ladykatza

I have always been interested in photography. It started right about the time I realized I’d never been anything more than mediocre at drawing. I mean, sure I could practice and practice, but it would still leave me at sub-standard skill levels. So, I turned to the camera. However, in my very ADD way, and the expense of developing film, I never stuck with it. That and I could never really get into whatever it was I was photographing. It always left me feeling the way you do after eating one of those “diet” snack cakes. You know, that almost-but-not-quite satisfied craving?

So years go by, I get older, I have kids. Digital cameras and photoshop come along. First it just starts out as a casual thing, then I realize. I really LIKE photographing my children. They are interesting and willing subjects, full of that spark of life. They are unconcerned about how they look, or being to old, or too fat. They just ARE, and so are fun.

Now, I’m not out to make a living doing this, or become famous, or any of that. I just want something that is more interesting that random snapshots or posed pictures. Sometimes, however, I see something and think “YES, that’s it” and I try to rope the kids into cooperating with that vision. Take the High Museum trip this past Saturday. My ability to take pictures was limited, and most of it was quite boring. In particular, I always thought modern art exhibits to be *YAWN*, but looking at them though the eyes of my children became a very different experience. Now I had my camera out. My use of flash and such was very limited, so I played a bit with the pictures in photoshop and while they aren’t prize winners, they certainly capture the character of the children. Which, in reality, is the whole point. Its all subjective, right?

And in case you are interested, here are a few:

Simon and Felicity are playing with their new foam swords they got from Christmas. After a while Felicity puts on this really pretty coat I found at the thrift store and says “Simon, this jacket makes it harder to hit me.”

Simon responds with “Oh yeah, well my sword gives me +200 health and regenerate”.

*WHACK WHACK WHACK*

“Oh yeah! Well my jacket gives me regenerate TOO!” says Felicity.

“Stop playing Calvin ball Felicity!” yells Simon.

*sighs*

Simon has had a loose tooth for some time now and would not let anyone touch it. When we picked him up from school today his tooth was finally missing. The following conversation ensued.

Me: Simon! Where’s your tooth?
*he points to his belly*
Daecon: Its in your underwear?
Simon: NO! Its in my stomach!
Me: You swallowed your tooth!
Simon: Yes, but I survived!

Its been beautiful out lately. Barely into the 80’s (farennheit, for you foreign folk) and sunny with light breezes. I hadn’t felt up to going out and enjoying the weather lately. But today just felt like a good day to do so. There’s a new place still being built a few miles away. They have the most amazing playground, lots of walking paths, HUGE fields and they are even building a skate park and a doggy park. And something for frisbee golf. But having two small ones, its the playground we were after. Also, I’ve been experimenting with my photography. I’m working with a lower end digital but I still manage to come up with some cute photos.

Here are a few.

Bouncy Bridge

Spiderwebbing monkey ropes. Why didn’t we have anything this cool as kids?

The pseudo rock wall.

Felicity LOVES to pose.

And of course, brother and sister together. I had to snap it quick, they could barely sit still.

It was a lot of fun, though the other parents were looking at me funny as I climbed up, over, and under everything to try and get the good shots. The other kids kept jumping in front wanting me to take their picture too. I find a lot of kids are natural hams. There were a few that I snapped, some of a little boy that were just so awesome I asked the mom for her email instead of deleting them. Told her to email me and I’d send them along. We left right as things were getting really crowded and went to pick up costuming materials for Felicity. Simon wants to be a werewolf so I’m going to work with a friend who does full body suits for a living. Nothing like what he charges several thousand dollars for, though! No, just something easy and simple for one Halloween night. (Its www.lionofthesun.com if you want to look him up)

The title, you may be wondering? Well, its what Simon’s teacher said about him. This is for several reasons. The one that I’m very proud of him for was what he did for a little girl on the playground. The way it was told to me, she had gone to kick a ball, missed and fell on her back. This knocked the breath out of her and Simon, upon seeing this, rushed to her side and held her hand to tell her she would be OK. He then stayed with her until she was able to get up and a teacher came to help.

I told him that I was very proud of him for being a wonderful human being.

We had an opportunity fall into our laps last week and jumped on it. A friend of ours has a family vacation home on Jekyll Island. He wanted to go down there this year with his girlfriend and needed a ride, so asked if we would like to go. Kids welcome, its a big house. Sure! So I did some last minute negotiations with coworkers to get the time I needed. I also decided to spend some money on a camera. Its not exactly what I wanted, but it will suffice. I was very glad to have it with me.

I was picked up from work on Monday and we headed straight down. Its a six hour drive and only an hour into it the kids started asking “When are we going to get there?”.

“When the sun goes down. Stop asking when we’ll be there.” Only a few minutes later Felicity pipes up and asks “When will the sun go down?”.

*facepalm* Obey the letter of the law, not the intent, I guess. We got there with no trouble and the house itself was like a time capsule out of the 70’s. Wooden paneled walls, yellow shag carpet, the same decorative copper form pans that I’ve seen on the kitchen wall of every woman I know over the age of 55. Even some of the medicine in the cabinets was 30 years old. It was… weird. Turns out this was their grandfather’s retirement house. Makes more sense. OH, the upstairs had a library and one whole wall was nothing but cookbooks. I kinda drooled.

But! We went to the beach the next day. The kids swam, and built sand castles and collected shells. They hammed it up for the camera, too.

We also went exploring off the island for some place selling seafood. We ended up in a place called Darian and we drove down to this off the path dock that was lined up with shrimp boats. I found out from one gentleman there that there was no seafood to be had because all the boats were in port because of gas prices. He did recommend a city market close by because some of the big money boats were still running and saving part of their catch for the locals. Got to love inside info! I had to take pictures of the boats though, because the rebel flag and the names just struck me as interesting.

Check out the name:

And here’s a gratuitous photo of me and the kids.

Note the bridges in the background. The short one was an old drawbridge that was retired for a taller one. The energy required for the drawbridge turned out to be too much.

I have lots more photos and stories. I will post more of those tonight.

So we’re driving back from the movie and Felicity says in her most IMPERIOUS voice “Get that sun out of my eyes!”

Daecon and I just look at each other with a great deal of mirth and he says “Well, you heard her, set already!”.

“Crabs look like face huggers”

I’ve been putting vegetables in the ground. Well, not veggies themselves but plants that spring forth edibles at some point in the future. Hopefully they will grow and we will feast of fresh things.

I got distracted from planting however. My back told me “NO MORE” and when it talks, I pretty much have to listen. So we went out front to water the flowers. WE being myself and Felicity. She spotted a butterfly again. Again, I found myself crawling through leaves, sticks, and braving bugs to get pictures.

The first ones are from this morning, obviously still sluggish from the cool night.

Then after the planting there were flowers and little girls.

And Felicity hunts for more butterflies.

Current Mood:  sore

“Little girls and butterflies need no excuses.” - Robert H. Heinlein

Felicity has just learned to ride her bicycle, without training wheels. This being the case she has been riding her bike as often as possible. She was out front this morning riding around and discovered a butterfly on the neighbors car. I had been talking to Mom and Dad on my cell when she came running up with one wing in her hand, although very carefully. It sort of flew out of her hand and I told her to not touch the wings this time, so she picked it up very carefully and brought it to the mailbox.

I decided I wanted a picture of this butterfly and had her run inside and get my camera. All this while still talking to my Mom. Then I handed the phone over to Felicity and proceeded to take pictures. I was on hands and elbows in the grass trying to get a good picture. Later on I realized this must have been quite a site for the neighbors, this crazy lady in the grass with her ass in the air taking pictures of a butterfly. But really, I don’t care.

(LJ people may need to click the link to my site to see the pictures)

And some bulbs I planted last year came up this year. I thought they had failed completely so this made me very happy.

Oh yeah, Felicity on her bike. :)

Current Mood:  pleased

Current Music: conference meeting

Current Mood: giggles

I was in the process of cooking dinner for the hungry masses the other day when Felicity walks in, puts hand on hip and says:

“Why is my mouth talking to you instead of eating?”

At this moment I didn’t know whether to laugh or spank her. I opted for explaining how very RUDE that was and that she could go to her room until dinner was ready. Upon her getting upstairs and closing the door I just laughed and laughed and laughed.

Current Mood:  amused

Current Music: Confusion - New Order

*the sound of stampeding children through the house*

me: NO SWORDPLAY IN THE HOUSE!
kids: but we’re fighting ZOMBIES!!
me: fine, there’s more outside. we’ll keep the house secure.
kids: OK, come on, lets go defend the fort!

Current Mood:  pleased

Felicity came into the room yesterday with one of their play outfits which consisted of a helmet, shield and short sword (regular size on her) and panties. that’s it.

she said “I’m a footman!”

my roommate pointed out that she was wearing more than most gladiators would have.

Current Mood:  amused

I’m going to try and relay kid stories. The most recent one was involving the PS2 and a VS. game called Bushido Blade. It was made for the playstation, so controls are clunky. Simon and Felicity were trying to play each other, but daecon decided to help Felicity a bit. Simon had his rear end handed to him on a platter and understandably let out a rather loud “AW MAN!”.

At which point felicity says in her cute little voice: “Nice try, BIG BOY!”

for his birthday we got simon a beta. he wanted to get a pet with all this birthday money he raked in, and while turtles were cool, i convinced him a fish would be cooler. so a little mini-tank and a beta is what we got him. we’ve done a lot to keep that fish alive the past several months, but felicity deciding that she wanted to play with him and using old paper cups with toothpaste in them to put water back into his tank…well, he didn’t survive it. to be honest, i don’t think he was healthy to begin with.
now, i had wanted to make an object lesson out of this for felicity, but daecon pointed out that he didn’t want this to be a point of contention between our two children. household tranquility and all that, so ya, i had to agree with that point.

*que mission impossible theme music*

as it should just so happen, grandma had come to pick up the kids to spend the night. the petstore is open for another hour and a half. yippee! my roommate and i head over to get us Mr. Cool Duce. i found one close enough in colouring to the first one and we cleaned out the tank, and upgraded to real plants. Mr. Cool (the name of the original one beta) is now Duce, the replacement. my roommate suggested telling simon that Mr. Cool was selected by secret agents to go and save the world and Duce was selected as a stand-in so simon wouldn’t get lonely. that is, if he notices the switch. sometimes the kids are observant about these things, and sometimes they aren’t. we’ll see.

Current Mood:  devious

So Simon decided that Brian had to make chocolate soup for everyone the other day. He explained that it had the following ingredients.

Salt
Pepper
Meat (bird meat)
a small rock
a jellyfish (cause that makes it taste good)
small piece of chocolate

Current Mood:  okay

simon: mummy’s are skeletons made out of toilet paper.

Current Mood: perplexed

simon: um.. elizabeth. i have a chore for you!
me: what’s that simon?
simon(with some authority): you need to pick up all the clothes
me: what clothes?
simon: all the clothes on the floor in your room!
me: oh ya? and what about your room with all its clothes?
simon: you need to pick those up too.

Current Mood:  amused

so driving home from grandmother’s house i hear from the back seat: “mah ha ha ha ha”

and then a few minutes later, with a little deeper voice and finesse “Mua ha ha haaaa”

suddenly i realize what that my daughter is practicing her maniacal laughter. finally she gets a REALLY good rendention out, and its followed by a squeal and clapping on her part. “YAY!!!” she says.

i swear, i am not responsible for this.

Current Mood:  amused