscription cost, however you can cancel at any time). They will never use your photos without your knowledge or permission, and their representatives on Facebook answer any user questions quickly and pleasantly (I know this because I stalked them, remember?).
 
If I can use this app, anyone can!
 
It took about 12 minutes for my photos to load, so obviously this is something you could do while waiting to pick up kids from school, waiting at a dance class or ball practice, or just watching one of your favorite shows. I like that I can cancel anytime if I want to, although with the amount of pictures I take and the option to order more than one of any photo, I doubt I'll make it completely through my photo stream any time soon. Your first photo book has to be 100 photos, but after that, you have the option to download less.
 
The photo quality depended on the quality of the photos I took, frankly. This forced me to go through my photo stream and delete all the blurred and fuzzy shots. Basically, if it looks good on your photo stream, it's going to look great in your Groovebook.
 
And do you know what the best part of this is? YOU get to try it for FREE!! All you have to do is enter KISSINGTHEGROOVE into the "coupon code" section of the billing information for your account and the first month's $2.99 charge for shipping is FREE. This is risk free - you don't have to continue after the first month if you don't like it, although I personally don't see why you wouldn't.
 
Search for Groovebook on your mobile device or go to their website to get started. Don't forget to enter KISSINGTHEGROVE for your first book free.
 
I promise, you won't be sorry you tried it!
 
 
 
*I am being compensated for this post, but all the opinions are my own.
 

 

12.09.2012

Pictures Can Lie

I'm so unenthused about sending out holiday cards. I have been since 2009. Actually, it's been a lot longer than that.

When I was single, I would dread getting holiday cards. I would open the envelopes and be greeted by a baby picture, adorably coiffed little toddlers, or an entire family smiling back at me.

And even though I rolled my eyes, I wanted nothing more than to be able to send out one of those cards. A card with a happy, smiling family. The names and ages of all the sweet little children listed along the bottom. Perfect card, perfect family.

But, ha ha, the joke was on me. Even when I had a family, it was far from perfect.

And not until Joey was sick did we finally have one of "those" cards to send.

I remember the debacle of trying to take a photo for our holiday card the first year we had kids. We were living on Long Island and had no idea where to go for pictures, so we decided to take our own. Hubby and I were each holding a squirmy eleven-month-old baby. I put the camera on auto and kept running back and forth to reset it. The babies wouldn't smile, it was blurry for some reason, and we all had red eye. I ended up just taking a cute picture of the babies in Christmas jammies, and Hubby thought of a funny holiday letter "top ten" a la David Letterman.

The next year, with three babies under the age of two, we made an appointment to have a professional photo taken. The photographer actually wanted 23-month-old Joey to hold 4-month-old Knox on his lap for the photo. Hubby and I stood just outside the frame with our arms outstretched ready to catch the baby should Joey drop him. Needless to say, we didn't get a picture that year. In fact, I don't think I even sent a card that year.

The next few years, as December approached, I would try to corral all the boys for a cute candid shot I could make into a card. I'd seen it for years on other people's cards. Remember the smiling, happy families? They'd be posed somewhere on vacation or at a pumpkin patch or in front of a Christmas display or cutely tangled in Christmas lights with Santa hats on.

All I ever got were blurry photos with someone either not looking at the camera, not smiling, or walking out of the frame.

When I started paying for professional photos of the boys, they turned out a little better, but all the photos were the same - all the little boys in a row sitting cross legged on the floor in front of a white background. Cute, but not very original.

Hubby and I never really cared to be in the pictures; therefore, we had no family pictures of us.

That is, until we found out Joey was dying. Then we scrambled to set up a photo session.

And ironically, I finally had my perfect candid shot of what appeared to be a perfect family:



This picture lies. It shows a darling, happy, vibrant family, not a family who knows they will have to come to grips with losing one of their own. You wouldn't know that beautiful child in the middle was just given a death sentence.

The next year, after Joey's death, the last thing I wanted to do was send out Christmas cards. I had always signed each of our names on every card:

Love, Kathy, Hubby, Joey, Slim, Knox, and Lil' C.

How could I send out a picture and not sign all of our names? A picture that didn't include Joey because he was gone?

I didn't know if I was ever going to feel like sending out a Christmas card ever again.

But then, someone else showed up, and things changed. Suddenly, last year, we had a new baby. So I sent out a card with a picture we had taken ourselves.





Except for the mama's sad looking eyes in this picture, everyone looks happy. Although, I couldn't stop staring at the empty spot over my left shoulder thinking someone should be there. So I left all of our names off and signed it simply from The Frog Family.

This year, we decided it was time again for a nice family picture. I put off scheduling it, though. The certificate for the session was about to expire. We had to do it soon. I told the photographer about our situation. About missing someone from our family. She gave me an idea of how everyone could be in the picture together, even Joey and the new baby. Hubby wasn't so sure about it.

But then we saw the result:


For once, the picture doesn't lie. It shows a family. A happy family. But not a perfect family. A family who is missing someone. Someone who should be filling that space over my left shoulder.

Instead, he's filling that space in our hearts.

I signed all of our names: Kathy, Hubby, Slim, Knox, Lil' C, and Baby E. The photographer asked if I wanted to include Joey's name. I said we didn't need to.

The picture tells his story. The picture doesn't lie.








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