Spring(ish)

It's supposed to be 77 degrees here today. January 25th, and 77 degrees.

I know that we need rain, and we should probably suffer another stretch of cold temps so as not to confuse the local crops, but how can you not celebrate spring temps and a gorgeous splash of sunshine in the middle of winter?

I thought I'd mark the day with a couple of shots from last weekend. The trees in Carmel were just starting to blossom.

Ah, spring. Even if it's just a sneak peek.

Being The Girl

Being the girl of the family means that you're subject to this.

And entitled to do this.

The Twilight, revisited

Ha! I was just scrolling through the other shots from yesterday and couldn't resist adding this one to the blog. Remember when I said that the goal was to "capture them as they are now?"

This shot was 100% orchestrated by my daughter and executed entirely by the three of them. The only thing I did was click the shutter.



Sometimes they make taking photos a pain in the butt. And occasionally, they make it very, very easy.

The Twilight

Yesterday was MLK, Jr. day. We were coming off a weekend of being cooped up at home with a nasty stomach virus, and after walking the dog to the ice cream shop down the road, we were still itching for something to do outside. (Well, I was.) I decided that it was the right afternoon to begin Project 2012-b.

(Project 2012-a is this, by the way. I downloaded the app and am 17 days into a 365-day string of camera phone snaps to document the year. So far, so awesome.)

Project 2012-b is this: Each month, I plan to do a quick and simple photo session with my kids. I'm going to spend a grand total of five minutes each month brainstorming clothes and location, and beyond that... it is what it is. The idea is to grab some shots of my three yahoos as they are at that point in time. At the end of the year, I can put the photos together in a book and -- voila: holiday gift for myself and the grandparents.

I came up with the idea one afternoon while on a run, and a primary motivation was to document the cute and crazy teeth situation we have going on. My oldest is finally getting the last of his eight permanent front teeth. My middle is, well... in the middle of the teeth transition. And my baby girl, I knew, was going to join the ranks of the partially toothless any day. She'd been futzing with a loose bottom tooth for a couple of weeks, and I knew that we'd be seeing a sweet little window in that smile any day.

Turns out that the loose tooth hung around in her mouth for about as long as it took the sun to set.



The bar is not high -- just a handful of shots from each month's mini-session.

One down, 11 to go.

A Peek at the Fiesta Bowl, Clausen-Style

Last weekend, four-fifths of our family road-tripped RV-style to catch Stanford's appearance in the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, AZ. Why four-fifths? That was because the eldest Clausen child declared his complete lack of interest in football and his refusal to miss a day of school. His parents decided that while we could force him to sit through a football game, we weren't going to force him to miss school and deviate from his principles. (And principal.)

The roadtrip was loads of fun, and it afforded us the chance to connect and catch up with several special friends -- both Stanford alumni and Oklahoma State alumni, which made for a lively tailgate experience. Of course, I photographed the entire trip, and someday I'll get my arms around all of the photos, but I did manage to get a handle on those from game day and figured that I'd at least post those here while the memories are still fresh.

Get ready for a big ol' photo dump. :)

















I love how the Stanford-by-marriage guy in our group felt a need to make clear that he wasn't all in:









There were quite a few of these Cowboy hand signals going on...





... and that left us feeling a bit lacking in the spirit department. So we figured, if you can't beat 'em...



Even the baby bulldog got in on the tailgating. And I promise, no animals were endangered for the purpose of this photo, despite what it looks like in the following pictures. The cup of beer was a prop. Only a prop.

















It's a good thing that my husband doesn't get embarrassed easily (clearly):



The second half of tailgating seemed to fly by (hmmm... I wonder why...), and before we knew it it was time to go inside.







Gotta love the Stanford band. Their irreverent pre-game and halftime field shows are near and dear to my heart, and they still entertain. What other band can point out the state of Oklahoma's homesteading history and tie it to the game at hand by turning the word "LAND" into, well:



Of course, non-Stanford peeps probably enjoyed the more traditional on-field shows.



Or not.







And finally, perhaps my favorite shot of the set. His focused attention was one of the primary reasons we paid a big chunk of change to get to the game and get into our seats.



It's also the reason he sat, sobbing uncontrollably, for a good five minutes after the game concluded. He takes his teams' losses very, very hard. At the end of the trip, though, even he would tell you that it was a fantastic long weekend and worth every mile, penny, and tear.

The Latest Shots of Stella

She's growing so dang fast that I tried to grab a few shots of the baby dog today (she's about four months now). She was more interested in showing off her latest skill -- high-fiving -- and so there weren't many shots to be snapped.







Maybe I'll get one of the kids to video the high-five thing so that I can post it here. It's pretty darn funny to watch a bulldog high-five...

Getting Back in the Swing of Things

The past month had me running every which way, working hard to keep all of the balls in the air and prepare for a festive and memorable Christmas at the same time. Suffice it to say, it was an exhausting stretch.

In an effort to close the books on 2011 and look ahead to the new year, I've spent a good part of today sorting through my personal photo files and trying to get them into a manageable state. All of this work has basically underscored how much more there is for me to do, but with Christmas behind me and a good night's sleep under my belt, that doesn't seem as frustrating as it might've just last week.

Here are a few random family snapshots to serve as placeholders until I get back to posting more interesting fare. These are from Thanksgiving weekend, I think, when we opted for a night of movies and foam curlers (for the girl).







Noah fell asleep like this...



And here are a couple of shots from the morning of Miss F's first ever basketball game. She was pumped. :)

Fall Foliage

At this time of year, people tend to tout the beauty of the East Coast, the Northwest, and other parts of the country that get that gorgeous fall foliage. They tend to look down on California a bit... I mean, we have our fantastic year-round weather, and for that we sacrifice fall color. Right?

Wrong.

At least when you're talking about the Central Coast. Because our surrounding vineyards afford us a good stretch of magnificent color in the fall. And wouldn't you know, Thanksgiving weekend turned out to be one of our postcard weather weekends. So we got the benefit of the famous California weather and the colorful backdrop people usually associate with colder climates. Lucky us.

This great family got to take advantage of it all, and they got some pretty special images to boot. Unrelated side note: I predict that these kids are going to grow up to be absolute stunners in the looks department.