After Easter

You get to eat that big huge chocolate bunny. It's hollow, but still, it sure is big. Oh yum.

 Jude was happy just to have the box. Who am I to open it?

Jude, what are you looking at?

Ohhh...uh oh.

Light?

Light, where are you?

Helllllloooooo...Liiiight...Yoo-hooooo....

It is sunny and bright out today. Early morning sunshine was filtering in through a back room, so I did a quick test...wow, I thought...this is the brightest window light we have had all year. I can actually use a ss above 100. 

 I grabbed Jude. Who, by the way, is NOT a cooperative model.

 Would you believe me if I told you...

 that I still had to use a reflector...

 and my flash?

For real. I need me some brighter light.

Mom's Egg

We color Easter Eggs, every year.

 

We usually wait till the last minute, which means we go to mass with greenish brown hands on Easter. That dye ain't washable, hence the old white t-shirts the boys are sporting.  

Joe is showing Pete how to do it.

Pete is dumbfounded.

 

 He is pretty good at it!

Something really made Paul laugh. Maybe it was the silly stickers.

Every year, Joe picks out an egg just for me. He has the boys decorate it, put my name on it. Totally missed focus here, but it says 'Mom' and is purple-y. Very girly.

Awww....Right? NO. Not awwwww. More like, are you F$%@ kidding me, Joe? More on that in a sec. 

Joey, totally enthralled over how dip dying is working out.

Oh, I make Joe an egg too. Mine is nice though.

Joe makes funny eggs too. Although...dangit Joe, you know you are supposed to stop using this phrase. You are real clever...shame on you Dr. Adams. Shame. Shame. 

 

Oh, so back to my special egg. My lovely egg. So, the day after Easter, one of the kids will bring me my egg, ask me to eat it, use it in the deviled eggs, etc. I always say yes, crack it open, and then this happens. 

So what is more ridiculous...that Joe does this every. single. year. Or that I fall for it every. single. year. Hmmmm...

Happy Easter!

Mint

If I invite you over to my house...

 for dinner...

do not eat, I mean, definitely do not eat...

the mint. I'm just sayin'

Just a day in the life...

of this silly family. :) I had to clear my memory card a sec ago. I hate when I go to take a pic and it is full. This happens alot. I am trying to get better about uploading/editing/re-formating the card. I found some pics I took last night, this morning, and today. All really cute stuff, of course. :)

Last night...

These two...they are starting to interact. Chase each other, play games. The other day, the other boys were getting ready to go outside, and Jude was screeching at the door. Pete says, "Mom, just let him go outside." 

Real trouble makers, these two.

I am trying to do my own black and white conversions, desperate to find a method I like. 

This morning.

Hey, not bad for iso1600, lol. Look, someone picked up the books(they are down again now).

Pete has an imaginary friend named 'Bingo.' The name alone tells me he is probably a pretty cool guy. He is really little though, cause sometimes Pete carries him in his hands. He has a monster named 'Jimmy' too. Bingo is always messing up the books, along with Jude, Pete tells me. Good thing Pete is so cute.

It was nice outside today, again.

This baby.

With a runny nose.

A tiny piece of chalk he found on the ground.

And his big brother's helmut.

Having the time of his life.

Light, baby!

The other day, we got outside for a bit. Pete shed big tears when daddy told him he could not go fishing with him and Joey, and to remedy that, I tied a string onto the end of a stick and let him go 'fishing' in our flooded back yard. 

It worked.

 Ya know, I am so not happy with my full body outside pics. Exposure, color, sharpness, everything. This is something I need to work on. Anywho, this is the best shot. What a goof.

And, the clouds parted, revealing blue, yes blue, skies. 

I don't see skies like this here as often as I would like. I know, I know, I have mentioned this before. It is just amazing to me...this lack of light. See, I know better. I know what it *should* be like. Or atleast how I think it should be. I am not from here, where it is so gray, so often.

 I have always lived where skies like this are just an ordinary part of my day.
These past two-ish years, looking up and seeing gray. Looking up and not seeing these blue skies...Has been hard to swallow. Light, sunshine...it really does impact you in such a happy and positive way. Today, as I type this, the sky is the usual light gray, again. I look forward to seeing some blue skies again.

Daffodils are in bloom. No leaves on the trees yet though(this is yet another thing that seems totally abnormal to me-it is mid April...where are the leaves?!!).

Oh, my shiny yella boots gettin' lotsa use. And, you see that gray sky trying to sneak into my pretty blue sky?!!!

As I snapped this or that, I chased this.

Jude loves being outside.

Oh the light. Back to the light. I miss light so much. So so much. Sometimes it creeps in though, and when it does, oh boy do I ever notice it. Like yesterday when I picked Jude up after he woke up form his nap. The harsh light of the setting sun was casting dramatic shadows in the stairway.

Look at that tiny little man shadow. Luuuuuuuuve him.

As I made my way down the stairs, the light coming in through the living room and dining room was so yummy. I also love that I walked in on Joey and Paul playing together. What cutie pies. 

Oh pretty early evening sun, I love you. See how yummy the light is in the living room. No, not the book mess silly(Jude's latest and greatest trick), the light. Look at the light. Not the books.

I plopped Jude and Pete down just as the sun was getting lower, and played around with some crazy sun flare.

Sweet Pete, I love you, even if you steal Jude-y's baby treats.

Whooooo mom, calm down! Too much flare, tooooo much flare!!!!!!!!

Jude, you are so cute.

Mom!!! You got carried away again. To much flare! Toooo much flare!!!!

And then...Palm Sunday came...Holy Week is here.

I drove and hour to the big-good-grocery-store and got all the goods for our Thursday Seder(I am making lamb and homemade flat bread), Friday meal(Italian-y soup with clams), and Easter dinner(ham and green beans and homemade biscuits, of course!)  :) Yum Yum. Oh, and I should not be the one to buy Easter candy for the baskets because I went overboard. It's about to be fat city up in here.
Oh, and Joey has started a new project! His very own photoblog. He does everything. The pics, the text, he even came up with the name, lol. 
http://itstoughhaving4brothers.blogspot.com/

Have a great Holy Week! ;)

Who knew

That a pair of $1.00 sun glasses...from the Target bargain section...

could make a kid so happy.

 Who knew?

And, I had some more self portrait adventures. Joe thinks taking self portraits is vain. Silly man. I used to think that, until I joined the photography world and realized it is a natural part of documentation. For me, it seems like the only way to document that these kids have a mother. lol You know how Max and Ruby(you know, those cute bunnies on Nickelodeon?) are always alone. There is a facebook page called, Where the Hell are Max and Ruby's Parents? LOL It has over 13,000 likes. Good Q. They are ALWAYS alone. I got to thinking. Maybe Max and Ruby's mom is the one filming them. Hidden behind that camera. Maybe? Anyhow, if you look at my life in pictures, it appears that my children, like Max and Ruby, have no mama. Where the Hell is she? Oh, yeah, behind the camera. Anyhow, at Clickinmoms, I came across a photographer, Misti, that took selfies. She said the best thing. She said that someday, when your kids look back on your family's pictures, they are going to want to see pictures of you more than themselves. So true. I love seeing pictures of my mom at different stages in our life. LOVE it. So, I took that to heart and started getting in more frames, even if it is just me and the camera in a refelction or distorted arms-length shots. LOL Here are some of my latest attempts. Camera held at arms length. Mama is half a person here because the distortion was so bad, I chopped off the big crooked looking nose. This is my better half, so that is good. j/k ;)

And, I am proudly wearing my new cardigan from Target.

Who knew a cardigan from Target could make a mama so happy?
Who knew?

 And, when I uploaded these, I thought I looked like my sister, Eva. Sometimes I see a pic of myself and think I look like one of my many sisters. This time, I swear, the whole pic(except the big ol' nasty distorted nose) looked like my sister Eva.

Past weekend...on film

It was nice out, besides the mud and gray skies and chilly wind here or there, of course, so we got outside. Figured it would be a great time to play around with some film. 

We headed down to the rails to trails for some bike riding. For anyone that does not know, the trail is an old rail line, turned into a biking/hiking trail.

Joey has really come into his own with this whole bike riding thing. He rocks. He even attempted some wheelies. 

We had not gone very far before we saw this thinga-ma-jingie. From best I can tell, it was a handy way to load coal onto the trains below. We love finding little bits of history in places like this.

 

 The boys(and Joe) started exploring, and we soon found that piles of coal were everywhere.

See it? How old was it? How long has it been piled up here after the rails were abandoned? Pete spent several minutes doing this, basically getting no where, like a little running man, until I finally gave him a boost. 

If you look real close, Paul is like, look ma, more coal. 

Then, we started collected it, and placing it in the stroller. *sigh*

 Okay, boys, that is enough with the coal.

When Jude saw everyone get out, well, that was it for his peaceful strolling. He had to get out too.

And then we were on our way back.

 2 funny things about this picture. 

1. Paul was just smiling for the camera. He was fussy the whole time, and him and Joe were bickering back and forth about his chain skipping, not pedaling enough, the training wheels, etc. Those two. LOL

2. See Joe in the background with a piece of coal? Just like the kids, isn't he? Joe, enough with the coal. Put it down. 

Then, on Sunday, we had an Easter Egg hunt at the Knights of Columbus Hall. 

I was metering without a light meter, using some old filmy rules. You ever hear of the sunny f.16 rule? Of course you have. What about the cloudy f.11 rule? Yeah? Have you heard of the Central Pennsylvania-light-vacuum-more-dreary-than-before-charlie-found-the-golden-ticket-in-the-willie-wonka-and-the-chocolate-factory-movie-f.8-rule?  Oh you have. That's good. That is what I used. 

Earlier in the day:

Me: Joe, do you think we need to wear our mud boots to this?

Joe: Nahhhh.

 Lesson learned...in Spring in Central PA, always wear your mud boots...