MomShots

Over the past few weeks, through my kitchen window, I have been watching my neighbor’s little maple tree turn from lush green to vibrant yellow and then slowly turn crimson.  It was been really a magnificent journey.  Each day the beautiful colors would make me catch my breath.  They were so vivid and were a true testament that Autumn is here.   One day I noticed that a few leaves were falling off of it.  As the day progressed, I noticed that it wasn’t just a few leaves, it was as if the tree had decided to just let go of its leaves and they were falling in bunches; hordes even.  I am now looking at a naked tree.  From Friday to Monday, all the leaves have fallen and November has begun.  A new season is truly here.

I am a bit disappointed with myself.  I thought over and over again that I should take some photos.  Not once did I do that.  I always had an excuse.  My main excuse was that it wasn’t a very good composition with the fence in the way.  Now I have missed my chance.  Yeah, sure I might be able to try again next year, but in reality it won’t be the same tree.  Even if we weren’t moving in a month, the tree would be different, more grown and older.  

I have these same thoughts about my kids.  Oh, I don’t want to get the camera out right now, I’m (insert lame excuse here).  We have to just get out the camera and shoot away or we will miss these precious moments forever.  

Each turning season reminds me that my children are getting older.  This Halloween I was reminded of that by thinking about what they had dressed as in past years.  This year we had an Indiana Jones and a Wall-e.  I am remiss to report that I didn’t dress Magnus up.  He was going to be a sailor but I didn’t do it.  How’s that for letting time pass?  I didn’t even give him the chance to be something.  In the end, I really don’t think it mattered because he had a really good time helping dad hand out candy to Trick-or-Treaters.  

Our neighborhood was a mad house.  My husband would sit down for literally 30 seconds and the doorbell would ring.  This went on all night - for a solid three hours.  We totally ran out of candy.  I think it was about the same time that our neighbors also ran out of candy too so it worked out.  

All in all, we had a wonderful Halloween.  My boys loved their costumes.  Gar was wearing Wall-e for the next two days and talking in a Wall-e voice.  Uly has been wearing his Indy hat and playing with his whip every chance he can.  He even asked to sleep with his whip the other night.  Good times!

They have been stuffing themselves with candy.  Ben and I just let them eat their candy until they couldn’t eat anymore.  I love how they will randomly appear with a sucker in their mouth after I think that all the candy is gone.  I may be finding little stashes through the next year!  That’s part of the fun of Halloween!

I hope your Halloween was a good one and your kids had fun and their bellies are full of sugar.  I also hope you drug out that camera and managed to get some great shots of your kids.  But more importantly, I hope you managed to get some shots of your kids.  The most important thing is to document their fun and memories.  We don’t need to be discouraged if our photos don’t turn out exactly as we had hoped.  We just need to take some.  Along the way we will end up with some great ones.  Hopefully!

I love the early mornings.  Mornings always make me feel like the day is full of wonder and anything can happen.  I start thinking about fun stuff to do with my kids, photos to take,  things to make, where to go…  the list goes on.  We have been making Halloween decorations and today we are going to make a ghost garland.  Autumn is in the air!

This really isn’t a Fall photo shoot, it is just one I did last week. Ben, my husband, needed some photos for a website he’s working on.  So he gave me an assignment - to put Gar shirtless and in overalls and take some photos of him doing things that could be done in the 1920’s - things that aren’t dated.  I got some pretty good shots, but I need to reshoot because now I have more information.  I shot most of my photos in portrait orientation and he needs them to be in landscape orientation.  It was really fun to just take photos of Gar.  He did so well at following my instructions.  It was really hard to get him to look at me and smile but he still did fantastic.  It was kind of a special time for us.  Just mom and Gar time.  He ended up being my special little buddy all day.  It was really fun!

I think this week, I am going to focus on getting some Autumn photos of my kids.  Bundle them up and take them for a walk up one of the stunning Wasatch Mountain canyons.  We’ll see what we can create.

What does this week have in store for you?  Any photo ops coming up?  Any fun things coming your way?  Have you taken any Autumn photos yet?  How did they turn out?  Where did you take them?  I want to know the whole scoop!

Hopefully.

I have had a couple of crazy weeks.  A few days after we got home from Moab, my parents came to visit.  We had a great time and got all domestic.  We canned a box of peaches and made soup base from about a million tomatoes.  We tried a new BBQ restaurant in my neighborhood (It was super yummy so if you are ever in the Springville, UT area and are hankerin’ for some meat, try Charlie Boy’s.  Pretty good Carolina BBQ)  and we spent a lot of time visiting.  

Part of the craziness I was feeling was because Ben, my husband, went to Santa Fe with my cousin’s husband, Ben McPherson.  Ben M. is an awesome painter and had a gallery exhibition at The Blue Rain Gallery.  My Ben went with him to help transport his paintings, offer moral support and (here I think is the real reason) so they could hang out.  You put those two in a room together and they don’t ever stop talking.  They are always working on some kind of project and are currently working on a really cool screenplay.  

The show was a success and they made it home safe and sound.  It’s nice to have my hubby home.  He’s my rock.  

We went for a Sunday drive yesterday afternoon.  We saw beautiful foliage putting on their Autumn colors.  We saw turbulent clouds, vivid blue skies and smiling faces.  We found a really cool little park in a planned community that seems have felt the recession and doesn’t look like the houses are being currently built.  There are some really good sledding hills in that area so we will be back when sledding season is on.  We call it the Secret Park.  My little guys loved it.

So I have been thinking about some Momshot stuff lately.  I haven’t really been posting much lately.  A lot has been going on in my life but I still need to take a minute and share my new photographic discoveries with you.  I have some ideas for posts and I suppose instead of just thinking about them I should just type them up!  I will make you a promise.  I will do better.

Oh, before I go, I wanted to mention something about the photos in this post.  The one in the top left is my favorite.  The reason is because Uly was trying out his new “Sponge” smile.  He said, “Mom, do you want to see my Sponge smile?”  Of course I said yes!.  He then proceeded to show me that cute smile and various renditions of it.  If you look closely and use copious amounts of imagination, you can see a resemblance between Uly and Spongebob Squarepants.  I love that he is experimenting with that kind of thing.  I think it is adorable and very fun!