Thursday Flickr Favorites

Thursday Flickr Favorites, originally uploaded by KJBehavior.

Sharing a few of my Favorites on Flickr, Happy Thursday!

My new baby

I finally hit the "buy" button and purchased a new camera. I upgraded to a Nikon 7000 and she arrived over the weekend but I only just took her on a little outing tonight. E and I went for a walk to the park so I could get to know her a little bit. She's beautiful, and as most women...complicated! Much to learn but I'm super excited!

August Break Part 2

Susannah Conway is a talented writer, teacher, photographer that last August organized the August break. The August break was a month long challenge for bloggers to post one pic a day, no words required, no rules. In participating last summer I connected with some wonderful fellow photographers and bloggers who now, a year later, I still follow. Well....

She's at it again!



And I just got a new camera so looks like I'll be Breakin' this August again! :) Click on the link to find out more and add your blog to the blog roll of participators, she's also got a flickr page set up for sharing your daily pics.

Sweet faces

What is it about kids and sweets? Ice cream, cookies, candy....they always manage to make a mess with sweet food. You rarely see a kid with cooked carrots smeared across their face but give them a cupcake and the frosting ends up in their hair. I'm not complaining, makes for fun pictures! :)















These were from a week ago when I finally got to meet my friend's baby girl Madison, doesn't she have the most beautiful blue eyes you've ever seen?

Jeff

Last weekend I had the pleasure of a senior portrait session with a young man from our Church. Jeff's mom challenged me to get a genuine smile out of him, evidently he doesn't give them frequently when in front of the camera. It took a little while but eventually we found that smile, and it's quite lovely.

These are a few of my favorites:







I also had the added challenge of glasses. Not only the glare and reflections but his glasses tinted in the sunlight hiding his eyes. He agreed to take them off for a some shots without glasses and revealed a pair of STUNNING green eyes.





I love shooting in old Elk Grove. So many gritty backgrounds to up the "cool" element for a very cool guy.







I enjoyed strolling along and chit-chatting with Jeff. He's got a bright future and a wonderful family supporting him. Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to get to know you and capture this special time in your life.









Congrats Jeff!

7 hours of Shut Up!

Saturday I participated in an all day silent meditation ladies retreat held at my church. My interest in this was sparked when one of the amazing women in our ladies Bible study shared some of her experiences in the 3, 5, and even 10 day silent meditation retreats she's been on. In her sharing her discoveries during these retreats I found myself holding my breath and not exhaling till she was finished as I thought "I want that." I have such difficulty focusing in any sort of prayer or meditation time. I find my mind can't stay focused for any length of time, constantly running on random bunny trails, or I just fall asleep. I need to teach my brain to SHUT UP!! She felt led to put on an 8 hour retreat for those like me that had an interest in learning how to just Be Still And Know. Myself and seven ladies from our church showed up at 8 am with no coffee or food in our system ready and willing to experience something most of us had never tried before. She combined this silent meditation with a Daniel fast which is basically a vegan diet. My experience started off great, I didn't find it too painful to stay silent and I was having success with the techniques she provided. The real challenge was after we broke for lunch, my addiction to caffeine and going cold turkey resulted in a massive headache and I found that any time I got my mind to quiet I dozed off. It was frustrating and eventually torturous. When we had completed the 7th hour we gathered together to discuss our experiences and I was relieved to find that I wasn't the only one that found this process to be painful and frustrating but I was also encouraged by those that had done this sort of thing before and shared that the first time was extremely difficult but as with most things with practice it gets better and even easy eventually. Our society is so geared in the opposite direction. We are encouraged to go, go, go! We are constantly being entertained and bombarded with stimulation and information that when we ask our bodies to hold still and our minds to be quiet they are both so exhausted we just crash into sleep. Now the hard part for me will be making the time to keep this in practice. I want it though, I want to be able to sit still for hours on end with my mind focused on The One. So practice I will.

Sunday was full of visits. My aunt flew into town to stay with us from Washington and a dear friend from So Cal is in town with her baby girl that I'd never met. I ended up with a cherished group of friends and family over yesterday for lunch and swimming. Got to meet her gorgeous baby girl who has the most stunning blue eyes I think I've ever seen as the rest of the kids swam and played. It was a lovely afternoon. At one point my mom came outside to tell me I was missing a great photo op in the living room. My dad, my son, and two of his buddies on the floor playing with the train. I managed to sneak in and get the shot.

It's for sure my favorite one of the weekend.




I trust your weekends were restful and wonderful. :)

Skinny Taste

Last Saturday night Devin and I made dinner as a "thank you" to my mom and dad for watching E during our date night. I'd been pinning a few recipies from this blog called Skinny Taste where Gina has taken some of our favorite foods and created lower cal/fat ways to make them. I picked out three that looked good and not only were all three pretty easy (I'm no chef) but they turned out really, really good! I've now created a LONG list of her recipies to try. If you're on WW she also includes the WW points for each recipie. Even if you're not trying to lose weight it's just wise to cut the sugar and butter down a bit and I promise you won't miss it.

These don't taste diet at all!

The three we tried were the Chicken Piccata , the Oven Roasted Cauliflower , and for dessert a Low Fat No Bake Strawberry Cheesecake. YUM! So good I had to share with all of you!

Weekend Wrap up

My friend and I took our boys to Exploratorium in San Francisco on Friday.
What a FUN place! It's a hands on science museum perfect for two 4 year old boys that want to touch and experience everything for themselves.
It was also perfect for two mom's tired of yelling
"Don't touch that!" I had fun experimenting and learned a few things too.





We all had a blast but we ran out of time before we'd even made it to the 2nd level so a trip back is a must. Next time go earlier, the traffic home was a bear!

Elijah and his buddy (who are often mistaken for brothers) were just too cute
and the sky lights and reflective glass provided so many photo opportunities...
I was having my own fun snapping away.

Last night Devin and I had a date night, we went to the Tower Theater and saw
The Tree of Life.

Woah.

From the previews I gathered that it was a story about a father and son relationship and outside of that the cinematography and cast was what drew me to it. This is not a film for everyone. It's difficult to follow, I spent much of the 2+ hours trying to figure out if it was too abstract to figure out or if I was too sober to enjoy it but then moments I did "get" would touch me and
the beauty on the screen would overwhelm me and I loved it again.
It was a frustrating and beautiful experience. Devin and I went to Tower cafe after wards for coffee dessert and discussion about the film. I love that he enjoys artistic and independent films that make you think and talk about hours and even days later.

We wrapped up the weekend at church this morning where our favorite southern gospel quartet Sons of Light put on a wonderful and touching performance.

I trust you all have had a wonderful weekend!

My lil fishy!

E decided that he no longer wanted to use his floaties. That's right people...


HE IS SWIMMING!














And yes, I was nervous taking my camera into the pool with me.

Afterglow

Here are a few wonderful 4th of July moments I wanted to share with you. Kids running in the streets like banshee's on fire! It's what the holiday is all about. I was proud of my boy for braving the show outside this time. :)