Charm of Yesteryear

Georgia and I visited Granny and Grampy Max this morning. We showed them our recent pictures from last weekend in Dallas and then started talking about all of Grampy's old photos-- the ones that I had been wanting to see. He rummaged around in his office and we found an album with these pictures in it. Aren't they charming? What is it that is so elegant about pictures from the 40s and 50s? I think it may be the way people dressed and wore their hair. That era had sophistication. I look at my photos from 20 years ago and want to hide. But when I look at these photos I just smile and feel good inside. Grampy has tons more and better photos on his slides. He said he would look through some of them and try to find the ones of my mom when she was close to Georgia's age. I can't wait to see them!

Papi & Gigi dancers at heart

We went to a wedding this past weekend in Dallas. It was in a beautiful location and the music and food were fabulous too! Georgia danced her heart out. The dance floor was pretty open while everyone was eating and Gigi and her toddler compatriots took over the floor and ran 1000s of circles. They were laughing and having a good ol' time. It was quite difficult to pry her away, but as the evening wore on, and more and more adults came to the dance floor, she was bumped off of her throne. Rodolfo danced with her a little bit at the beginning. This is what set the whole dance-a-circle-athon in motion. I have tons of photos from this weekend. It is really difficult to pick only a few to post.

Other Family Photos from this weekend

Light!

We had some pretty light in this room. I like these shots of Georgia.

Easter Bunnies

We went to a little children's boutique to get Gigi and Elle's picture with a bunny rabbit for Easter. The rabbit was the furriest and most calm animal I have ever seen!!! He must have been tranquilized. I really wanted to snap pictures of Gigi while the photographer was working, but the photographer gave me the evil eye and didn't want me snapping any photos while she worked (understandably, she was, afterall, trying to sell her pictures). So, we took a few after the photo shoot while in the store. I couldn't get any great shots because Gigi was already worn out from the bunny shoot. But, here is one that I kind of like.

Oh Elle!

"Oh Elle!" This is the expression Georgia always uses when she sees Elle. It is so cute. And Elle is soooo cute! She is now nearly 4 months old!! We had fun hanging out with this newest member of the family. She is an absolute DOLL!

My Hubby

Been taking so many pictures of Gigi that I thought I would vary it up some with pictures of other members of the family. Here is a nice one I took of Rodolfo. Orange is a nice color on him and one of his favorites!

Exposure/Aperature/Shutter Speed

Been fiddling around with my camera and doing a little reading. What I need to learn about right now is exposure rather than focus. The above picture is one, in my ignorance, I overexposed. Played with the contrast and something else, I forget now what, and came out with at least a bit of a recognizable image. If I can figure out the editing I can probably just turn all of my mistakes into art. I think the image above, although still too bright, is in a way kind of pretty. It seems kind of sunny 70s.

Love this one. Wish I could have caught a little more of the floor tile. Probably should have lowered my ISO?

Red is definitely a color that pops out on an image. Now I see why they don't let anyone in movies (except the star of the show) wear this color.

Darling.

Darling.

Best. I like this image the best. Don't know why. Maybe it is because it is an action shot. Maybe it is the sunlight. Maybe because it makes me feel springtime inside. Can't say exactly, but I love it!

P.S. Muchas gracias a la Abuelita Orie, Abuelito Ofo & Abuelita Tenchi for this beautiful dress!

Learning How to Focus

Rodolfo surprised me with my belated birthday gift this weekend-- a new camera! I love it and have a ridiculous quantity of information to learn! The camera automatically focuses, but I think I need to learn to focus manually as well so that these images can have even cleaner lines. Photography is definitely a satisfying hobby when you have a child. I could take pictures all day long if people didn't need to eat, sleep and have baths. Grampy Max used to enjoy this hobby as well. He has some darling photos of my mom and Aunt Janie. I should pull those out and scan them-- gotta remember that the next time Georgia and I pay them a visit. Yesterday as I was taking pictures it occured to me that I have many satisfying hobbies. Besides photography there is gardening, reading, traveling, languages, yoga, running, cooking and my shameful indulgence-- http://www.people.com/. It is difficult to find time for all of these things but to dabble in them here and there as time permits is a real treat!

Gretal Hair

Georgia is infatuated with Gretal's hair on the Sound of Music. Everyday she asks me if she can have "Gretal hair". Yesterday, as many days before, we brushed and twisted to get the look. She selected to wear this dress which never struck me as Sound-of-Music-ish until we did her hair. Now I see what Georgia was going for. This dress has a very Eastern European flair to it. It DOES remind me of the Sound of Music and also the Yukon Czech Festival. Hats off to you, Georgia, stylist in the making.

The other day Georgia ran straight to me and said "Mommy, I am going to make this line a circle." Then she ran straight back to where she started and then ran in a circle around me. She finally made a bee-line back to me and repeated "Mommy, I am going to make this line a circle" and did it again! Isn't that brilliant? I believe that spatial/geometric thinking must come from Rodofo's side because I know she did not get that from me.

Another funny thing happened the other night when we were trying to get her to bed. She did not want to go to sleep but was at least in bed, although quite angry about being there. In order to communicate how unhappy she was about having to go to sleep she started repeating "Georgia does not go to bed. See it says so in my story. Georgia does not go to bed." Have you ever seen Super Why? In this children's tv show they change words in stories to solve the problem. Georgia was trying to change the words in her story so that she did not have to go to bed. What a clever kid!

Books!

Georgia and I have a shared hobby. It is reading books. She can pour over pages for a good 30 minutes, which is a long time in toddler world! And me, well, I pour over them for hours, sometimes wasting entire days absorbed in my most recent discovery. I tend to enjoy books that are about real life or that teach a person how to do something. In the past I would go on buying binges where I would purchase 5-6 new books at a time. My spending started becoming ridiculous and I had to find a way to curb my purchases. That is when I discovered the library. Yes, I know, it has been around for centuries, but I never realized just how handy the local library can be. Instead of wasting my money buying every book that grabs my attention, now I just hop on my computer, log in to my nearest library and put my most current book interests in my electronic basket. Then, the trusty librarians go and find the books for me and e-mail me when my holdings are ready. At my convenience I swing by the library and pick up my selections. It is a brillant system and a fabulous example of my tax dollars at work. If the library doesn't happen to have a book I want I just fill out an inter-library loan form and wait a week or two and it arrives from a neighboring state. One time I inter-library loaned a book of 17th century Dutch floral sketches because the book cost over $200 and I didn't want to shell out that kind of money for a book just to look at pictures. The book arrived from Baylor library and was beautiful!
Since reading is such a part of our life I figured I would add some lists of our favorite books. You can find them to the left. Have you ever read any of these? What are your favorite children's books? What are you reading at the moment? I'm always interested in learning about new books, so if anyone out there reading this has some suggestions please do tell! :)

Daffodils, Forsythia & Cherry Plums in Bloom!

Glorious spring is so close we can't help but be outside! This past Sunday was sheer Eden. Our Cherry Plums, for the first time, bloomed at the same time. It was lovely! Rodolfo and I spent the day preparing part of our backyard for our first vegetable garden. We are going to do a small potager, which is French for "kitchen garden". Unlike American vegetable gardens where one tends to sow row upon row of the same crop and then have a giant harvest in the fall, in the potager one rotates a small number of a variety of vegetables and flowers each season, so you even have vegetables coming up in the winter. I can't wait to get started and I really hope the squirrels do not eat everything I plant! I also pruned my roses. Can't wait for April 15th-- it's the last frost date and then it means I am clear to be outside from then until mid-October!

Dressing up like Bar-B-Que!

The past few days Georgia has been talking about dressing up like "bar-b-que". It all started when I asked her what she had done at school. I asked, did you dress up like a princess (they have play clothes for the kids). "Yes." she responded and then she added "I dressed up like bar-b-que too." I wasn't sure what she meant so I replied, "oh, you dressed up like a cowgirl?" "Nooooo!" she laughed, "like bar-b-que". Well, I just ignored it because she jabbers all the time and I figured this was just more jabber-talk. But then it kept coming up, bar-b-que this, and bar-b-que that... Finally today when we were getting a check-up at the doctor's office it clicked. The doctor handed Georgia a sticker for being such a good patient. Georgia squealed with delight "Bar-B-Que!!!!!!!" I looked down to see just what she was so excited about, and do you know what was on that sticker? Barbie. That's right. Georgia's been talking about Barbie this whole time. She dressed up like Barbie, she talks about Barbie, she LOVES Barbie!!! I should have known.

Stroll down memory lane

Margaritaville, April 1999
Thinking we are hot stuff!
Moonstruck, February 1999
Rodolfo's graduation, 2001

Three weekends ago Rodolfo and I completed (finally) the 13 hour seminar our adoption agency requires before a couple can begin the adoption process. It was a douzy of a conference with a lot of information. We now have the green light to begin filing paperwork, to do a home study and to put together our adoption album. I've scanned 234 photos so far in the process of compiling this album. I don't think I will use all of these pictures, but there are so many great ones and I just can't decide which will make the cut yet so I'm scanning them all and will decide as I piece the album together. The photos above are some of my absolute favorites from our early days. The first two photos were taken 10 years ago almost to the month! Can you believe that? This scanning process sure has been a trip down memory lane. I didn't realize how many memories Rodolfo and I have made in the past 10 years until I stacked up all of our albums. I'm only halfway through my albums so I guess I have about another 234 more to go!!