This assignment was to photograph the generations of the family nearby. Celia was napping or fussy for the photos and so she didn’t join in. In the second photo you can see Josie enjoying control of the remote control, that often helps her get into taking the photos when she gets to keep pushing the button!

This assignment was  to photograph something that they love. While at times Josie is jealous of Celia (who wouldn’t be?) she is clearly enamored with her sister and is constantly thinking of her.

And while we haven’t gotten to see Zach as much this year as I’m not watching him once a week, Josie and Zach are still friends and are excited to see each other. Here’s Zach tackling Josie upon arriving at the hotel this weekend.

Today’s assignment was to photograph something that you love to hate about the person. Josie’s got a bit of a picking habit, that most small children have. I’m often reminding her to be gentle with her nose. Look can you feel the summer with all these bathing suit pictures? We saw some grass on the cape too!

The girls in their swimsuits while we got a reminder of summer this weekend on vacation on the cape.

They’re both wearing one of Josie’s favorite colors, pink. Not my most inspired, it was a busy travel day.

Josie has decided what she and Celia will be when they grow up. She also made some predictions for Jordi for when he ‘grows up again’ but then denies them once I put her on video. So I suppose she see’s Celia as a person who enjoys inflicting pain on children? or she just wants them to work together?

Today’s assignment was to capture the difference in time over when you met the person and now. She also recommended going in for a really close photo and crop out the background. I listened for one of the shots.

I need to watch how often I’m taking pictures of her in a bib, but really she spends a lot of time eating each day, and it’s one of the few time she stays still long enough to take a photo. Still I should just pull it off when I’m snapping. Josie really liked looking at photos of herself as a little baby, although she often misidentifies them as Celia.

This is supposed to capture just how they look, good, bad or whatever.

This is how I feel I spent a lot of my day, looking at the back of Josie’s head while she’s running off to do something and oh yeah Celia’s there too.

In an effort to get myself to pick up the camera some more and play with it with the girls I joined a project called Joy of Love. It’s basically a bit of photography class combined with a bit of inspiration for what to guide your photos. You’re supposed to focus on something you love, and you can shift each day, but I’m mostly going to focus on Josie. Things have been challenging for all of us with this 2.75 year old and so I want to highlight some positives and make sure to take time for some attention on her, and maybe even make her comfortable enough not to look away from the camera.

Day 1: What they do

So perhaps the rules are one photo picked per day, but this isn’t school, who needs rules.

This is Josie playing with some toys on the couch. It’s a little overexposed unfortunately but I think it just shows her gorgeous hair and pink lips.

Josie really likes to play with lots of little things lately, putting them in bags, lining them up, stacking them, carrying them around and distributing them. Here she lines up the numbers from her clock plus some lacing animals and a coin from her cash register for Mio. The light these days is super super harsh inside because of all the snow so I had to play with the exposure a bunch of times just to get the shapes to remotely show up. This scene ended with Mio swatting at Josie when she tried to move a piece that was near him, her crying briefly and him running away. Oh well.

Many things sprouting up around our house, kids notably, but also a few little beans. Jordi and Josie put some black beans in a jar with water and newspaper and put it in the sun. Eventually a few of the beans sprouted and one grew into this little thing. Josie enjoyed looking at it and seeing how it grew. Then it grew mold and it went in the trash. We’re going to try to grow some real plants this spring once I manage to order some seeds. This summer with any luck we’ll have something we grew ourselves, maybe, I just won’t kill these ones if I send them to my mom’s house for her to take care of them once they’ve grown into anything.

Celia has been working on a few skills as of late. She’s still a big talker and has lots to say, I think we’ll have a loud house from now on, but she’s also working on grabbing and shaking things. She can often get what she wants now and has managed to stick her hand into our dinner a few times now too. Her favorite is to grab things and shove them into her mouth. She’s also clearly working on her sitting up muscles and standing. Josie was starting to sit independently at 4 months so I imagine Celia will be a fast learner  too. Here she demonstrates her grabbing of the spoon at the dinner table.

Of course there is nothing better than the toy that your sister has, even if it’s a baby gym.