Wednesday, July 30, 2008

A little fun for you today. Especially for those that love Ikea ! :) Find out what your Ikea name is here.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

. . .continued. . .


These shots are two of my favorites. I was so excited that I was able to utilize the window light to my favor. I am not so good when it comes to the technical aspect of my photography...just the creative part.

Tea, Anyone?

I am finally getting around to posting more of the princess/tea party I photographed what now feels like forever ago. The young lady you see above was the head princess of the party. It was amazing how well all the little ladies got along together. So polite.After the eating of snacks the girls were taken outside to blow bubbles. This is my favorite shot of them all lined up together.These three ladies are sisters. If you notice the not so pleasant expression on the middle girl, that would be because she was afraid that her sisters being so close to her would mess up her earrings.

Friday, July 25, 2008

One Big Fat Sigh of a Day. . .

. . . and it's only halfway over.
Ever just have one of those days?

During World War II, Hitler was identifying all of those he hated with patches sewn on their clothes of different shapes and/or colors. The most well known of these is the common overlapping triangles that formed the Star of David which was used to identify prisoners of Jewish descent. Jehovah’s Witnesses identifying color was purple or violet.

Now it may sound somewhat macabre but my family, starting with an anniversary gift specially made for my father, all have had made or purchased for themselves rings with triangular amethyst stones. To us, it is a symbol that we too can remain steadfast despite the trials and tribulations that we face. Especially since nothing we face is as torturous as the persecution they underwent in concentration camps.

Right after I started coming back to my senses from my walk on the wild side and right before I found out I was pregnant with Liam, my mom gave me my first purple triangle ring with the most moving card. I only wear it occasionally because it is gold and I rarely wear gold. Today is one of those rare occasions that I wear gold. This morning at work I looked down and noticed my stone was missing.

Now I know for a fact that it was there when I put it on because I remember thinking how well the purple went with the burgundy shirt I am wearing. {{sigh}} My only comfort is the fact that at least I still have the setting and the stone can be replaced but it hurts none the less. As soon as I noticed it missing I asked all my co-workers to keep their eyes pealed for it but I don’t have much hope that it will be found. Stones are so difficult to locate…kind of like losing an earring back.

Besides that, I am having the most difficult time concentrating knowing that in 5 hours I will be on my way to the beach with my dear family. Then I freshly realized why it is I don’t bother growing my nails…they break and then you are devastated. I told Spencer that I know that it is a common joke about girls getting upset when they break a nail but when it takes that long to get your nails to grow it is a big deal. Not to mention that mine didn’t just break this morning…it tore down below my nail bed by about a quarter of an inch. Yeah, that’s a big OUCH!!! It is currently being held together by tape until I can buy some nail glue because it would be a bit too painful, and it would expose too much of my nail bed, to cut it off where it broke.

So have any of you bloggies/blogonians out there had days filled with lots of little yucky things that added up making your day a complete crapper? Feel free to share if you would like…after all misery loves company.

I am planning on getting my dear blog back to it’s old link-filled self soon although I may be strung up by my toes if I try to work on it this weekend while on vacation. But I will be working on pirate pictures on the road there and back thanks to a lovely car ac adapter. Hey why not on a 4 ½ hour road trip? You all have a lovely weekend.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

My Likes in a Mosaic

Once again one of my favorite blogsters has given me an awesome new website to play with and here are the results. Let me know what your mosaic looks like by leaving me a link in my comments.

Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr search, using only the first page, choose your favorite image, copy and paste each of the URL’s into the mosaic maker (3 columns, 4 rows).

The questions:
1. What is your first name? (Abra)
2. What is your favorite food? (Chocolate and Cheese)
3. What high school did you attend? (Central High)
4. What is your favorite color? (Green)
5. Who is your celebrity crush? (Zoey Deschanel) I know, seems weird that I have a girl as my celebrity crush but I just admire her so much for her independance and bohemianness. :D
6. Favorite drink? (Amaretto Sour)
7. Dream vacation? (Ireland)
8. Favorite dessert? (Chocolate Mousse)
9. What do you want to be when you grow up? (Photographer)
10.What do you love most in life? (The Truth)
11. One word to describe you. (Insecure) my favorite photo would not come out but you can see it here.
12. Your Flickr name. (Jaidfyre) this one was harder because NO results came up for my flickr name...I had to alter it to Jade Fire to get a result.

Here are the links to the photos in my mosaic above:

1. 2004-Per-069-Abra Huayhuay, 2. chocolate-coffee cupcake with mocha ganache and mascarpone cream, 3. Mom in a Convertible, May, 1953, 4. Autumn walk, 5. She & Him concert (Zoey Deschanel, M. Ward), 6. Friends, 7. After Party, 8. Thick Chocolate Mousse with Chocolate Ribbons (Of Doom), 9. The Photographer, 10. zero gravity, 11. 263: Body and Self, 12. Fireworks Atop Jade Budda Temple, Shanghai

Monday, July 14, 2008

Amalgam

Good lord what a weekend. It was such a LONG weekend for being only 2 days long. Packed to the gills with fun and work and fun work. The Pirate Party was this Saturday and OH BOY was it cute and fun and HOT as hades! The humidity was enough to make a person exclaim, “I’m melting…melting away! What a world, what a world!”

Directly after that I had to rush home to finish cleaning up the house for the girl’s night that I had been planning to have BEFORE Spencer lost his job. You never realize fully how messy your house is until you know people who have never seen it before will be coming over. {{rolling eyes}} First impressions and all. I decided to make something that I thought would be easy and inexpensive. Swiss style cheese fondue. Not easy and not inexpensive. It called for Gruyere cheese, which is almost $10 for a block and Kirsch Liqueur, which they don’t sell in Georgia by the way. It took both my best friend and I to make it and I still don’t think it came out the way it was supposed to. At least it tasted okay.

Fast forward to Sunday and after the meeting at the Kingdom Hall, Spencer and I came home and crashed before going to a “Jazz on the Green” going away party for some friends of ours. Fun times considering it stormed all afternoon before the party. Undaunted, we all spread our
blankets and mats on the lawn anyway and snacked and enjoyed the live singing.

Picture wise I have lots of goodies to come. I am finally almost finished editing and post processing the tea party pictures only to have to start on the Pirate pictures. {{SIGH}} Just in case you guys wouldn’t have guessed, my little man was the cutest gentleman pirate EVER!! Then I also have pictures of the jazz night to work on. YAY! On the good side, after being in Covington for two years people are finally starting to realize that I have a gift for taking pictures. I have never been one to push myself but I would mention my photographic past to people at random times. I guess because photography is one of those “hobbies” almost anyone can say they are good at, my statements didn’t hold too much water until the evidence was seen. :D

While you patiently await the above-mentioned peektures I will grace my blog with some more of the picnic pictures mentioned previously.

Now I promise I am not going to plague you with ALL of the “before and after”s but be prepared to scroll for a while with all of the pictures because after I learned some kick butt tricks from my favorite Pioneer Woman, I opened up this picture folder and went to town on them

So here we have my little man showing how truly froglike he can be to accent his lovely face painting job.Here we see why photoshop is the best thing since sliced bread. What seems to be a good picture can be made great by a few clicks of the mouse and all of a sudden you have the colors and so forth that you remember seeing and not just some blah imposter colors.
You may remember this picture from a previous post? Can you believe the difference. I feel ashamed for sending out the bbq pictures to family and friends before I got the chance to "fix" them.

Another cute as can be butterfly girl.This is the lovely artist at work on her first volunteer, JJ. As you saw, he got a frog so Liam had to follow suit.

These are the lovely hosts of the BBQ. Please ignore the colorful shirt on the gentleman below. I must admit they are a bit accentuated by the action I chose.

Turns out I still was not able to post ALL of the pictures I wanted here from the BBQ as time would not permit. More to come later, if you can stand it.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

My life in a Nutshell

I found this really cool website that takes your words and makes them into art.  
I inputed my blog for it to pull the words from.  I love it.  It is my life in a nutshell.  
I find it humorous that "pirate" is one of the biggest. Although I am surprised by
going being so big.  I love how bold "Spencer" and "Liam" are though.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Sneak Peak

About 2 weeks ago I photographed a tea party. I took SO many pictures (close to 400, YIKES)and have been SO busy that I haven't had time to edit all of them yet. Even with mothers breathing down my neck for them. Here for you lovely people in blogland is a preview of more adorableness to come.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Bailey Morgan

These were taken at a picnic at Bailey's grandparent's house...consider this a sneak peak of the long overdue pictures I have yet to post from this picnic. :)

So I have mentioned on here before that Liam’s best friend, JJ, is moving away, back to California. I never thought a whole lot about the impact of the fact that Bailey is moving too. Liam and Bailey really get along better than Liam and JJ do, as her mother and I were discussing last night. It was the cutest thing last night as we were waiting for dinner to be ready and JJ and Liam were on the shore fishing with their daddies and Bailey was up at the house on the balcony:

“Liam, come here!”

“I’m fishing!”

“Come here, I got something to tell you!”

“Tell me now!”

“No, you got to come here!
Stop fishing and come inside!”

“No, Bailey, I’m going to keep fishing until I want to stop fishing!”

Do they not sound like an old married couple?
Spencer said that they saw each other at the District Convention this weekend and kept hugging each other and Bailey took Liam’s face in her hands and squished his cheeks together. TOO cute.

Monday, July 7, 2008

UGH!!!

The universal sound made collectively by the working class on Monday morning. Especially a Monday morning after a 3 day weekend.

{{SIGH}}

I neglected to let my bloggie neighbors know about something monumental that happened in our life last week. My husband lost his job. Total yuckiness on some levels but not on others. Of course I bawled at first at the shock & stress of it but I’m glad he’s not with that company anymore . . .stupidheads (she says resorting to elementary name-calling).

Making lemonade out of lemons, Spencer was able to be a HUGE help to his parents as they scrambled to move out of their house last week after the closing. Also, gladly, we have been busy around here recently to the point that we could use an extra draftsman. YAY! This allowed us to fully enjoy the District Convention with no stress of the Monday to come of not making any money.
My husband is really the greatest person for me. We are so much alike but compliment each other at the same time. I am so proud of him for throwing this recent burden on Jehovah and not letting it overtake him as he has been known to do.
The beginning pictures were taken in Charleston when Spencer and I were chilling on the grass taking random pictures of schtuff and each other. Ah, good times.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Batman and Pirates

Liam got his invitation for the "Treasure Hunt" party last night.

He gets into the car at the Kingdom Hall and announces:

"I am Batman for the rest of the night."

After waiting the eternity it takes for him to buckle his own seatbelt, I handed him the invitation. Much glee ensued and the whole way to Kroger to get gas there was nothing but Pirate talk in the back seat.

"I'm going to be the captain."

"Well baby, we don't know who will be captain yet." My way of maintaining peace for the moment, because the invitation is from "Captain" JJ

"I'm going to wear an eye pack and JJ's going to wear an eye pack and Jeff's (JJ's grandpa) going to wear an eye pack and Bailey's (JJ's sister) going to wear an eye pack..."

"Baby, Bailey's not going to be there"

"Jeremy's (JJ's dad) going to wear an eyepack" he continues without missing a beat. "I've never worn pirate clothes, I just have my lion at home. Mommy, I'm going to have a sword."

"Okay baby, we'll see."

"Daddy are you going?"

"Yes, baby"

"Are you going to dress up"

"Yep"

"Are you going mommy?"

"Yes"

"Are you going to dress up like a pirate?"

"Probably not baby." Hey! I'm only the photographer here.

"I need a pirate name"

"How about first mate Leroy" I say pulling one of his daddy's favorite pretend names out of the air.

"NO! That's not a pirate name. I need a pirate name."

Peter Pan comes to my head but I immediately dismiss this because, HELLO, he's not a pirate, he fights pirates. "How about Noodles?"

"Noodles is good. My pirate name is Noodles. I like that. Call me Noodles at the pirate party."

I look at Spencer with my hands covering my mouth to keep from laughing because, of course, I only suggested this name as a joke.

As we are driving home listening to Liam talk like a pirate in the backseat and listening to Spencer dream up ways of how he can create a peg leg (not to mention me dreaming up how to dress up my little man to make him look like the coolest pirate EVER) all of a sudden it hits me and I turn to Spencer:

"I miss the dinosaurs."

"What? He still plays with them. Liam, what's your favorite toy in the whole world?"

"Pirates"

"Do you have pirate toys?"

"No"

"Hey, I thought you were going to be Batman for the rest of the night?" I say trying to trap him.

"I am Batman."