Wishes

"Mommy, when you grow another baby, it will be a boy." "Umm, no. I don't think we need another baby." "Yeah, one is enough." "Yes, one is enough." "I don't have any brothers." "No, you have three sisters." "Mommy, I would like there to be more boys than girls in our family. Can you do that?" "Not easily. That would mean we would need to have three more boys." "Okay." Pause... "How long will that take?"

Annalise's Angels

Again, time has gotten away from me

It's been almost 10 days since my last post and my Google stats are showing me that I haven't posted b/c no one is reading. (Not a lot of commenters on this site either, but a fair number of readers. Interesting. How am I ever going to get to be a Top Momma? Ok, to be fair I haven't actually put a link in there so whatever.) Sorry for all the time off. We briefly debated listing our house to sell and that involved a lot of cleaning, moving, storing, swearing, painting and tiling. We are still tiling, we are done painting, I'm not cleaning anymore b/c we aren't listing it and I'm tired. Painting with four kids in the house is a challenge, especially when your painter is helpful and leaves gallons of paint lying around the living room with no lid. His thought: it's behind the sofa, they won't see it. Their thought: What's behind the sofa with no lid on it that might make mom make a frantic phone call to dad? Result Mom: Oh my God! I'm panicking, what do I do? A gallon of primer is spilled behind the sofa! Dad: Use paper towels! Mom: It's a lot of primer! Dad: Use a lot of paper towels! Anyway, it all turned out ok b/c it stayed on the hardwood and thankfully I found a bunch of regular towels. We'll just leave that sofa there for whomever buys the house whenever we list it. Nice house karma. Blah. Also I've decided to focus, again, on the photography only this time with an expanded offering of helping folks put their existing pictures into DVDs, calendars and other things. I've been doing this for us for about four years and thought that maybe parents, and particularly grandparents, might like a little help putting these things together. Here's an example of what I did for us last Christmas (2006, pre-Jolie):

If you think of anyone who might be interested, feel free to contact me.

Pictures and parks

Still trying to take pictures more often. The weather here has been fantastic, for May, much less January. We've been able to get outside more often which means less time for me to be mercilessly pounded by my son in Cow Catcher (it's a Wii thing, don't ask) but also means I can take pictures when Eddie lets me. All of the kids run from me when they see the camera. Bugger. I'm still using the same software that I liked (RapidWeaver) to publish the blog, but they don't natively have a great photoblogging tool. I don't have a ton of time to figure out how to do it manually, nor do I have the energy to be witty in this post so let me just close by saying there are new pictures on the blog. Hopefully one day I'll set up a feed, and I'll note here automatically when a new pic is up on the blog. Until then, I'll just let ya'll know.

Check out the new photoblog

I'm trying to take photographs more often. I'm also trying to not make them all about the kids. That is not evident here. It's A Duck Photoblog.

I also got a new lens for Christmas. A Canon 28-105 mm f/3.5 and let me tell you it is a fabulous little addition to my kit. I used to get so frustrated with my other lenses because they just weren't fast enough to catch the kids if they moved even a little. All but the first two pictures here were taken with this lens, inside, at night with little natural light. These shots look so much better than they would have with my old (read: cheap) lenses. This little beauty wasn't that expensive, relatively speaking, but it's made a huge difference (I think) in the qualities of my pictures.

Oh, and here's a fun little tidbit. Today Eddie decided he wanted me to make a cake. I don't know why. It's not like we bake here on a regular basis (like ever), but nevertheless we baked a cake. They were told they could have some cake after dinner if they ate their dinner. Anna did not eat her dinner. She informed me that she didn't want to eat cake because if you eat cake you get a big tummy like Mila. Christ. Oh, and where did she get that concept? It's not like we walk around saying if you eat food like that you get fat. We say it's not healthy, sure, but certainly not that you get fat. Or that Mila's fat.

Anna has a hard time with her alphabet. But damned if she hasn't figured out the more complex relationships between chocolate cake and childhood obesity. Great.

Mila stalks Jolie

Mila Stalks Jolie from alex on Vimeo.