VC has needed a haircut for longer than I care to admit. I don’t know what it says about me, but I’m not the kind of mom who’s very intent – or good – at styling and accessorizing my girls’ hair. Finally, at lunch one day, I could take the bang mask no longer. I grabbed kitchen scissors and…

I got about two good snips in and she hasn’t let me near her since. She’s no dummy. Eventually I will get a professional to fix it, but when else in life can you get away with a hack job like this and still look so adorable?

Whew. October and November were so busy. I’m incredibly honored and grateful to all of the families who trusted me with their family’s portraits this year. Now that the Holiday Mini Sessions are all complete, I have just a few more sessions to fit in this month and then I am taking a couple of weeks to enjoy my family and get ready for 2010. There are a lot of exciting things in the works, including a new blog, travel calendar, and a big giveaway! Please stay tuned!

Since so many of my recent sessions were intended to be surprises for Christmas, I can’t share too many of those pictures. That’s all the excuse I need to squeeze in a few of my own family. My girls are lucky to have great relationships with all of their grandparents, great grandparents, and even one great-great grandmother! I cherish every opportunity we have to bring the generations together. These are from Thanksgiving weekend.

VC and her “Papa”

CM and “Memo”, her great-great grandmother.

October was so busy! Thank goodness for today’s bonus hour. It’s been a little while since I posted some pics of my own girls, so here are a few recent ones.

Just one bit of business: Mini Session dates extended through November 24! Check out Investment page for details.

We took the scenic route home from Fort Lauderdale early in the month. This is near the place we stopped for lunch.



Halloween.

There’s not much CM likes better than dressing up. I have to brag on my mom (Lola, to the girls). She made this Alice in Wonderland costume from scratch. CM firmly believes that Lola can fix or make just about anything!

CM’s Halloween decorations.

Funny thing about these is that this was NOT halloween.

Just my happy VC playing with her Lola.

With all the H1N1 warnings out there, it’s hard not to watch your kids for the slightest sign of the dreaded flu. It seems that the bugs that have invaded our house are just the average back-to-school variety. Above is CM keeping herself and us entertained earlier this week. This was on the second day when she was getting back to normal…day one was not so cheerful.

I describe myself as having a green heart and a black thumb. The summer heat has finally broken here so we got out in the yard to clear out all the debris of what we attempted to grow last season, and the weeds that came up instead. It’s so nice to go outside to play and not instantly break a sweat.

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JACKSONVILLE – Just a few slots left for Holiday Mini Sessions! See Investment page for details.

FORT LAUDERDALE – Meet me on the beach! Only mini session slots remaining on Oct 4. Email me NOW to claim one!

ATLANTA – One Day Only – Saturday, October 17 – until 2010! Contact me at jenmen@gmail.com

Obviously, I believe in the importance of capturing moments, recording memories, and preserving them for the future. And while “a picture is worth a thousand words”, words are still incredibly and uniquely powerful. There are so many things that I want my children to know, big and little things that I want to tell them. I often want to write a thought or a story for them down, never to actually make the time. Something about putting pen to paper, in our digital age, is a barrier to me. I started out collecting random notes. I’ve tried to maintain journals for them. I haven’t had much success with keeping up with any of these.

But then there’s email. I can do that. I already do. All the time. Maybe too much. I decided to start email accounts for both CM and VC so that I can send them notes. Big ones about the things that are really important to me. And incidental ones about little things, like how they made each other laugh this morning. I can attach pictures (of course!), jot down the recipe to a meal I made for them, document interesting little things in their lives in a matter of minutes. I’ve also shared the address with their grandparents and a few special people in their lives so they can contribute as well. They should have quite an inbox by the time I actually tell them about this!

Dear VC, sometimes I worry and feel guilty that your diet is mostly composed of grapes and raisins. But right now all you need is one of those tiny little boxes, and you’re content! It’s hard to argue with that and I’m happy to provide such a simple pleasure. I love you and your sweet little pursed lips…Mommy

I’m very excited about this idea. It’s not mine originally. I saw it here. But I love it so much that I wanted to share it with you and encourage you to do it as well. I wished I’d done this when I was pregnant! I think that the ability to savor a moment frees us up to enjoy the next one, and that this will help me do just that.

I have a lot of fun sessions coming up in the next several weeks. I will get back to posting about other people’s children and families very soon!

And now, some business to attend to…

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JACKSONVILLE – Just a few slots left for Holiday Mini Sessions! See Investment page for details.

FORT LAUDERDALE – Meet me on the beach! Only mini session slots remaining on Oct 4. Email me NOW to claim one!

ATLANTA – One Day Only – Saturday, October 17 – until 2010! Contact me at jenmen@gmail.com

Because I try to be all about being real when it comes to life, photography and especially parenthood, I had to share these 11 steps. I got them from my friend Jennie who I met at Me Ra’s workshop and who happens to be an amazing person, mom and photographer herself.

I have my hands full for the next several days, so probably won’t be posting much…have a great weekend!

11 Step Program for People Who Want Kids

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Thinking of Having Kids? Do this 11 step program first!

Lesson 1

1. Go to the grocery store.
2. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
3. Go home.
4. Pick up the paper.
5. Read it for the last time.

Lesson 2 ~ Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their…

1. Methods of discipline.
2. Lack of patience.
3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.
4. Allowing their children to run wild.
5. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child’s breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, an d overall behavior.
Enjoy it because it will be the
last time in your life you will have all the answers.

Lesson 3 ~ A really good way to discover how the nights might feel…

1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly. (Eat cold food with one hand for dinner)
2. At 10PM, put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1AM.
4. Set the alarm for 3AM.
5. As you can’t get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink and watch an infomercial.
6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.
7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.
9. Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for work and go to work (work hard and
be productive)
Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years. Look cheerful and together.

Lesson 4 ~ Can you stand the mess children make? To find out…

1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.
2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed.
4. Then rub them on the clean walls.
5. Take your favorite book, photo album, etc. Wreck it.
6. Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

Lesson 5 ~ Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.

1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh..
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out.
Time allowed for this – all morning.

Lesson 6 ~ Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don’t think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don’t look like that.

1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there.
2. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.
3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Lesson 7

Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is an excellent choice). If you intend to have more than one child, then definitely take more than one goat. Buy your week’s groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 8

1. Hollow out a melon.
2. Make a small hole in the side.
3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.
4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.
5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.
6. Tip half into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air.
You are now ready to feed a nine- month-old baby.

Lesson 9

Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street , Barney, Disney, the Tele tubbies, and Pokemon. Watch nothing else on TV but PBS, the Disney channel or Noggin for at least five years. (I know, you’re thinking What’s ‘Noggin’?) Exactly the point.

Lesson 10

Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying ‘mommy’ repeatedly. (Important: no more than a four second delay between each ‘mommy’; occasional crescendo to the
level of a supersonic jet is required). Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years.. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Lesson 11

Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt- sleeve, or elbow while playing the ‘mommy’ tape made from Lesson 10 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

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BOOK NOW for Holiday Mini Sessions! See Investment page for details.

A few slots left for  Fort Lauderdale and Atlanta families! Contact me at jenmen@gmail.com

She’s been on the verge for a while. Last night she decided it was time and took off! She was doing laps in the dining room!

Three out of four members of our household have headed back to school this week. VC is in the baby program for a couple of days at the same school where CM is in preschool. And even T is getting in on it with grad school on the occasional weekend. Their first days came consecutively, starting Wednesday. Today everyone is out of the house and I’m off to work. Life moves so fast. I can’t believe it.

It could be a pool, a puddle, the tub, a creek, or the ocean. My girls just love being in and near the water. Well, CM has gone from being terrified to loving it now that she has learned to swim. VC already can’t get enough of it.

I love Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. Their “Evolution” video, in particular, speaks so loudly and clearly to the fact that so much of what is presented to us as beautiful is doctored, manipulated, photoshopped…

I try so hard to keep this in mind when I am shooting, editing and post-processing my photographs. Not to mention in my life in general, when I’m judging myself and others, or trying to live up to expectations (sometimes I don’t even know whose). That beautiful doesn’t necessarily mean flawless, or vice versa.

I wish I could embed the video here, but it’s either not possible or I’m just not savvy enough to figure it out. Do follow the link and check out the video. It’s worth 2 clicks and one minute, fourteen seconds of your time.

“Evolution”

The pic above is one of me that T took recently. It’s one that on my first look, I say, “ooh, I hate this or don’t like that.” But if I take away those filters that tell me what I’m supposed to look like, then I can appreciate myself, the picture, the moment it captured for what they are. Beautiful and real. The sun spots on my cheeks show that A) I didn’t touch it up, and B) even brown people get freckles and should wear sunblock!

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