What to Wear for your family photo shoot ~

Many of you have asked for suggestions on what to wear for your family sessions.  I have here a collection to inspire you!!  Mom and Dad in solids and the kiddos in complimentary prints or solids.  Try to keep the bottoms the same and have fun with accessories!

☼ Train Tracks with Two Tough and Tumble Tots ☼

I had the privilege of shooting a former high school friend's children tonight!  It was great to catch up with Langston and meet her two little guys!  I was immediately greeted with two sweet little eager faces who ran to greet me at Rossi Park.  A perfect evening on the river I must say ~ the breeze was perfect with clear skies!!  We immediately set to work on the railroad and here are is sneak peek at how the evening chugged along ~

I used my Canon 7D with a 50mm 1.2 and a 16-35mm 2.8 ~

Newborn shoot ~ Charlotte Adair

Day 3 ~ Operation Closet Organization

After skipping a day, Day Three has proved to be a productive one for sure!!  This morning I am cleaning, vacuuming, dusting the closet prepping it for paint!  In an effort to save myself $20, I will be using the left over paint from my sun room called ~ Lotus Pod (that sounds Zen~like right?)  A soft, soothing creamy color that will serve as a nice backdrop for my inspiration board & calendar & daydreams.  I love neutrals with pops of color so I have decided on a color palette of creamy coconut, black, brown and raspberry pink.  These are my favorite colors and will help to keep me inspired! 

The work is now being completed by my sweet Emma and our new friend Riley who was over for a play date (they offered, I promise).  I am beginning to feel hopeful that this will be all over soon & I can begin reassembling my life!  

Day 2 of Operation Organize Office Closet

Ok, so I confess, I am already overwhelmed and defeated in this endeavor.  I look at it and I am stuck.  I so badly want to pull the curtains shut and just walk away.  But you have encouraged me to push on, plus, I would feel like a colossal fail if I simply quit ( I mean, moved on to something more pressing ).  So, here I go!  

The next step according to my little (evil) magazine, is to Empty.  So I am emptying my closet, clearing the clutter!  I set up my purge station on my sun room floor with bins to help sort.  

KEEP PILE:  My keep pile consists of the following different keep piles to be sorted later.

Photography inspiration

Homeschooling items

Personal bills to be paid

Personal records to be filed 

Business related items for Ryan

TOSS:  Obvious

RE PURPOSE:  Items that can be used elsewhere in my home

RETURN:  Items that don't belong to me that must be returned to rightful owner.

DONATE:  Items that are in good shape to be taken to charity

EBAY:  Items to sell on Ebay

Here are the nifty little bins ~

Here is my EMPTY little closet ~

Here is the Ebay pile ~ includes the dog!

Well, my 30 minutes is up for sure but now I have a huge dusty, cluttered sun room to deal with!!  As if that isn't stressful enough, I have to take my daughter rollerskating in an hour.  So it is more than likely going to stay this way while I go rock the rollerskates.  Did I mention that I wanted to quit this craziness!!  I am SO going to Dairy Queen.

Project Get Organized ~ My Closet Office

In an effort to manage my insanity, I have decided to follow Jesus..no, really, I have decided to organize my closet office.  I do follow Jesus and he knows what a mess I am.  I wonder what his closets looked like btw!  Ok, rabbit trail already.  My project closet is a random closet in my family room dedicated to paying bills, storing personal files, supplies, editing, basically the brains of our household.  A very sad statement indeed that the brains of our house are kept in a closet but nonetheless, it is what it is.  So my brainy idea came to blog about this process because unlike any of you, I need to be held accountable in order to complete anything in my life.  I also need to be able to pat myself on the back, check it off the list and prove to myself that I am not as lazy as I was yesterday.

So here it goes, according to my new magazine, Better Homes and Gardens, Secrets of Getting Organized, I must follow the four basic steps which are as follows:  

1.  Plan & Empty  

2.  Sort  

3.  Shop 

4.  Reassemble

Step One:  Plan & Empty

BHG Mag:  "Schedule a time to organize rather than trying to squeeze it in.  Set aside 15 minutes, an hour, a half day--whatever suits the goal you hope to achieve".   

My Plan:  Ok ~ I think 30 minutes is about all I can take of structured thought and focusing on one project so, I am going to set aside the next 30 minutes to type this blog, photograph the closet as is and come up with a plan of how I want the closet to work for me.  That sounds good for day one!  Told you I was lazy! 

Here is the closet as is!  Don't judge or smirk or make any snide remarks...I am a recovering slob. 

Ok ~ so here we have it.  Now I need to make a plan of action.  What do I need this little closet to do for me?  How do I need it to work?

1.  File all personal files

2.  Inspire me to sit and pay bills

3.  Store all photos of kids

4.  New comfy chair

5.  Store all office supplies such as paper, ink, etc.

6.  Store laptop

7.  Be a fun inspiring color

8.  Calendar and inspiration board on wall

9.  New way to close off closet

That is all I can think of right this minute..plus, my 30 minutes are up!! More to come!!

XOXO ~ Pucker Up this Valentine's Day ~ XOXO

Kissing Fun Facts

1. “Kiss” is from the Old English cyssan from the proto-Germanic kussijanan or kuss, which is probably based on the sound kissing can make.^e
2. A woman in China partially lost her hearing after her boyfriend reportedly ruptured her eardrum with a passionate kiss. Apparently, the kiss reduced the pressure in the mouth, pulled the eardrum out, and caused the breakdown of the ear.^k
3. The science of kissing is called philematology.^c
4. The insulting slang “kiss my butt” dates back at least to 1705.^e
5. Lips are 100 times more sensitive than the tips of the fingers.

Most people tip their head to the right when they kiss

6. Approximately two-thirds of people tip their head to the right when they kiss. Some scholars speculate this preference starts in the womb.^b
7. On July 5-6, 2005 a couple in London locked lips for 31 hours, 30 minutes, and 30 seconds, making it the longest kiss ever recorded.^f
8. The most important muscle in kissing is the orbicularis oris, also known as the kissing muscle, which allows the lips to “pucker.”^b
9. French kissing involves all 34 muscles in the face. A pucker kiss involves only two.^b
10. The term “French kiss” came into the English language around 1923 as a slur on the French culture which was thought to be overly concerned with sex. In France, it’s called a tongue kiss or soul kiss because if done right, it feels as if two souls are merging. In fact, several ancient cultures thought that mouth-to-mouth kissing mingled two lovers’ souls.ⁱ
11. The Four Vedic Sanskrit texts (1500 B.C.) contain the the first mention of a kiss in writing.^c
12. The Romans created three categories of kissing: (1) Osculum, a kiss on the cheek, (2) Basium, a kiss on the lips, and (3) Savolium, a deep kiss.^h
13. Passionate kissing burns 6.4 calories a minute. A Hershey’s kiss contains 26 calories, which takes five minutes of walking–or about four minutes of kissing–to burn off.^c
14. Mechanically speaking, kissing is almost identical to suckling. Some scholars speculate that the way a person kisses may reflect whether he or she was breast fed or bottle fed.^c
15. Scientists believe that kissing may be a way of exchanging body salts or sebum that form relationships with parents and lovers, just as it does some birds. During mating, some birds chew food, then kiss-feed it to a prospective mate. If a bird’s sebaceous glands are removed so there is no sebum, its mate flies off.^j
16. Kissing is good for teeth. The anticipation of a kiss increases the flow of saliva to the mouth, giving the teeth a plaque-dispersing bath.^c
17. The Kama (desire) Sutra (type of verse) lists over 30 types of kisses, such as “fighting of the tongue.”^c

Mothers who passed chewed solid food to their infants during weaning may have created the first kiss

18. Kissing may have originated when mothers orally passed chewed solid food to their infants during weaning. Another theory suggests kissing evolved from prospective mates sniffing each others’ pheromones for biological compatibility.^h
19. Scholars are unsure if kissing is a learned or instinctual behavior. In some cultures in Africa and Asia, kissing does not seem to be practiced.^h
20. Common chimpanzees kiss with open mouths, but not with their tongues. Bonobos, the most intelligent of primates, do kiss with their tongues.^c
21. Leper-kissing became fashionable among medieval ascetics and religious nobility during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It was deemed proof of humility.ⁱ
22. Pliny asserts that kissing a donkey’s nostril will cure the common cold.^c
23. Kissing at the conclusion of a wedding ceremony can be traced to ancient Roman tradition where a kiss was used to sign contract.ⁱ
24. The first on-screen kiss was shot in 1896 by the Edison Company. Titled The May Irwin-John C. Rice Kiss, the film was 30 seconds long and consisted entirely of a man and a woman kissing close up.^c
25. Under the Hays Code (1930-1968), people kissing in American films could no longer be horizontal; at least one had to be sitting or standing, not lying down. In addition, all on-screen married couples slept in twin beds...and if kissing on one of the beds occurred, at least one of the spouses had to have a foot on the floor.^c

Alfred Hitchcocks’ creative attempt to circumvent Hollywood’s Hays Code led to one of the sexiest kisses in cinematic history

26. Polls consistently list the kiss between Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant in the 1946 film Notorious as one of the sexiest kisses in cinematic history. Because the Hays Code allowed on-screen kisses to last only a few seconds, Alfred Hitchcock directed Bergman and Grant to repeatedly kiss briefly while Grant was answering a telephone call. The kiss seems to go on and on but was never longer than a few seconds.^c
27. The film with the most kisses is Don Juan (1926) in which John Barrymore and Mary Astor share 127 kisses. The film with the longest kiss is Andy Warhol’s 1963 film Kiss. The 1961 film Splendor in the Grass, with Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty, made history for containing Hollywood’s first French kiss.^c
28. Early Christians kissed one another in highly specific settings that distinguished them from non-Christian population. The earliest Christian reference to the ritual kiss is at the end of I Thessalonians: “Greet one another with a holy kiss.” The Christian ritual kiss or “kiss of peace” was used during prayer, Eucharist, baptism, ordination, and in connection with greeting, funerals, monastic vows, and martyrdom.ⁱ
29. Kissing played an important role in ancient Greco-Roman culture and was seen as a sign of respect, thanks, reunion, and agreement, as well as as a rite of inclusion. Kisses were exchanged between peers, political leaders, teachers, and priests. Hence, the kiss of Judas (“Kiss of Death”) to betray Christ inverted the very point of kissing in this early Christian context.ⁱ

"Eskimo" kisses are loosely based on a traditional Inuit greeting called a "kunik"

30. Although many men and women consider it childish, more than 95% of them occasionally like to rub noses while kissing.^b Often called an “Eskimo kiss” in Western culture, this form of kissing is based loosely on a traditional Inuit greeting called a “kunik.”
31. In 1929, anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski visited the Trobriand Islands to observe their sexual customs. He found that two lovers will go through a several phases of sucking and biting in a variation of the French kiss that culminates in biting off each other’s eyelashes. In fact, in the South Pacific, short eyelashes are a status symbol.^b
32. Diseases which can be transmitted through kissing include mononucleosis (“kissing disease”) and herpes. Contraction of HIV through kissing is extremely unlikely, though one woman was infected in 1997 when the woman and infected man both had gum disease. Transmission was likely through the man’s blood and not his salvia.^a

Rodin’s famous statue The Kiss depicts doomed lovers in eternal anticipation of a kiss

33. Rodin’s famous statue The Kiss was originally titled Francesca da Rimini and depicts the thirteenth-century woman in Dante’s Inferno who falls in love with her husband’s younger brother Paolo. Their lips do not actually touch, hinting at their eventual doom.^a
34. The kiss of life (breath of God) and the kiss of death (Judas’ kiss) are powerful literary and artistic symbols. Sixteenth century authors were especially likely to use them as sexual metaphors.^g
35. The mouth is full of bacteria. When two people kiss, they exchange between 10 million and 1 billion bacteria.^b
36. “X”s at the end of a correspondence letter represent the contact of the lips during a kiss.^h