Planning

The bulk of my afternoon was spent planning school for next week.

I love planning. If things would only go as planned...

I can't believe he did it

I posted the last picture without realizing that my dh (should I erase the d?) had already taking the liberty to post. :-) No anger here, he got me!

A New Way to Study Music

The Itunes Visualizer! Today we listened to Elgar Cello Concerto and enhanced it with the visualizer. It really made the kids pay attention to the music.

Natalia in the morning

This is how you would see Natalia every morning at 7:30. This was posted by her DH who will be lucky to be an H without the D after she sees this. (Gabi said I could publish this, but Alex told me not to do it.) I am a lucky husband to have a wife who looks that cute in the morning. Check out the look on her face. Is she contemplating a thread concerning mysterious matters of the mind and heart? Could she be planning another day of homeschool? Maybe she is wondering what to pack in my lunch.

The Two of Us

Meet Mark


*This picture was taking with the camera on our computer and I had to beg hard for him to let me take a picture :-)

Image of Motherhood

This stained glass window at our church has moved me to tears several times. This shot doesn't do it justice. But the tenderness, the grief of a mother is so evident to me. I can picture Mary rocking back and forth while she griefs the loss of her son. So human, so true.

Saturday Morning

From Here

To here

to here
And here
This is my Saturday morning routine.

PS These are messy pictures. No composition, no art, no imagination. Just what my life is like. Btw, I felt really self conscious taking pictures at the grocery store. I went to an aisle where there was nobody around. Do you feel that way?

Our Lives Revolve around...

Dance!

Let's Cuddle Up, Honey

Being Silly

There was a lot of silliness in our house today. The kids were dancing and singing together and just being goofy.

Teatime

The highlight of our day was teatime. We sat around the table eating Orange Snowball Cookies, drinking tea and milk and listening to a retelling of Comedy of Errors as well as a chapter of The Long Winter. It was one of those times that make me feel so accomplished.

365 Days Is a Long Time

For the first time since starting this project I felt like quitting. The idea of finding pictures that capture the essence of my life each day seems daunting.Even worse, what if the essence of my life isn't worth capturing because it is so banal, so ordinary?These are not happy thoughts. I hope to get some inspiration somehow.

I leave you with the picture that hangs over our couch. It is a typical Dominican country scene. The tree with the flaming red flowers is called flaboyan. The are gorgeous trees when in bloom. Sometimes they can be so full of flowers that you can't see the leaves. Flaboyans grow in the country (like in this picture) or in the city. Santo Domingo, where I was born, is a city famous for its lucious vegetation and the flaboyans add such a splash of flaming red.

After a Day of Play

This is what our living room looks like after a day of play: toys and books scattered all over the place. And this is my husband
playing Battleship. My son won and he was thrilled. This picture is courtesy of my daugther who has gotten the photo bug.

Keeping UP

Here is my youngest trying to keep up with his older siblings. He is "writing" in his "journal" which he calls his "budget". He faithfully feels pages of scribbles with a perfect pencil grip and a concentrated expression.



He even pauses to think



And he is a great helper



What more could you ask for?

Lonely Little Fellow

This Little Fellow showed up in our front porch. A friend of mine found him all cold, lonely and forlorn. I later found out that he was the remnants of a Christmas ornament. Poor thing...

Lobbying for a cellphone

Meet my 13 year old daughter, who so badly wants a cellphone. Not a day goes by without a remark about how much she NEEDS a cellphone, how EVERYBODY has one. In the meantime her dad stands firm and says "NO!!". And I quietly say: "For now"

A little bit of color in my life

As I was eating breakfast this morning I saw something green dangling from a tree branch. It was a Mardi Grass bead! For a minute it took me to the days after the parades, when beads hang from branches and wires. The beads just look out of place in a January morning but they added a splash of color to another gray day.

Gloomy Day

to match my gloomy mood.

Sunday Lunch

I love our Sunday lunches. Sunday is the only time of the week that we all eat lunch together. i have made a habit of trying new recipes on Sundays. I love to sit down for a hot meal in the middle of the day . It also reminds me of growing up in the Dominican Republic where the main meal is at noon.

Today it was Italian Bites (recipe taken from a Southern Living magazine), Ceasar salad, grape tomatoes, baby carrots and a Mandarin Orange Cake for dessert. Nothing fancy. I love simple, easy to prepare meals. I wasn't sure how to take the pictures...

These are the Italian Bites (just a fancier version of a grilled cheese sandwich)





And here is a view of our table. The green tablecloth serves as a reminder that we are back into Ordinary Time in the Liturgical Year. (The table is not properly set up but the crew was getting impatient with my picture taking)

Crazy Weather

Is it January? It feels more like Spring. Granted, it is not cold in LA but shorts and sandbox in January?

My photo for today got banned

Bannned my 13 dd who said she will kill me if I post it. I guess I need to respect her wishes. So instead here is the backside of my ds (9). I took the kids bowling today with some other homeschooling friends. The kids bowled, the moms talked. It was a nice change of pace. It isn't the best picture but hey! I am learning. ;-)

Commitment is good, isn't it?

I almost forgot to post today. It is going to take a while for me to make this
part of my life. It is going to take a while to remember to take my camera with
me when I go about my life. I need a lesson in perseverance and I think this
is going to be it.

Today I am posting my stack of digital photography books. If only I could
find the time to read them!

Is it going to work or not?

Finally trying to post a picture.

Beginnings

I love the beginning of new year. I love the sense of newness. I love the unexplored possibilities.
This year I am doing something new: this blog. It is part of project 365. The idea is to post a
photo a day to document my life this year. I'm hoping that this project will help me to slow down
and learn new ways of looking at life.