Holdin' on

Babies!

Okay, so besides being one of the most pitiful snapshots I've ever taken, the above photo also explains why I didn't get any other pictures today! These baby girls were hanging at our house this morning while their Mama drove to the airport to pick up visiting family. Despite the fact that one is perfectly content to sit in one spot and watch the world pass by, and the other - tho very active - is quite satisfied to make her own fun, these girls Wore. Me. Out.

Oh, wait... you probably think I mean the two baby girls? Oh no. I mean all four of those females pictured above. I think it's hilarious that the flash spotlighted the dog, because she clearly felt she should be in it! Heidi just couldn't understand why these two little interlopers were getting all HER attention. At one point, she literally burrowed between Ro and one of the babies to separate them, then rolled over on her stomach and thumped her tail on the floor as if to say, "No, see... your hands go here. On my belly. Remember? You no rub anybody else's belly when I'm around. I can haz all ur attention??"

Ro shocked the hell out of me by sticking around to play, cuddle, pick up when fussy, feed and rock to sleep the twins. Typically, Ro's M.O. is run in the opposite direction from babies, who heretofore have freaked her right the heck out.

"Ah! It's looking at me funny! And making weird noises! What do we do??"

"Well, Ro, I believe now we change it's diaper."

But today she was a total champ and even declared afterward that playing with the girls was the best part about her day. Which was actually the EXACT OPPOSITE reaction I was looking for. I figured that a double dose of baby would be almost as good as a depo provera shot, but unfortunately these babies were much too angelic to fulfill that purpose.

So yeah. They were only here for five hours, and I needed a two-and-a-half hour nap after they left! ....Well yes, okay, I probably would have taken the nap anyway. What's your point?!

These girls are the daughters of one of our FRG's families. A young family who had complications at the delivery and for whom we all kind of went out of our way to help out. It was one of my first "acts" as FRG co-leader and... well, it made an impression. Anybody who knows me knows I'm not a "joiner". I don't particularly like interacting with people and I sure wasn't looking for more responsibility. But while I got involved out of mainly frustration and a desire to make my own receipt of information easier and faster, I've had a few unexpected pleasures, as well. This family is one of them. There are days when I want to throw in the towel - when I think, "I want to NEVER TALK TO ANYONE AGAIN." But then there are days when I get to smell sweet little baby heads, or hang out with genuinely nice people, or somebody just says, "Hey, you have a hard job. Thanks for doing it," and I go... Oh yeaaaaahhhh, it IS worth it. :)

Ground view

Sometimes it's not practical to take my big dSLR out. I'm afraid of getting rained on, Heidi is being psycho-dog on the leash, or I just don't want to be stared at. At those times, I dig out the Canon Powershot SX100 that we bought a few years ago for my first foray into digital. It's a fine little camera (not as fine as the new Canon S95, by my saying so puts my husband's head in imminent danger of exploding - "ANOTHER CAMERA?!") and among its many desirable traits my willingness to put it places I would never put my big camera. Like on the ground.

Not so burning bush.

Still trying to play catch up. Something is desperately wrong with the Deutchland portal to Yahoo and Flickr, and sometimes Blogger. It's maddening. But also, there is the fact that "trying to stay busy" has somehow morphed into "OMG-the world is spinning too fast! Make it stop!" But unfortunately I set myself on this speeding bullet of personal projects, FRG madness AND GUESS WHAT?! The housework still doesn't do itself! What the heck, man?

Lucky Thirteen

Sometimes, you just aren't feelin' it, y'know?

Not my fault!

Interwebz having fits, tried to log on but couldn't for a long time! Here's day 12...

Yay! The Tuscany photobook came in the mail! And it looks HAAAAWE-some. It looked awesome on Snapfish when I was putting it together, but I was prepared for a noticeable difference - a certain anti-WYSIWYG, if you will.

That's part of what took the book so long. First, I had edit the picts, then I had to format the book to my satisfaction. Then I had to walk away from it for 30 days so I could preview it with relatively fresh eyes. Then I had wait for the prints to get here so I could make sure the site printed in a quality that wasn't complete crap. (It's very inexpensive, so you can understand my hesitation.)

Aside from the fact that my prints took a long time to ship, I was pleasantly surprised that the quality was very good, even going so far as to crop my edited pictures appropriately, instead of trying to force it onto a single size for their convenience. So I ordered the book, and voilá! Hardbound memories, made to order.

Breadsticks