I tried to set up a valentines shoot… wasn’t very creative nor successful, but I thought I’d share two anyway.

Got some good light in the living room today, it’s finally getting brighter outside!

We ride the bus a lot around here. It gets us to a lot of places nearby and the girls majorly prefer it to the car. It’s easy to hop on and off, no strapping in (except Celia to the stroller or to me, both of which are preferable to the car for her though), and lots to see.

Josie gets a little nervous getting off the bus, she tends to try to push her way through at the same time as the stroller. I tried to talk with her about what she should do if she got stuck on the bus without us (scream and ask the bus driver for help) to help her work through her fears. She isn’t too fond of this idea. Then I remind her what to do if she gets lost somewhere in public without us (look for another mommy and tell her you can’t find your mom). So then she asks ‘but what if I’m lost in the woods?’ Scream, we’ll be looking for you. But what if a bear comes to find me? Climb a tree. But what if the squirrels come after me? Josie, you’re bigger than squirrels, they’ll be afraid of you. She did not seem convinced, I’m not sure I’ll be trying this ‘talk through your fears’ technique again.

I’m continuing to work with my higher ISO, lower light situations… naked babies are so cute, but not appropriate for the internet so you get the black bar.

This weekend we went for our quick getaway weekend at the Cape Codder Resort in Hyannis. Yep Cape Cod in the middle of winter. We swam outside, we went to the beach, and jumped over waves. Yes, really. OK so the waves weren’t at the beach, nor was the swimming but we did all three. Our lovely neighbors Christina, Chanh, Ethan and Zach joined us again.

We drove down Friday afternoon, hit some traffic from an accident so we stopped after 2 hours and got some yummy ice cream. Celia refused to eat any of it, looked at me like I was trying to poison her when I gave her some on the spoon. She ate some goldfish instead. We got to the hotel around 4 and unpacked and went to the pool before dinner. Celia hasn’t seen a swimming pool since last summer so she was a bit cautious about the whole deal, but often opted to send Jordi chasing after me (holding her) when I’d go deeper with Josie. We had dinner in the in-house Italian restaurant which oddly had very few pasta dishes, and a wine list twice as long as the menu. While getting ready for bed, I played with my high ISO settings on my camera with the girls to see what I can capture since my speedlight is broken.

For all of those photos but the third, there is only one light on in the room. We put the girls to bed, and later that night our neighbors arrived with sleeping kids, who promptly woke up and decided that a late night walk around the hotel was needed. Our whole family is sick and so we all crashed. Jordi got sick during the night, possibly food poisoning. In the morning we went to Dunkin Donuts and got some food before hitting up the pool again. Celia was less nervous this time and enjoyed herself more. Why aren’t there any pictures at the pool? Because the room is really humid and everything is wet and we don’t want to risk the camera. Plus we have all agreed to no adults in bathing suit pictures.

After swimming the men took naps while us moms took the kids over to the mall. Celia napped and the big kids went on the carousel as per tradition and then we lunched. Back at the hotel for more swimming. But when we finally went to get ourselves to the pool, it was closed for cleaning or something. So we went to the other pool, which is new. It’s heated, but it’s outside! Did I mention it was snowing on Saturday? By this time it was mostly freezing rain but we braved the outdoors and jumped into the pools. It felt good inside the pool, but of course your head was still outside and eventually Celia was done. I took her in with many howls till we got inside the door and Jordi and Josie hung out playing some more. Josie even made friends with another girl named Clover who was probably 6. The whole pool just steams constantly from the temperature difference.

Here’s some photos of the girls outside earlier in the snow. Remember how we’re all sick and they’re not wearing coats? Yeah I’m such an awesome mom when I want to get pictures. They’re wearing more than their bathing suits!

Friday night we tried to go to a Thai place, but it was full, so we went back to our standard Mexican restaurant which is loud and good for kids while serving food. That night when we got back the four of us went to roast marshmallows on the bonfire the hotel lights up every night! It was still freezing rain a tiny bit so brrr it was cold, but it was fun and we had the whole place to ourselves.

I also tried to take advantage of the natural light through the big doors and windows so I set up some photos out the door with the remote, and in the big huge bed since we’ve got nothing like it at home.

Sunday morning we had more of the same food and swimming before we got all cleaned up and went home. On the way out of town we swung by the beach, at a really bad time of day (noon) and it was freezing so we had a super short photo session, most of the time was getting the girls in and out of the car. Have to do more this summer!

It’s always good to be home, but it was a fun weekend getaway. Tonight going to bed Josie asked “Is tomorrow Sabado?” [Saturday for the non-spanish speakers] Sorry kid, but that WAS the weekend. Tomorrow we’ll all focus on getting healthier some more.

She’s learned or is trying to learn how to:

• jump, just a little bit off the ground, both feet of course!
• negotiate her way into the off-limits kitchen, by finding a little piece of trash she HAS to put in the garbage bin. This actually is working out really well because she found a random goldfish on the floor of the childrens museum and brought it to me to put in the trash, instead of eating it.
• buckle – starting with the high chair of course
• climb up the tunnel slide – she made it 2/3rds of the way up herself this week. Josie just learned this past fall how to get up it.

Me: Josie you wanted to have pancakes for breakfast right?

Josie: No, I changed my mind.

Me: We’re all out of cream cheese, it all went into the cake yesterday. [she frequently requests bagels]

Josie: How about we just eat the cake.

It was a gorgeous 50 degree February day here in Boston today, so I dragged Jordi outside from work for a few quick photos to enjoy the nice weather.

This year, for my birthday and Christmas gift giving needs, Jordi and I chose to give a lot of our gifts through Etsy. I like the idea of supporting individual people and giving personalized gifts that are more unique than a lot of the things we can get at regular stores. Here’s some of the great things we got and gave:

• Sticks. I kid you not. We gave Celia some honest to goodness sticks to play with, indoors. They’ve been very popular and are fun for all because they’re not so uniform and are very pleasing to touch, bang, stack, and pretend with.
• Earrings for my mom, silver infinity shaped. Tons of choices and designs. I won’t link because I don’t want to give away the details of the gift.
• Bean bags. Celia loves to hurl these things around, practicing her aim and strength. We use random boxes and bins for targets for Josie to practice with and Celia just whips them where ever she wants. Seems that the shop I bought them from isn’t selling more… but I’m sure someone is.
• Vinyl Stickers for iPad. We got my dad a vinyl sticker to go with his ipad, it was a small pi symbol, as in a math geek. But my dad is also an avid pie baker, so it was a good double joke and just perfect to go with his new toy.
• Sandwich and snack bags. A few people got these in their stockings, personalized fabric to go with each persons favorite things!
• Barrettes, super cute! Some fancier barrettes with different styles. These grip hair well, but one did not survive so well after being dropped in Josie’s water glass.
• Capes. Both girls got personalized superhero capes with their first initial on it to fly around the house in!
• Princess Dress. Made to order and made to fit, even if both girls enjoy wearing both pieces of it. She wears it all the time.
• I got a great new purse made to order as well, unique and reasonably priced! It’s become my new camera back actually a lot of the time because it’s just the perfect size.
• Camera strap which makes my camera significantly more comfortable and prettier.
• Previously I’ve also bought some reusable cleaning pads to fit a swiffer and bags to store little puzzle pieces.

I highly recommend checking out etsy when you’re looking for those hard to shop people! Just gotta give it a little extra time because it’s not amazon two day free shipping!

Josie is playing around with her modeling. I am playing around with white balance by kelvin and higher ISOs. It seems that I have some decent good light in my living room around 1pm.