Teiku

Molly has been in school for a full week now.  It started out really well, but as the week as progressed she has become less enthusiastic about being dropped off in her class.  It will get easier...I keep telling myself. 

For the most part, I have been able to keep myself pretty busy while she is in school.  I finally got word today, that I should hear something about subbing in two weeks.  That feels like forever right now.  I am ready to get into a classroom.  

So, in the mean time, I am trying to finish all of the projects that I have had on my to-do list.  Vacation pictures are high on that list.  So here is the first blog post of probably a couple.  

While we were in Washington at the beginning of the month, I shot majority of my pictures with my phone, but Teiku was too beautiful to leave to my phone.  These are the only pictures from my canon.  I will post the others next week.  I am so happy to have pictures of Molly and me from the beach, thanks Taylor!  I should aslo thank her for the plane ticket since it was my graduation gift!

I adore this chubby tummy.

I really want to hang one of these pictures in Molly's room, but I am having a major problem deciding which one...I love them all!

The first time I spent a weekend on this beach, I took mostly scenery pictures.  This time I only took pictures of Molly!  On a side note, last time I was on this beach, I was unknowingly a couple of weeks pregnant with this little girl, so it was very nice to return with her and have these pictures of us together!

diy {No Sew Canvas Bag}

I have not been blogging hardly at all this summer, not even for photography.  Instead I have been busy finishing school while making memories with my girl and soaking up the last few days I have at home as a stay at home mom.

Molly will be starting preschool on Monday with Joy School at our church.  Now that I have graduated and I am working on my alternative teaching certification, I will be subbing for a good part of this school year.  So no more lazy days at home for us.

I am very excited for the change of pace though.  Molly loves playing with other kiddos and learning new things, so Joy School will be so good for her.  I am excited to meet new kids, new moms, and even excited to start working again.  This will be good.  Tough but good.

This whole week I have been preparing and gathering things for the start of school.  One thing she needed was some kind of bag to fit her daily folder, water bottle, and her blanket.  So I decided make a cute little canvas bag for her.  It is the perfect size for her!

Not to mention, I have been dying to do some kind of tutorial so here it is!  I got all of the supplies from Hobby Lobby.

Supplies:

• Canvas bag
• Iron on letters
• Scrap lace
• Scrap fabric
• Scrap ric-rac 

Step 1:
Iron your canvas bag to remove any wrinkles.  Then iron on your letters following the instructions on the back of the package.

Step 2:
Once your bag is all ironed, you can move onto making scrap fabric rosettes.  I just cut scrap fabric in to two inch strips and then just twist and hot glue as I went.  Kiki from Kiki and Company has a great rosette tutorial here.

Step 4:
Then just start playing around with the placement of your rosettes, lace, and ric-rac until it looks the way you want it to.

Step 5:
Finally, using a generous amount of hot glue, glue everything in place.

My little helper made it nearly imposible to get a decent picture of the bag.  Luckily I was able to get most of the bag finished during her nap.  So when she woke up she was happy to model her new bag and wave bye-bye!

I have two more little preschool projects in the works. Hopefully I will post about those soon!  Until then, here is a little sneak peek with my little helper right in the middle of it!

Farmer's Market

I love knowing where my food comes from and I love to know the farmers who grow the food I eat.  Lately, I have been paying more and more attention to the food that Molly and I eat.  We have been eating more whole foods, less grains, and have eliminated practically all refined sugar and processed foods.  Along with that, I am trying to incorporate more local and seasonal foods into our diets.  

We have a small garden in the backyard and Molly loves to pick the tomatoes and eat them straight from the garden. This has also been a lesson in colors, as she learns to only eat the red ones and not the green ones.  I want to raise her to know that food is not just conjured up on store shelves, but to know that a lot of hard work and dedication goes into growing and producing high quality foods.  Unfortunately, we can only do so much in our little, overly shaded backyard.  

Luckily, we are fortunate enough that our local farmer's market is only five minutes from our house.  We definitely don't go to the market every Saturday, but I am trying to get better about that; better about supporting our local farmers.  

But this weekend, we did go.  We also went to a blueberry farm and I am so glad that we did; it was the last weekend of the season.  Since my other photography love is food photography, next to children and families, I couldn't resist these fresh, summery temptations.

I look forward all year to picking fresh blueberries.  Usually we make jam and jelly at this point but since we are eliminating refined sugars, I need a new recipe.  If anyone knows of a good recipe using honey or maple syrup, please let me know!

These are not the famous Fredricksburg peaches, but they are local and organic, fresh juicy peaches.  We are waiting until the end of the season for the free stone peaches to get some from Fredricksburg.

Between me, my mom, and Molly, we go through almost half a dozen eggs per day.  So having a lot of healthy, nutrient dense eggs around is essential.  I found that I can get them the cheapest at the farmer's market.  Win win.

Now that I have gone through all of my pictures, I am wondering what kind of mother I am for not getting pictures of Molly's first time to pick blueberries!  I can't believe I don't have a single picture...not even on my phone!  I guess there is always next year.  I did happen to hear about a pick your own peach orchard in The Woodlands, so we just might have to check that out!

15 Months

Well, life is busy as usual and never slowing down.  Molly is now 15 months and I needed to stop and blog before I let this month pass me by in a whirlwind too!  This post is going to be kind of random.

I am loving this stage!  She is running around everywhere, understanding way too much, and I am learning more and more about who she is!

She loves dressing up.  She will put on hats, necklaces, sunglasses, and will even bring me shoes to put on her.

She loves playing outside.  A lot of times I will put her in her swimsuit and let her have a homemade fruit popsicle outside.  I have learned that popsicles are way too messy to eat inside!

She still loves to eat tomatoes straight from the garden.  Nana was trying to teach her to only pick the red ones. 

Some friends of ours just got some kittens.  The kittens live outside and Molly loves to stand at the door and look at them.

For Mother's Day, Austin got me this coffee cup that looks like a lens.  I thought I would follow suit for Father's day.

So, I was able to get a little crafty, which I hadn't done in a while and make him a coffee mug inspired by Michael Scott's Word's Best Boss Mug from The Office. 

On the back I drew a Lego because he loves to play legos with Molly.

Molly colored a card for him while I worked on it. He loved both.

Speaking of Austin, he did move down to Tomball and is officially working with Apple.  He is currently in training and I think he is enjoying working from home!  Theo likes having him there too.  One day Austin dressed Theo up in his work gear and showed him off to his training class.  What a cute puppy!  (p.s. you can see his world's best dad much in the back holding his pens!)

At one point this month, Molly started running a fever after a bout with allergies.  I hate it when she doesn't feel good but I do love the cuddling that ensues.  She's not typically a cuddler. 

Apparently, she doesn't like her picture to be taken when she doesn't feel good...I can't blame her.

 For the most part, Molly is still a fantastic eater.  She is still protesting vegetables so I try to sneak them in anywhere I possibly can.  Here, she drinking a Very Berry Spinach Smoothie...she doesn't even know :)

 There are some does that she is a bottomless pit.  She will act as if I never feed her.  There was one day in particular that she was asking for food every 30 minutes.  But she was legitimately hungry and would actually sit and eat and wasn't just snacking and grazing.  I eventually started running out of ideas for healthy snack foods with variety...so I let her eat straight out of the frozen pea bag.  She didn't seem to mind at all!

I just love this bath time picture of her!

I also love these two pictures.  She was playing peek-a-boo with my mom and just randomly ran up and hugged her.  It was so sweet.  She is starting to do things like this more and more and I love it!

Another picture I love :)

Molly is really into getting into the diaper bag, my purse, or in this case the pool bag.  They're just so intriguing to her but it makes such a mess!

Here is where it is going to get really random...

I didn't end up quitting photography like I said that I was going to in my last post.  I had this shoot left to do and was reminded not only of how much I love being a photographer but even more of the reasons why I do it.  So instead of making myself crazy building my business, I am doing things differently, hopefully smarter, working less, and praying that clients will come my way.  That said, a little shameless self promotion here...I am running a Christmas in July special and already starting to book Christmas Mini Sessions!  Check out my photography blog for more details.

Because I have been doing more with photography lately, I have naturally been doing more "shoots" with Molly.  Most are usually impromptu, while others have a little bit more thought put into them.  This 4th of July shoot I did was super last minute.  I literally set it up in 2 minutes, woke her up from her nap (we had to be at a play date soon,) got her dressed and snapped away.  The whole thing took less than 10 minutes!  It was really a recipe for disaster, however, she was in such a good mood and I got some of the best smiles!

If you follow JLMay Photography on facebook you have already seen these pictures.  But I love them so much that I have to post them again for anyone who hasn't seen them!

We had a ton of fun on the 4th of July.  I have never been really into this holiday but I was all about it this year!  Everything was red, white, and blue.  There was just something so perfect about this summer time holiday that I couldn't get enough of.  Maybe having a toddler does that to you.  It makes me want to put a special touch on everything.  She even had a patriotic breakfast!  Here are my instagram pictures from the 4th.

And because I can be crazy nostalgic, here is a side by side comparison from this year and last year.  I can't believe how much can change in a year's time!  If you're feeling really nostalgic too, you can check out the whole post from last year here.

I just can't believe how much can change in a short year.  I am really trying to savor this time with her.  We have been having so much fun this summer and I we still have some big plans.  I have less than two months before I go back to work and she starts preschool.  I have so many mixed feelings about that but I am trying to make the best of what we have now.

I feel like the older she gets busier life gets.  I know that won't ever change but it's not easy.  This summer I am finishing my last semester of college, applying and preparing for graduation, applying for my certification program, running a photography special, going on two vacations to see both the Hairston/Rooks families, and writing two blogs, all while chasing a 15 month old.  Life is full but it is also full of love.

I know I have talked before about writing more often on this blog.  The more and more I thought about it, I realized that it actually makes the most sense.  When I write only once a month, there is a lot to write and a lot of pictures to post.  Writing becomes a chore, I end up dreading it and putting it off.  I actually enjoy writing and writing a blog is something I have always wanted to do.  In addition, actually feel that writing more often would allow me to have a more accurate documentation.  I don't write a baby book, I have always treated this blog as one in a way.   I have discovered that when I only write once a month, a lot goes unwritten and ultimately forgotten, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid in the first place.

So, I think I will at least try to write more often.  No promises on how often, but I have already been writing weekly for my photography blog so why can't I write weekly for this one as well??  They can be short and sweet, but I actually think it is better that way.  Speaking of writing more on that page, I have an entire post on my photography blog about a recent hiking trip we went on.  There are a ton of super cute pictures of Molly because it was her first walk by herself hike!  You can read the whole post here if you are interested.

I actually have some pictures from another photo shoot I did with Molly last this past week.  But I think I am going to hold onto those for now.  I am in love with them and maybe a little too selfish to share right now.  Or maybe it's the fact that it's 1:00am and I'd rather go to bed and save some material for later if I am going to be posting more often!  But I'll leave you with a little teaser...

I just love the tone of these last pictures I took of her!  It is easily one of my favorite shoots of her and any I have done.  She is just beautiful!

Tuesday I will have a new post up on my photography blog.  Make sure you have liked JLMay Photography's facebook page so you get the blog updates every Tuesday and random pictures of Molly!  I promise that I'm not nearly this wordy :)  This week I am posting some recent food photography pictures! Here's a sneak peek of that post...

I hope you have a great week!!