10 on Tuesday

1. Did I mention I recently switched from Canon to Nikon. Tis true and I LOVE it. I’m not so good and change and I’m still fumbling around with the buttons and figuring out where things are, but I truly do love it.

2. We cut off our home phone in the name of saving money. We rarely used it and it seemed like every time it rang it was someone trying to sell us something. Family, friends and clients, please use our cell numbers from here on out!

3. We canceled our cable service yesterday too. I honestly don’t think it will change our lives all that much. I will miss the sweet 24 minutes of peace Mickey Mouse Clubhouse gave me each morning to take a shower in peace, and Ty will miss Idiot Abroad but other than that, because we got Netflix through the Wii, I don’t think we will miss it all that much. Truly, we barely ever watch it.

4. Wait. Football. Holy *&^%!!….Football….we can do this for a few months until football returns but then what?! Just took my mini freakout to my husband and he assures me an antenna will be enough. I’m not so sure….damn you Dave Ramsey!

5. Taryn was home from school today with a mild low grade fever. I have no clue why. And while I don’t want her to be sick, I loved having her at home with me and the duder and I loved having another day to work in talk of food and allergies and changes cause man is this hard.

6. I watched the movie Babies again today. Taryn and Teagan watched it for the first time and loved it. Although Taryn was very concerned about babies in the dirt eating things off the floor. She may or may not have yelled the 10 second rule at the TV.

7. She got that from her Daddy. I know this because I have a 0 second rule.

8. Do you believe genetically modified food should be labeled? MSNBC is taking a poll and you can vote here.

9. Do you struggle with skin tones? I think we all have at some point. Check out this free little tutorial: Michelle Kane’s Definitive Guide to Great Skin Tones.

10. Uhm, wait, is it really March?! How did that happen??

Lyndsay Stradtner2011-03-01T18:23:05-06:00March 1st, 2011|My Family|

10

1. Imaging USA. I had a blast hanging out with Erin Cobb, Marla Lamarie, Kelly Kuntz and Amy Shertzer. And Ty got to go hang out with us for the day too, he did good and when we left he said “Mom, your friends are FUN!” He may or may not have called Erin “sassy” 😉 Meeting them was absolutely the highlight of our trip. I’ve “known” Erin since very early on, not too long after I picked up my first dslr actually. So to finally meet after 5 years of online friendship was really awesome. I also came home with a few new labs to try (I was lab shopping), a bunch of product ideas and the huge urge to get this year started off right. And did you hear? Imaging 2012 is in NOLA baby!

2. Teagan and I went over to hang with Marti and her crew for a quick playdate last week. While I was there she handed me a copy of this book that was written by a friend of hers. Oh. My. Word. Changing our house and home page by page. And she has a website, you may have already heard of it, simplemom.net. Check it. Everything from mom’s to kids to food to organics to homeschooling to improving your life with less STUFF and more LIVING. I’m there.

3. I always always enjoy Jason Lee’s year end personal slideshow of his girls. Entertaining and heartwarming. Worth a click over.

4. My mom got Taryn a tag reader for Christmas. Both of the kids love it and I’m thinking a second one would be a good idea for Teagan’s 3rd birthday coming up. The first time he got a hold of it without Taryn around he sat on the floor in my mom’s living room touching the pen tip to the word “but” over and over said, laughing an evil little laugh and said “huhuhu, it said butt!”. Boooooys!

5. Anyone looking for a few free valentines day templates? Try Florabella, MCP & Style Crush. Here is quite a good list of free Valentines downloads from Tatertots & Jello. And a cute guitar valentine idea at Zakka. Know of any others? I’m a template spending freeze for the entire year. Self inflicted. And it hurts. I need free to get my fix.

6. I have started to research essential oils and their uses in healing. I have a long way to go to really understand it all and figure out the best way to put them into use for our family. I am pretty sure this homemade lotion is going to be one of my next projects though. I’m especially interested to see if Taryn’s skin can handle it because she is so super sensitive to everything.

7. Does anyone know a baby or little girl 4 or younger named Taryn? I have a ton of monogrammed stuff I’d love to hand down but we don’t know another Taryn.

8. Our garage sale rained out last weekend so we put a bunch of stuff up on Craigslist. Thankfully, our extra refrigerator, an old coffee table, our gas grill and Teagan’s old bed all sold in just a few days! We only have one listing left for several big floor pillows from The Land of Nod. You can see them here if you are interested. We’ll still have a garage sale, maybe even this coming weekend if the weather cooperates. We are getting rid of a ton of stuff and it feels so good!

9. Are you a lunch box addict like me? Check out this round up post, it’s a good one!

10. This is absolutely brilliant. A food magazine for kids. I hope it lives up to expectations, because it has awesome potential!

Lyndsay Stradtner2011-01-20T21:50:43-06:00January 20th, 2011|My Family|

self entertained

My eyes are crossing as I sit here and finish up editing a session tonight…but I have to come share this before I forget….

Teagan and I took off to Office Depot for a few office supplies this morning. I decided to skip the cart and let him walk because he was acting fatigued, I wanted to get him moving. We made our way through Office Depot and then stopped next door at Michaels. Normally I would never face Michaels and a toddler on the loose sans cart, but he was being really good and while he stopped to look at and touch every.single.thing at his level, I couldn’t face the fit that would come with putting him in the cart. About half way through the store he channeled his inner taryn and started to really be pokey. I was ready to be done and head toward the checkout….5 more aisles to go….

Me: Come on duder, keep up….

Teagan: {{{{hunkering down to the bottom shelf}}}} Wow!! Would you look at dis?! (he said that about everything he saw but this time is was a foam gingerbread house….)

Me: Oh wow, I see…. (I said that about everything he pointed out)

Teagan: Momma! I not talking to you! I talking to mySELF….I say SELF, wow, would you look at dis SELF?!

Me: Laughed all the way through checkout and out to the car….

Lyndsay Stradtner2010-12-08T23:17:54-06:00December 8th, 2010|My Family|

another chapter

in my book of taryn’s funny sleep. i swear some day i’m going to print a book of these. i just need to wait until she stops giving me usable material. like here, here, here and here. and now here:

found her like this after Ty’s football game tonight. she finished eating, grabbed her jammies and put them in the bathroom, curled up and she was out. too tired to continue with our normal evening rituals. duder wasn’t actually asleep, just snuggling his blankie. as usual.

Lyndsay Stradtner2011-01-10T22:13:26-06:00November 8th, 2010|Funny Places Taryn Sleeps, My Family|

kindergarten

I took these the week before Taryn started school. I’m so, so glad that I did. I was “this” close to putting them on the back burner but now I’m so happy we did this. My girl had a really rough start to school and kindergarten, we totally didn’t even see it coming, it hit us like a brick wall. She is now thriving and doing very well. We couldn’t be more proud of her, all that she has learned, all that she has overcome in just a few short months. It has been quite the adjustment but with the help of a good friend, we can now stop to look at the kid she was before, and the kid she is now, and see she’s grown up so much, she’s grown into herself, she’s tackled her fears, she is much more independent, she’s made friends and she adores her *amazing* teacher. She’s starting to read, can now tie her shoes with ease, and she thinks outside the box more than I thought was possible for a 5 year old. The first parent/teacher conference was a total blast, it was awesome to sit and chat with someone who appreciates Taryn and all that she is as much as we do.

Harry and the Lady Next Door is the first book she ever read words out of that weren’t sight words (as mentioned in this post). I can still see that moment in my mind, her smile, her eyes lit up and the way she chuckled with glee reading her first word from sounding out the letters. I am so proud of my girl. And I miss her like crazy all day long….but I know she’s enjoying every second of school and learning.

Lyndsay Stradtner2010-10-22T23:33:29-05:00October 22nd, 2010|Austin Photographer, My Family|

10

1. My sweet husband turns 33 today. Happy Birthday Jase!

2. He got P90X for his birthday and I have a feeling we’re about to get our butts kicked. Ty, Jason and I have all lost weight with all the changes at our house (me 29 lbs, Jase 25ish and Ty 30ish) and we want to run with it.

3. The little kids are actually gaining weight. I swear I did a happy dance right there in our pediatricians office. Duder is still in the same clothes he was in last fall and has been between 26 and 28 lbs for well over a year. We are thankful he didn’t loose much while being sick but for he and Taryn to actually gain weight this month was huge, happy news at our house! And they look healthy. The dark circles under their eyes are disappearing, their skin and coloring looks better, they just look so healthy and I love that!

4. I picked up my camera to take a photo of the kids for the first time in awhile tonight. It has been too long, I must remedy that.

5. This weekend will be a great opportunity – we’ve dubbed it “Grandparent-Palooza”. My mom is coming in to town and we will also see Jason’s parents and grandparents! So excited!

6. We’ve decided to move Teagan and Taryn into the same bedroom. We are taking it nice and slow, Teagan has been sleeping in her room all week at night and at naps and they are doing great with the transition so far.

7. This blog post was just interrupted with a very loud THUD. I stopped to listen because all 3 kids are sleeping and Jase is in the other room surfing the web. I yelled out and asked Jase what that noise was….no answer….so I yelled out again, “hey, are you ok?

8. Someone fell asleep at his desk and his forehead did a faceplant into his keyboard. Awesome. So awesome. I can’t stop laughing. He’s fine. I did get up and check. While laughing. I totally can’t stop laughing.

9. 33 is gonna be a great year, I can feel it.

10. Seriously, I can’t stop laughing.

Lyndsay Stradtner2010-10-22T22:37:11-05:00October 22nd, 2010|My Family|