I heart pictures

I love pictures. Whoever invented Photoshop and wireless internet, I could kiss the ground you walk on. Scratch that, I could lick your shoes, THEN kiss the ground you walk on, I love those products so much.  I could sit.for.hours. arranging, editing, and looking at pictures on my laptop. For some strange reason, my husband often gives me a hard time about bringing the laptop to bed or else I would stay up all night playing in Photoshop (maybe he should start cutting me some slack unless he wants a FIFTH kid) (insert "berr, chicka, berr, berr music here).

So I'm sitting here in bed once again playing and organizing photos and thought I would post a few faves from some recent shoots (one of these days I'm going to put together an actual photography site ;))

The following types of pictures demonstrate just why I love photography so much. I go out on these shoots and my friends want me to capture a nice family portrait where everyone is sitting and looking at the camera and smiling. But their kids have other ideas. And they get SO EXCITED about a leaf. A feather. A flower. Or just running in general. And I get lucky enough to push the shutter button at the right time and capture it. And then it makes me wish I thought like a child and still got excited about these little things. It makes me appreciate what goes on in their little heads.

And we can't forget our newest friend, little Macie Paige. How flipping sweet is SHE? Actually she is quite dangerous. Gives me a serious case of the "Iwannabepregnantandhaveanotherkid"s, which we all know is an illness I fight daily.I heard a little rumor that a certain tough ex Army guy got a little misty eyed when he saw the following picture of his two children. And that makes me all misty eyed. Seriously- could a photographer ask for anything more than THAT? sigh.

But here's my big problem.   I don't get pictures printed!! I take a ton of pictures, edit them so they are just right, post some of them on the blog, but never print them! In 20 years my kids are going to want to sit down with me and look through photo albums and what am I going to do? Get my obsolete external hard drives out of storage and try to plug them into the computer chip that will no doubt be implanted into my brain in the year 2029?  Somehow I just don't get the same warm fuzzies imagining us looking through files on a computer as I do imagining us looking and laughing through old photo albums.

So I am resolving right now to:

1) Take at least one picture every.single.day. They grow up so fast. I know I'll NEVER regret taking too many pictures, but I WILL regret not taking enough.

2) Print at least 10-15 pictures per month. Here's the kicker. They don't have to all be technically good. I'll even let myself print crappy, out of focus, underexposed photos with terrible composition if they capture the moment (whatever that moment is).

3) Stick them in a photo album.

I'm putting this resolution on my blog bc I think it will make me even more resolved to DO IT. When you come visit me, and if you're my friend, you have to pretend you want to look through my photo albums. You have to ask me how this is going. Nothing motivates me more than Katie, who works out like a fiend, asking me "how's working out/yoga going?" and me having to shamefully admit I have been a slacker for a month (so thanks Katie... I got my butt out of bed this week and have gotten back on the yoga train thanks to me not wanting to face the shame of your question, LOL!!).  I don't want to have to admit to anyone that I couldn't stick to this simple little resolution.

Understand your mission? Cool.

Here's my cute story of the week. As Presley and I frantically race-walked through Lowes trying to find the restrooms last week, she innocently looked up at me and in her little three year old voice said, "why don't we use those ones?" while pointing at one of the remodeling displays. So cute.