My Week(262) in iPhone Photos

November 8th, 2015

Alternate title: The first week after the time change so all my photos are dark and blurry because I haven’t gotten used to the sun setting at 4:30. I’m going to schedule a nice, colorful, sunny photo post to go up tomorrow morning because this is too depressing to leave at the top of the blog for long.

Sunday:

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They both love this

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OMINOUS ORCHARD IS OMINOUS

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Putting the kids to work making a pie they refused to eat

Monday:

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Toddlers on the loose

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Riding the dog like a small horse is frowned upon in this establishment!

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Stupid time change

Tuesday:

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Why look at fish when you can hang out in the aquarium reading area?

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$3 worth of dead fish make the stingrays way more fun

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The force is strong with this one

Wednesday:

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He’s plotting how to knock the largest number of things off the shelves

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While the sun is up the weather is GORGEOUS

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Poor ear infection girl

Thursday:

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Matching leggings 4 life

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MUCH needed nap time

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Super ambitious sewing plans (so far so good)

Friday:

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Wearing two babies instead of one

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Suspicious baby is suspicious

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Sleeping like he’s posed for a newborn photo

Saturday:

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Weirdos

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Bacon crackers. So simple. so delicious.

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Playing cards is my favorite

I was really confused when I realized today is November 8th, which means November is 1/4th over already. HOW is that POSSIBLE? As ready as I am for Christmas decorating, I’m not actually ready for Christmas. I still have to plan Thanksgiving and Caroline’s birthday, schedule our family pictures, order Christmas cards, and buy all the presents. Plus E has a bunch of travel for work, which means I’ll be doing it alone. At least that means I can have cereal for dinner along with the kids.

Halloween 2015

November 2nd, 2015

We had another mild-weather Halloween here in Connecticut. It’s sort of unfair that my New England children have never known the joy of wearing their winter coats UNDER their Halloween costumes while freezing to death for some candy. We had friends over for an hour of trick or treating followed by an hour and a half of handing out candy, because that part is just as good and you feet don’t get as tired.

The kids got enough loot that they don’t actually CARE about all the candy, so it’s been consolidated and will be rationed out until I end up eating most of it. I wish there had been fewer Whoppers (ew) and more Midnight Milky Ways (yum), but more than enough of it is high quality to make it a successful Halloween all around. If you recognize the shark in these photos, it was Evan’s costume from last year, lent to a friend who was SUPER excited about it. Everyone’s costumes this year were amazing (they were all from Chasing Fireflies, which is why. All the monies, but so awesome).

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Our neighbors were projecting Hotel Transylvania onto the side of their garage. Two thumbs up.

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My Week(261) in iPhone Photos

November 1st, 2015

So it’s November now, which is fine, we’re fine, it’s all fine. Except that in 6 weeks I promised Caroline I would throw her a Nutcracker-themed 5th birthday party and two weeks after that is Christmas and then it will be 2016 and  OMG. Let’s just focus on this past (excellent) week.

Sunday:

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Getting as much costume time as possible this week

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I got my first RocksBox! I’m really loving wearing fancy jewelry. My affiliate code good for 1 free month is bebehblogxoxo, if you’re interested in trying it out.

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I brought Dorothy to help at a photo session and she charmed a farm dog, OF COURSE.

Monday:

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NO PICTURES PLEASE (He’s kidding, he was an excellent photo subject)

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DELIGHTED with our fake gravestones

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HELP I’M BEING MAULED BY A NURSING LION

Tuesday:

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I think he’s judging my hair.

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Every day

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Linc has a HUGE crush on all the tiny ballerinas

Wednesday:

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Now he’s judging Aldi for being a weird grocery store

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I might have been a LITTLE early with the reindeer leggings but WHATEVER

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Helping himself to Caroline’s uneaten lunch. Caroline now BUYS her lunch.

Thursday:

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OUTSIIIIIIDE

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OOOOOOUTSIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE

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Not happy to be inside, sorting wraps

Friday:

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Definitely my kid

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LOBSTER TWINS

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A scary monster/vampire

Saturday:

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SO PROUD of her first trophy

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Totally normal

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Letting the kids hand out the candy so I can sit and drink my wine #excellentmomming

I did NOT watch the Walking Dead tonight, because my husband is forcing me to watch The Packers embarrass themselves all over the teevee, so I’m going to do the smart thing and pass the hell out. I’m going to make the end of daylight savings work FOR me instead of against me. Fingers crossed all the kids are on board with than plan. They should be, right? Kids are totes reasonable about that kind of thing.

Matching Pajamas Are Very Important

October 27th, 2015

Disclaimer: Some of these links are affiliate links, because I figured it couldn’t hurt to try to earn a few dollars to put towards actually ordering more pajamas.

IT’S TIME TO THINK ABOUT THE HOLIDAYS. START THINKING ABOUT THEM. DO IT. START NOW. CHRISTMAS IS COMING AND YOU CANNOT STOP IT.

Last year for our Christmas cards I did the kids in front of the twinkle light background while wearing matching pajamas. I am a huge fan of matching pajamas, both for Christmas and for photos. I have done a lot of matching pajama research, so I’m going to share some of my findings with you in case you are also in the market for Two-piece Pajama Sets. Let’s say MATCHING PAJAMAS one more time. It can be tricky to find them in all the kid sizes when kids span different sections of the store (*shakes fist at Target for making my 6 year old buy ugly stuff from the BOYS department*) so I’ve included that info too.

Hanna Andersson (Price: $35-$46, not on sale. Last year they got down to under $30 on Black Friday) – Oh Hanna. What can I say, these are my favorite pajamas in the world. I ordered two different sets for all 3 kids last year and they still wear them at least once a week. They truly have all the sizes, from baby to adult, although their Swedish sizing can be confusing at first. Buy big, they last forever.

matching pajamas for holiday card 2014

Our Christmas card photo

matching pajamas summer 2015

STILL wearing last year’s Christmas pajamas in August of this year

This year, they have Star Wars Christmas pajamas. They look like traditional Swedish prints but are in fact Darth Vader heads. Unfortunately, buying ALL THE JAMS for my whole family would cost as much as our entire Christmas budget, so I’ll probably settle on the (still wicked cute) Dear Deer red reindeer ones.

The Children’s Place (Price: $13ish to $20ish? They always always have sales) – One of the challenges of MATCHING jams is that Evan is in boy’s sizes, and boy’s clothes are way less cute than toddler clothes. So the good news is The Children’s Place has red stripes in sizes from 4-14. Evan and Caroline could both match in those. The bad news is they (currently) don’t have the same stripes for Linc. Their toddler sizes run up to 5T though, so last year holiday stripes like these would have been perfect. I ordered Linc a couple pairs of TCP jams a couple weeks ago and they’re pretty nice. I love the not-feet style (like Hannas!) because then they fit for a super long time.

matching pajamas from the children's place

The Children’s Place jams I ordered Linc – I love this pattern!

Land’s End – The first year we did matching jams I ordered plaid fleece from Land’s End for Evan and Caroline, as seen in this post where I announced I was pregnant with Linc OMG and also here, for our Polar Express train trip:

matching pajamas from Lands End 2013

BABIES, LOOK AT THEM

The have nightgowns that match the old-man style pajamas, which are both adorable on children. I love this green and blue plaid nightgown that matches the green and blue plaid jams for boys which match the toddler-sized jams (no baby sizes, but they go down to 2T).

Burt’s Bees Baby ($19.95+, which is less than Hannas but still organic!) – Have you ever looked at Burt’s Bees Baby? All my fancy photographer friends buy gorgeous, neutral clothes from them for their gorgeous, neutral photo shoots. I’ve stalked a few times but it wasn’t until I was looking for matching jams that I checked them out seriously. They have a whole family pajamas section! Toddler goes from size 2 to size 7, baby one-pieces start at newborn and baby 2 pieces go from 12 months to 24 months. They also have adult sizes, which is really tempting. Epic family photo, anyone?? All cream/white henley-style jams would be catalog-style perfect on Christmas morning. I don’t have action shots yet, but I’ll update when I do (because I just ordered the matching Candy Cane jams for all the kids).

If you have a secret source of adorable matching kid pajamas, please leave me a comment so I can also order those. There’s no such thing as too many pairs, since you wear them 365 days a year (even the Christmas ones). Happy holiday shopping!!

My Week(260) in iPhone Photos

October 25th, 2015

I was going to do this an hour ago but then I decided to watch The Walking Dead and (no spoilers) now I don’t  really feel like it. EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE.

Sunday:

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Ok, sure, I GUESS you can bring that birthday party snack in the car

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BEEP BEEP

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Sunsets this week have been amazing

Monday:

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He would sleep in a mountain of blankets

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I let Evan walk to the end of the street to put something in the mailbox and he was really excited

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Being a big kid

Tuesday:

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A murder of crows, circling the bus stop.

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He’s reaching for a leaf in my hand, he doesn’t actually know how to look at a camera

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This is their new favorite game

Wednesday:

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This was outside my house all day, and after a lot of peeking out the windows to see what happened I think the elderly man who rented the apartment in that house passed away. So not interesting, just super sad.

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Bare feets

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Being a scary ghost

Thursday:

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View from Bluff Point

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View from Avery Point

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Very nicely sharing the Panera buzzer

Friday:

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Toddler friends

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It was VERY COLD by the ocean for my evening session

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Even my husband got this right, and he doesn’t even care about my garden

Saturday:

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The faerie village was amazing

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Oh ok, go ahead and look 15

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ORCHARD WEDDING YOU GUYS SO MANY PICTURES COMING SOON CONGRATS JACKIE I NEED TO STOP YELLING

I am seriously drowning in photography work, which is both good (yay money! yay doing a thing I love!) and bad (my house is a disaster! we have no food!). I have a dress I need to return – by mail! I don’t even have to go to the store! – and it’s been sitting on my table for a week because remembering to put it in a package is too much. I suppose I could stop planning any fun fall stuff for the family and JUST take care of my messy house and grocery shopping, but that doesn’t sound fun either.

Just a couple more weeks and then it will be way too cold for anyone to want photos…right?