So I don't forget...

Rylee's pronunciations:
asparagus > "ba-scary-us"
burger > "booger"
hamburger > "han-ga-ber"
25 > "two-ty-five"*
*this is what she says when she sees the number 25...if she's counting, she says "twenty-five." but no matter how many times I try to tell her otherwise, "25" = "two-ty-five" in her mind.


We've been doing lots of letter sounds around here lately (as in "C says C-C-C-Cat and C-C-C-Cailyn.") Tonight Cailyn chose one of our alphabet books for a bedtime story. She knows a few of the letters, but mostly she doesn't. On letter L she said "that's C-C-C-Daddy!"
Apparently the emphasis on the first sound has lost its purpose on her...

Mod Giveaway

Yes, I have fallen behind with my fun "joy of love" photography class...the wheels of life somehow seems to spin faster than I can keep up with everything that I want to do! Now that I'm a week plus behind, I'm going to wait until my new and improved lens arrives and then play catch-up with it.
In the meantime, I am coveting one of these beautiful Mod camera straps (I would be one happy camper with one of these around my neck and a new lens on the front of my camera!) My friend Casey is doing a giveaway for one of these babies on her blog...check it out! She has one, and not only is it super cute, it's super soft and minky on the back, which also means it's super comfy.

the joy of love 08: gift from the heart

They love to pick flowers for me. Rylee loves picking oranges for anyone and everyone that comes to our house.

**********

Not sure whether this really qualifies, but it gave me a good laugh anyways...

the joy of love 07: generations

Another Hairy Situation

While making his Bacon Explosion today, a small grease fire started and singed the front of Quinn's hair.That's 3 out of 4 of the McNamara clan. I've been working on growing my hair out for a year now...hopefully the curse will pass over me so that my efforts won't be in vain!

the joy of love 06: who (and what) THEY love

The assignment was who they love, but I (mostly) opted to capture what they love...

Her "Purple Daintdee"

Running into grown men at full speed (be it football or rugby)
(He loves it so much that this, amongst other battle wounds, is the price he is willing to pay to do it.)

Her daddy.

(She asked "did my daddy's team win?" This was her response when we told her no. She did perk up a bit when she learned that her daddy was "Player of the Game.")

Super Bowl Sunday...which also translates into making his "Bacon Explosion."

the joy of love 05: love to hate

i have loved doing hair ever since i was a little girl.rylee loves to pull her hair out.

i hate it.but i love her.

she loves life.

she brings me more joy than i can say.

crazy, tangled hair and all.

the joy of love {days 1-4}

I found out about this free online photography class for the month of February from my cousin's blog a few days into the month. I've been wanting to learn to use my camera (really use it, not just on the automatic settings) since I got it, but haven't managed to take the time to do so yet. Well, that's not completely true. I started a photography class a couple weeks ago, but so far have been thoroughly disappointed by the content; just to give you an idea, we spent two hours this week practicing using the auto focus and transferring pictures from our cameras to a flash drive...I'm going to stick it out a little longer in hopes that it gets better, but we'll see.

Anyway, I am excited for the daily "assignments" from this class - something that won't take long (so I can squeeze it into my busy days) but will give me a chance to spin the dial out of the "portrait" mode on my camera.

So here are the pictures from the first four days' prompts...my attempt to capture a bit of the joy that radiates from some of the people I love.

01: what they do

read together

02: how they look

proud

{choosing a sticker for her "poop chart"...and hugging Oopsie Bear - her reward for getting 5 stickers on said chart}

03: then and now

then...

...and now

{this may not be an amazing photo, but I am quite proud of it; I took it at 2am (after calming Cailyn down from a nightmare) with no flash - the only light was from a nightlight across the room, which involved me playing around with a few manual settings!}

04: what they wear

on her fingers

while baking

Hairy Situations

A few weeks ago Rylee ran out from my room with Cailyn at her heels and proudly announced

"Mom, look at Cailyn's new haircut!"It could have been much much worse, but I had been so excited by how long Cailyn's hair was getting that it kind of bummed me out.

Luckily, Shellie came to the rescue and fixed her up with some layers.
The next week I missed a call from Rylee's preschool; I tried to call back right away, but it was busy. I started to panic a bit - I've never gotten a call from the preschool, and they have always answered when I call, so I was just sure that Rylee was on the way to the emergency room or something! As it turns out, the line was busy because Ms. Jenny was leaving a voicemail for me saying that Rylee had flubber in her hair and they couldn't get it out.
She told me they tried water, ice, oil, and maybe a few other things, but nothing was working.
(Considering I had spent a minute or two envisioning Rylee on her way to the ER with a cracked skull, this was great news!)
Rylee recounted the incident to me (hand motions and all) "Mom, I just swinged the flubber up over my head and it got stuck!"
It really was stuck in there pretty good!Luckily, all it took me was a quick google search and a few cups of white vinegar to get it out!

The girls keep talking about wanting Rapunzel hair...but I'm not feeling so confident that we'll ever get there.