Did you miss me? Well, I did. Nothing is worse than being stuck in the house with a sick kid who gets hyper from cough syrup and has diarrhea from the antibiotics. I became a nasty blog-aholic over this sickness, lurking and never commenting. Such an ugly side of me - the side with nothing to say that is - and a rarity. Well, we are better now, and I took on a project on Sunday. Now is when I share it with you.

I finally broke down and did my photo wall, it took some time and a trip to IKEA, but it’s done. I have even taken pictures for your enjoyment.

I had wanted to get at least some of my on-going projects done before the big party on Saturday I have two more small things to get done, and I think I will tackle them tonight, leaving the rest of the week to prepare. The party bags are almost done. Oh how you are going to love them (pics to come later). We decided on a pirate theme for those of you that missed the party invite pic, so that means pirate cake. I will atempt to build an entire ship from cake. That should be fun. And I am thinking about cupcakes with orange frosting - think bonfire.

Well, in other news, I have gone on a crafting binge. Here is one of the little things I made to entertain myself. Oooh, that last one needs to be cooled off. Maybe later…

Well I have not posted in about a week because we have been ……drum roll please…… yes, 50 bucks to the man in the funny hat, SICK. I hate being sick, and the weather here has been a direct representation of my physical self. So me no take any pictures. I was feeling guilt about my lack of shutter finger so at Sunday dinner I pulled out the camera and shot a couple of my mom giving me some respite from the kidlet and entertaining him with the magic that is bubbles. There is another one here of my boy that I had to take because the light from the bathroom was just great. And he is sick, so he does not run around as much (unless, of course, we give him some of those crazy tab medicines that melt in your mouth - then he is a running, jumping, laughing, and obviously high on OTC drugs). Balls of child snot - yippee for me!

So I have not shot in weeks and decided today was a fine day to get out and see what I could come up with. Well, I came up with nothing after a full minute of thought and decided to do something I have seen many times before: the ‘rocking horse in the field’ shot. My mom works in new home sales and is in a new neighborhood, so I thought that would be the perfect place to scout a location, and I found it. Feeling good about my resourcefulness, I grabbed my gear, the rocking horse, and the child. Off we went to get the ‘peaceful wind sweeping through the long grass’ bucolic shot I had planned out in my head. Did you know fields are gross? Obviously, I did not. The tall grass was prickly, briars were everywhere, and the ground was… well, we will just say it was not like my front yard. Holes, tire ruts, and the wild life (i.e. ants) were everywhere. We spent 10 minutes shooting before Willem had had enough. I collected my gear, the horse, and the child and trudged back to the car. After packing everything and everyone back up in there respective compartments, I realized my sunglasses were not in my pocket where I had put them. Yes, they were somewhere out there in the field of holes and grass and tire ruts and ants. For the next 15 minutes I retraced my steps through the dirty grass and found my sunglasses. I bought these sunglasses in Italy on my honeymoon 4 years ago. They are very important and will never go into a field again. For those who might be math challenged I spent more time lugging, trudging, and searching than actually shooting.

As we are rebuilding this site we are also upgrading some of the technology. As some of you may have noticed, the client galleries look different. Embrace these changes: the world is a big and beautiful place where people all over the world make great new things and apps everyday. I intend to exploit them for all they are worth, and, as always, let me know if they stink. Enjoy!

I wrote a lot about Willem’s big day - about how time had flown and pasta being great. Now I’m just tired, and, well, here look at some pics.

I have a buddy - she goes along with my crazy ideas. These are a few from our recent lesson. We decided to do around the house stuff, looking for new angles, light, that sort of thing. I did these over holiday break and now am thinking I should do more.

Last night while posting to our other blog, the entire system crashed and went to wordpress heaven. All was lost, so we shall begin again. I will start with the links to get everyone’s galleries back up and then the posts - so bare with me.