Thursday, October 27, 2011

Miriam's Back To School Photoshoot

Note: Photography related posts are now found at the Adriel Henderson Photography blog.

This evening was my own Miriam's turn for her back-to-school photo shoot. Usually she loves the camera, but today she lasted only ten minutes before she was ready to head home. We still got some cute photos, and the fall leaves are a beautiful backdrop. (Click each for a larger version)

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Sailing Tacoma

Note: Photography related posts are now found at the Adriel Henderson Photography blog.

I just returned from a few days on the Sailboat in the Tacoma area with my friend Jeremy. The weather was beautiful, albeit a bit cold after the sun went down, but because of the time of year there were few other boats on the water. It felt like we had the whole sound to ourselves! (These are small, so click each for the full size.)



In the Tacoma Narrows, a community built entirely over the water...



Burlington Northern emerging from the Point Defiance tunnel...



A Crowley tug in the Thea Foss Waterway...



This lift bridge is shrouded with scaffolding and plastic for extensive repair work...



Some beautiful views of Mt. Rainier over the Tacoma harbor...









Back out in the sound...









Pintrest

Something from My Sailor Girls got pinned!!!!

Pintrest is like an online idea board.  You can "pin" pictures that you love, inspire you, ideas for a redecorating project, party, wedding, projects you want to do, whatever.  It is the current "in" site and it has even gotten coverage on the national news.

All of that to say that something of mine is on there.... somewhere.  About 45 min. of searching didn't come up with anything, but my Etsy stats show two hits from Pintrest and I am excited about it.  They like me, they really like me. (ok, even I am laughing at myself here :)

~ Christina

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

We have had a lot of photography and sewing posts here lately so I thought some basic family stuff was in order.  I don't have any pictures of the kids (sorry grandma!) because I don't have a camera available for a couple of days.  So you get a pic from the Bob Books website.


We have a few of these cute little books floating around the house and yesterday Miriam announced that she had read one.  The whole thing.  She was so proud of herself!

The thing you have to understand is that Miriam has had the skills to read the first set of Bob books for about 6 months, maybe more, but why read when you could color?  Miriam loves to color and reading is hard work so she just wasn't into it.

All of a sudden in the past week she has started to get excited about reading and spelling.  On a numbered coloring sheet she figured out what color most of the numbers were by their first letters (green) or by reading the whole word (red).  Once she read that Bob book I pulled the beginning books out of our Hooked on Phonics set and she read to me while we did errands.

The switch has flipped, she is enjoying it and I sure hope it stays that way!

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Raccoons

Last night Adriel was out working on that boat and about nine o'clock these two raccoons showed up just lounging in the yard, grooming and hanging out. Of course they didn't let us get a picture of them. (The point and click couldn't combat the darkness and the distance).

We have known they were around because some time ago the dogs caught one scampering along the back fence. They alerted everyone within a five mile radius. The neighbors were so ticked-off glad to get the warning. Then a few weeks ago we saw one on the front lawn at night with the neighborhood cats. Last night was the first time we got to really watch them for any length of time though.

 The cats seem to accept the raccoons as part of the group and don't pay any particular attention to them. We can only imagine that they are living somewhere in the yard behind us because Morph and Switch would never let them camp under our porch. (All of that barking and baying is good for something!) Anyhow, it was neat to see the local night-life. I wouldn't want to get too close, but they were awfully cute.

~Christina

Monday, October 10, 2011

Door hangers and such....

Note: Photography related posts are now found at the Adriel Henderson Photography blog.

A few weeks back I designed a door hanger to promote the photography business. We've been waiting anxiously for the batch to arrive from the printer. They arrived late last week, and they turned out great! Copy Craft Printers out of Texas did a great job with these.



The girls have been quite excited about the prospect of walking the neighborhoods to hang these on doors. They were all revved up to go on Saturday but that excitement didn't last long, especially as little legs grew tired. They made it about two hours before they refused to walk up any more driveways. Still, we were able to hang over two hundred in a few hours and I'm proud of my little helpers.



I also had a series of business cards made, the front is the same on all of them, but there are four different backs - each featuring one of my favorite portraits.





Pumpkins

The other night I threw together these cute little guys



No, they were not my idea, but I think they are fun and it gave me a quick project to do.  Sometimes I just need to create something and it was one of those nights.  Here is the tutorial I used.

Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Fall Family Photos

Note: Photography related posts are now found at the Adriel Henderson Photography blog.

It's officially fall, so it's time I kick off my fall photography special!

Schedule your portrait package by October 31st and I will include a beautifully framed 11x14” archival print as a bonus. Applies to most of the packages I am offering.

Click here for the details and, please, spread the word!

Bonus framed print

School Colors Collection

I am adding a new section to my Etsy store for hair accessories that specifically coordinate with school uniforms or school colors.  My beautiful nieces needed some hair stuff to match their uniforms this year and  since I have started making headbands and hair clips I had to give it a shot.  The original versions they got were a bit different, but this is the collection I put up in the store.


This is all four pieces.  Two headbands, a flower clip and a pinwheel clip.



The blue/green headband has a button hole in it to attach these hair clips, or any others you would like.  Try a red and white clip on the green side this December with your favorite Christmas outfit!


The clips can also be used alone.  They are covered in a navy grosgrain ribbon.  The navy and white fabrics are cotton broadcloth and the green is a soft flannel.  The yo-yo flower has two little green leaves peaking out from one side. 


The headbands are reversible for two cute looks in one.  Sophisticated navy with white grosgrain ribbon and kaki with fun retro rick-rack.

In honor of this new collection, if you leave a comment with your email adress I will send you a free shipping code for the store.

Monday, October 03, 2011

Creative Sunday

I have been doing a lot of sewing lately for my Etsy store, My Sailor Girls.  I got all of the samples done so that Miriam could model them for us and I have had a couple of orders now and I am working on some other ideas as well.  I haven't gotten to just be creative and make whatever I wanted in quite some time.

So Sunday I went through my fabric stash for inspiration.  I find that it is best for me to get inspired by what I already have on hand.  It's much less expensive that way and the stash gets neatened up a bit.  It was a lot of fun.  This is what I came up with, minus the clip Abby has on at school right now.  Please ignore Mim's unbrushed hair.  She snatched this up and put it on this morning while still in PJ's.  I promise I brushed her hair before she went to school!


Sunday, October 02, 2011

So yesterday Miriam asked to listen to music.  Mim is five so you might expect Raffie or Barney or Psalty to be requested.  You would be wrong.  She asked to listen to "The one with the crown".  I didn't know what she was talking about, maybe some princess thing?  She expertly launched iTunes and worked her way through to show me the  cover art (yep it was a crown) of the Casting Crowns album.

My five year old requested Casting Crowns. Hmmm.

Then Abigail, age ten, says no, she wants to listen to Steven Curtis Chapman or some WOW.  She is totally in her SCC stage which I believe is a documented pre-teen stage of development for girls.

Later that afternoon the girls were having their screen time and asked to watch Myth Busters and World's Toughest Fixes, their favorite shows.  My kids' favorite shows aren't cartoons or sitcoms (I'm not sure they have ever seen a sitcom).  Their favorite show is about fixing giant machines.  NOVA ranks pretty high as well.

What does it say about us that our five year old likes real music and our kids cheer when we are going to watch science programs?  It probably means we are geeks but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Of course one of the reasons my kids don't ask for Raffie and the like is because I can't stand kiddie music.  The high pitched squeaking that pases for "music" is just too much for me.  Also, Miriam listened to Jack Johnson and pretty much nothing else for the first two years of life.  She hated being in the car and the only time she didn't scream was when that CD was playing.  We dearly love Jack.

It's not just the girls either.  David is a teen now.  He should be rebelling and listening to hard rock or something, right?  Nope.  He is a Toby Mac, Newsboys, Building 429 kind of guy.  I love those guys.  And just to add to the strangeness, my Dad does too.  How my grandsons and grandfathers could go to the same awesome concert and have an equally good time?  Not many.  I think it's great!

~ Christina