Me, my little man, and my sunshine

One of the things that I feel pretty crummy about with respect to my photography is the lack of photos

which include myself or Patrick with our dumplings.

This is most apparent during the holidays.

Sure, I'll snap some photos of the kids, perhaps a bunch.

But where are mom and dad?

Hmm..

So I've decided to do something about it.

I'm going to make a greater effort at getting in FRONT of my lens more often, 

not just behind it.

I will be utilizing my tripod and remote shutter release, on occasion, but more often, 

my trusty iPhone, to get the job done.

I might also recruit an assistant every so often, 

which is very easy to do in this house,

seeing that new photos mysteriously show up in my iPhone photostream frequently.

I snapped this the other afternoon when Caleb and I were playing in the front yard.

I also had to get one of me with Madeline, too.

Different day, of course.

In my search for inspiration, I have stumbled across a few new blogs, 

one of them being Emily's over at The Anderson Crew.

She hosts a weekly linkup called Embrace the Camera,

for those who wish to find themselves on the other side of their cameras.

Jackpot!  

This is just what I'm looking for to motivate me.

Now Rebecca over at Simple As That has created a checklist for photos

you should take with your kids.
I'm lovin' it!

This week ...

I'm sharing some kisses with my dumplings.

I also captured a shot of me helping Madeline wash her hands one morning.

This next photo almost didn't happen. 

We celebrated my birthday yesterday by taking a boat ride on the river (lots more from that later).

We were getting ready to pack the minivan back up when I realized that I had 

no photos of ME with either of my kids on my birthday.  Pathetic.

So I tried to rectify that.

Obviously, all of the above images were taken with my iPhone.

However, I also wanted to try to get at least one with my real camera.

So earlier in the week, while Caleb was coloring with his pencils, he asked me to sharpen one for him.

I immediately said yes, then ran and got my camera.

Our school room is small, and there's no room for a tripod.

So I stacked some books on our window bench and hoped for the best.

Caleb had fun triggering the shutter with my remote.

And me?  

Well, I'm just tickled to have captured this moment.

When we're done with school, the kids are always drawing something at the table 

while I get work done on the computer.

This?  Is real life.

And I'm happy to me a part of it.

Cluttered school table and all.