More of the Tough Guys (and Girl)

I had a fun evening photographing a few new friends as well as some old ones (ha! I bet they like being called "old"). Now I'm ready for PJs and some Tivo-ed shows, but before I hit the couch I thought I'd post a few more from Friday's soccer shoot.

Aren't they just the cutest? ...er, toughest?

OH YEAH!

This afternoon, I snapped some photos for a few kids on the Green Gators. Kind of a (pre-) "addendum" to the traditional team pics, which will be taken next weekend.

I got so many amazing images, both posed and action shots. But I am very, very tired this evening, so I have energy to post only one before bed.

Doesn't this shot say, "OH YEAH!!" to you??

I will be back over the weekend to add some more...

Consider the Following...

If you are worried that your child will not smile for holiday photos, or that he/she has a fake-y smile that you just can't abide (at least for your holiday card), please consider the following:



It is what my daughter does every.single.dingle.time she smiles for the camera. Which isn't often, I might add.

This recent gem was from our fairly painful Clausen family session the other day. For the family shots, I handed off the camera to my friend Nikki, who graciously attempted to capture us at our finest.

Despite Nikki's heads-up effort to snap dozens of frames so that I'd have head-swapping options, the above smile will be exactly what you will find in our holiday card this year.

There was just no getting around it.

The good news for anyone who's got an upcoming session with me: Your kids will listen to, respect and smile for me much better than my own. I pinky swear.

My Little Ballerina

I was just editing a few snaps from ballet yesterday and couldn't resist posting one here.

She's her mommy's girl for sure. :)

I Hesitate to Post This...

...in the wake of such a poor performance by the Chargers yesterday (well, poor first half, and that's what did them in).

But I snapped these funny photos of the boys before the game last night. They kept opening these weird little banner things that my brother brought and saying, "It's SUNday, mom!"

Crazy little dudes.









And for anyone out there who happens to check this blog and is interested in seeing something other than my own kids: Get ready! I dive into fall family sessions this weekend and there will be preview after preview for the next six weeks or so. Oooh!! And some babies, too!

I LOVE When They Do This Stuff

I'll admit that, over the summer, I was a bit lenient with the Wii time. My boys got an hour a day, and the definition of "hour" got to be looser toward the end of the summer (or whenever I needed to plow through some work).

I was worried that we'd have a problem on our hands once school started and the Wii time became seriously restricted. But amazingly enough, they hardly ask to play Wii these days. They even tend to come up with creative and brain-building ways to spend their afternoons at home.

Yesterday, all three kids decided that it would be cool to make some books. Foxy went around taping pieces of paper together and making little drawings. Mr. Kindergarten took it up a notch and came up with a theme: He spotlighted things that begin with the letter "A."



And The Big Guy blew me away by creating his own "chapter book." It had a fun little story about having Legos all over his room, him getting frustrated about that, and -- and here's the best part -- his mom helping him solve the problem by saying they could work on it together (not yelling about how she couldn't walk through there for all the mess!!).



Now, I can't say that they are always this focused or creative when entertaining themselves, but I was pretty impressed with them on this particular day. And I was so grateful that E chose to paint me in a favorable light. Trust me, it could've gone a whole different direction!

The 'Rents in Their New Digs

My parents recently put down some roots in San Luis, and they've been busy getting their new place up and running. It's looking mighty good, and they took a quick break this morning to rest on their new mini-sofa and give me some smiles.



One of the reasons I had them plop on the kiwi couch was because it was the only room without brownout shades. While waiting for their shutters to be installed, they covered the windows with package wrapping/butcher paper. It is smartly functional, but it does cut down on the interior photo opps. :)

I did bounce a flash to catch them working on some decorating projects in the kitchen -- specifically, getting some pics of their grandkids ready to hang on the walls.





Welcome to the Central Coast, guys!

Go Gators!

Apparently, Mr. Soccer wasn't all show; the little man had some skillz going on during his first two games of the season. (At least it appeared that way to his untrained mom.)

I brought my camera along last weekend... and then I almost put it away when I saw what the other team was wearing. I thought that the Gators were the bright green team of U6. It seems that I was mistaken, and the Yodas are the brightest of the brights. It all made for A LOT of green going on on the field.



He certainly wasn't afraid to get in there and mix it up:





The Gators had some pretty cute fans, too. :)



And Mr. Soccer was looking fierce, even when he wasn't quite on target. Gotta love that!

Bursting With Pride!

Okay, I usually try hard not to gush about my kids, knowing that pretty much every parent out there thinks their own kids are the greatest kids ever. But today? Today I need to gush just a bit.

This morning, my boys -- both of them -- received the Citizenship Award at the school assembly. Beginning in September, each teacher picks just one student a month, meaning that about 16 kids out of the whole school were honored this morning.

I was so proud when I got word last weekend that Noah was getting it. Then I heard from Evan's teacher that he was, too. I think I may have startled his teacher with my near-teary response.

This morning I could feel the tears coming on again.

Here's Noah getting the very first one handed out:



Their buddy Ben got the award for his class, too! Then it was time for E's teacher to speak a few sentences about him, and what she said made holding in those tears really tough, let me tell you.





Their teachers moved the boys so that they could stand right next to each other:





I'm so proud of these little dudes!

E's Room Makeover

When my Sunday afternoon session rescheduled, I took advantage of a little breathing room in my schedule, and I dove into a project I'd been thinking about for awhile: giving E's room a makeover.

There were no drastic steps to take -- the furniture was all pretty much going to stay exactly the same -- but the project involved some pretty detailed painting and a couple of side projects. I hoped that if I just got going, I'd have the momentum to see it through.

I spent Sunday afternoon painting the walls of the room... exactly the same color they were before. Basically, my plan called for painting bold stripes over the already blue walls, but the walls were knicked up and grubby in places and I decided that I needed a fresh canvas. Let me just say that painting a room the same color it already was is about the most unsatisfying thing you can do with your time. (My husband, who was made to paint our old living room the same shade of white that it already was, enjoyed a smirk or two at my expense, I think.)

But once that was done, I got to tackle more interesting things. I painted the aforementioned bold stripes, and I gave a few coats to E's little table and ledges. I put up some cool little decals and hung the photos that I'd had made into float wraps. I highly recommend float wraps -- they're really cool!





Then yesterday, I schlepped all over town procuring surf and skate stickers from the local board shops. When E got home from school, we created a little masterpiece to hang over his bed. Shout out to Moondoggie's (like they'd be reading this, right?) who gave me some of the coolest stickers for free.





When we were done, we hung our special piece and E posed a bit. The second shot here is of him doing what he does nine times out of 10 when I ask to take his photo these days.





A few final touches...





And here's the finished room! Complete with a white board on his door for those super important messages. :) He actually had a very grown-up to-do list written (reading log, buy hot lunch, have lunch with teacher...), but he'd erased it by the time I got there with my camera.









Finally! Something I can cross off the to-do list.