Luke Says:

(while making rice krispy treats)  Can I put the marshies in?

Take these skid mark gitch off, please.

Will you be my wife when I grow up?  No, somebody else will have to be your wife because I'm already your Mom.  Then I don't want a wife.

When I grow up I want 3 dads.  Why?  Because I just like Dad.

I smelled a stink and it was my brudder.

What is this?  Antibacterial.  Oh, well you're an auntie.  You're my cousin's auntie.

Are they coming yet?  They'll be here at six o'clock; that's in one hour.  I shouldn't have to put up with this!

Hey Seamus, I'm all batmanned up!

Are you cold, do you want your jacket?  No, Mom.  Batmans don't get cold.

And then there was the day I asked Luke to get some socks for Seamus.  He happily went to grab socks out of Seamus's bedroom and came back with a yellow pair and a green pair.  Instead of handing me a pair, he unrolled each pair, took one of each color and handed me a mismatched set.  

"Why'd you give me two different socks?"  I asked.  

"So that Seamus can look like me."  

I asked, "And why do you wear two different socks?"  

His answer:  "Because then I don't have to choose just one kind!"

Batman costume. (Thanks grandma Helene!)

It's not just a camera, it's

a Powerhouse.

a Machine.

a Member of the family.

Not for wimps (seriously it's heavy!).

My pretty.

the Black beast.

a Thoroughbred.

Fun.

Sexy.

Full-frame, heavy-duty, mega drool, super cool, not-simply-awesome-but-totally-stellar new piece of equipment.

 

Here's what it does right out of the gate, with a Nikon 16-35mm 1:4 lens, no retouching.

With no more introduction:
 

Only one light on to my left!!  6400 ISO!!! I think I hear angels singing.

Me at my desk in the office.

Fat naked baby.  Yes, dearest darling, you are fat.  We love it.

 

halloween carrots

We had a crazy wind last week that ripped the sweet peas off the fence, and the towers came down for safe-keeping.  All that's left in the garden is carrots...and volunteer spinach.

 

What's Goin' On

Jolly jumping gets us through the day.  It is by far Seamus' favorite activity.

Still harvesting.  Still delicious.

New Costco jammies on a sweet tired boy.

Does this need any explanation?  I think it's pretty self-explanatory. 

We drove out to Brandon on Saturday to photograph this housing built by WBS.  This is just two of the units.  Boy was it cold while we were photographing at 9:30 in the morning!  See the frost on the grass?

Fall.

On the way home Luke insisted that Seamus sit closer to him.  They laughed and giggled and laughed and played with that bug until they fell fast asleep.

The sky was so beautiful on the way home; it looked like a giant opal.  I wish I had photographed the fog in the morning - just before sunrise (yes we left before sunrise!!).  It was just like tule fog, back home in the San Joaquin Valley.  It rose off the ground in layers.  We drove past a pumping station and the light on top of the pole was totally invisible in the fog, but there was a perfectly clear orange circle of light on the ground.  Strange and lovely.

To the English 10 Classes, From Luke: The Reason You Have Weekend Homework

We were driving home from the grocery store yesterday and Luke was doing his usual incessant questioning.  Finally I said to him, "Please stop asking questions for just a few minutes."
Inevitably, he responded, "Why?"
"Because Mommy's ears need a rest, okay?  You ask so many questions!"
"It's your own fault," said he.

What to address first...the phrase, or the blame?

Luke's Perspective

While it is not common practice around here to pass the child the camera, we had a "camera safety" lesson the other day and let Luke have a go...since we now own a camera that we're not terrified of him dropping  (Luke, if you're reading this, the pro camera is still entirely OFF LIMITS).

I like this collection of photos from Luke's perspective and I feel they will tell you a lot about what we've been up to lately.  For example, we hung 2 photos in the dining room, the CHILD study ladies came and took dust samples and measurements of our house (click CHILD to learn more about the experiment we're involved in), Seamus is jollily jumping lots more, and we got a new exersaucer off of Pembina Valley Mom's Swap which Seamus enjoys quite a lot, and Luke might enjoy more (he drops race cars through the leg holes when Seamus isn't sitting in it).  I made bread and more bread yesterday (Easy French Bread from More With Less cookbook, and Whole Wheat Flax from Simply in Season), Luke has been painting with watercolors (hence the plastic table cloth in one photo), we set up the crib in Luke's room, moved Seamus into the crib to start sleep training, and Luke moved to the bedroom in the basement until sleep training is over, and Luke's best friend Linus is still hanging in there even though he nearly forfeit his life when he destroyed one of my cotton sack kitchen towels last week because it smelled like biscuits.

Hard to argue, it's a good life.

Less is More - Film: Part 2

I am enjoying these film photos so much that I don't think I'm going to be able to stop (even though my pocketbook is saying otherwise!).  It's just SO GOOD.  My children are so dang cute, my husband is smokin' and Wow, I look good on film too!  The suspense is exhilarating, the expense is debilitating but the results are gratifying.  Maybe the expense will be what curbs my enthusiasm and keeps the junk out of my shooting.  Maybe shooting less will keep me honest about my skill, and encourage me to grow/learn faster.  Maybe instant gratification isn't all it's cracked up to be.  Perhaps less is more, after all.  

Luke says:

Do you need to go potty?  No I'm just grabbing my penis because I'm hungry.

When we don't see Linus we be like a bird, we whistle like a bird.

Dad I want you to come be a downward facing dog.

It's okay Mom, I'm helping myself. (untie a knot)

Seamus says he really wants to sit on the couch with his big brother and watch a movie.  But he can't eat treats?  Oh.  Maybe I should help him eat his treats.
(Luke has suggested "Seamus says" about pretty much anything Luke wants to do - it's terribly hard to say no to that sweet persuasiveness).

Fall Wanderings

Out for a rather random walk around the industrial suburbs here in Winkler while our van had new tires put on.  Our friend in any outdoor pursuit, Adeline, met up with us for our odd, side-of-the-highway-and-into-the-mini-golf-back-40 jaunt. Isn't jaunt a fun word?

*Fotografias*

Yes, I spelled it wrong.

No, it was not on purpose.

No, I have no excuse.

I'm just wrong.

Sometimes.

Just because.

photographias

Lots of black and whites, and the best avocado I've had in a very long time.

Seamus and his companion.

Luke is playing a song he wrote about bugs, inspired by the bug stickers he found in the piano bench.