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10 for Tuesday
I’ve got lots to share today, so here goes:
1. I know I have quite a few clients, prom attendees & their parents, graduates, etc waiting for their photos. I’ve been up until at least 2am pretty much every night and am working as hard as I can to get your pictures out to you. Summertime is always a little slower on the editing process as I don’t have the whole school day to myself to work, everything has to get done at night. So, just to keep you all updated, here is the order in which your pictures should be appearing on the blog. One post per day and figure a few days in there for personal posts while I edit the client shoots. Order is subject to change as well, but it’s a general outline.
Erin’s 40th
Alexis’s Bat Mitzvah
Hewitt Graduation
Elizabeth’s prom
Adam’s graduation
The Kelly Family
The Tepper Family
The Griffin Family
The DeMilt Family
Adam’s prom
2. It seems impossible that there can possibly be the sheer volume of laundry we have in this house. I’m doing at least a load a day (more like 2-3) and there is always more to do. The worst part? The freakin socks. The multiply, then divide and do some square root thing that I couldn’t calculate and ends up being 3 socks in a pair. I give up.
3. At the beach yesterday, it was a mini Ms. Jackson’s class reunion. (credit to Mary T. for the photo- thanks Mary!!) Luke (not pictured- he was in the ocean), Timmy, Mateo, Ali & Kristen. They were so glad to see eachother even though they’ve only been apart since Friday. It’ll be a great summer at the beach!!
Also pictured, Patrick with his huge sandcastle he built with Robert last weekend. They built another one today but I was rushing to make it to Adam’s on time and couldn’t take a picture.
4. John’s nasty leg and belly rash are back with a vengence. All the doctors he’s seen are saying it isn’t cellulitis again (thank god) but they don’t know what the hell it is. So they took two samples to biopsy to try to figure it out. He’s an itchy mess and I wish they could just fix it once and for all.
5. Had a date with Timmy to SushiYa and we had a great time. He chowed down on the yellowtail (it’s his favorite) and the beef teriaki (with no sauce and no sesame seeds) and rice with soy sauce. And I also spotted this awesome van in the parking lot. The name on it was Dharma Deliveries. Omg, I miss LOST.
6. Some recent flower shots. Some with the big girl camera, some with the iphone. Just cause they’re pretty. Still have to take some shots of my hydrangeas in the backyard (blue ones).
7. My friend Valerie started a blog about mom’s and their business ventures and she was nice enough to interview me for it! You can find it here: momunition
8. Spent the day Sunday at the beach with my great friend Celeste and her girls. They moved down to Georgia a few years back and the girls spend most of the summer up here with their grandparents. We all had such a great time and it was so good seeing the girls and my boys getting along so well, so quickly. They haven’t seen eachother in forever (at least 3 years) and after 10 minutes of weirdness, it was all good. They’ve known eachother since they were 3 months old and we met at Gymboree. I do love long time friends.
(ok, just ignore the fact that I’m way blurry).
9. Just so happy it’s summer! I made an executive decision a few weeks back that we weren’t doing anything this summer. No more schedules, no more waking up early with an alarm clock. Now, this has the potential to go really well or really, really badly. I’m hoping for a relaxing, fun summer with lots of last minute plans with friends, lots and lots of beach days and pool days. So far, so good. Except for some attitudes, rolling eyes and yelling (the yelling part is me) we’re doing really well. And even though it’s only been since Friday that school’s been over, Timmy has already asked when Ms. Jackson and Ms. McClain are coming over to visit him.
10. Just wanted to thank everyone who left a comment, emailed me, called me, facebooked me or told me in person on the great feedback on the birth shoot. I was already contacted by 2 expectant moms and I’m hoping we can work it out for another bunch of birth sessions!
Happy summer to everyone!! Stay tuned to the blog- lots more pictures to come!!
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middle school awards night
We were all pretty excited when we got the letters home from school saying that both Jack & Patrick were going to be receiving some kind of award on Tuesday night. They don’t tell you what award you’ll be receiving and when you get there, the program is just an outline of all the awards for the night, so you are in suspense until they call your name.
Some friends receiving their Citizenship awards: Maddie, Tess, JP, Kayla, Julie & Matthew
Todd receiving a music award, Ryan receiving an A for Effort award. 
Hannah, the daughter I’ll never have, receiving one of her two Language Arts awards (she and the boys received the same reading award! See, told you we were almost related!)
Liam receiving one of his two awards for band. He’s a really talented slide trombone player. 
Zach receiving one of his three awards (2 for languages, one for chess).
Jack & Patrick receiving their ‘voracious readers’ awards. It had already, but those Kindles just paid for themselves. Again. They got medals and also a $10 gift card each to Barnes and Nobel. 
And receiving their departmental academic awards for Social Studies. They were so happy (so were we)! And not surprised that it was Social Studies! 
It was a great night with two awards each (pretty funny that they both got both awards, but SO thankful it worked out that way or living here could’ve been very, very ugly. Does anyone remember Jack singing at the Islanders and being in the spelling bee and Patrick not? Yeah, not my favorite time of having twins.) And we topped it off with a trip to Carvel (where else?)
Very proud of you, boys!! Keep up the good work for 7th grade! -
first pool day of the year
I know many of you are waiting for the birth session I shot Saturday night. After minimal sleep this weekend, I just couldn’t stay up to edit last night- my eyes were closing while I was sitting at the computer. My goal is to edit those pictures today and have the shoot up tomorrow. Be sure to come back and check them out.
So two weeks ago when it was brutally hot, we ran (read: drove really slow with the a/c on super high) over to Hempstead after school for a swim to cool off. After picking up 3 extremely sweaty, red children from school there was really no alternative. I still believe school should end immediately following Memorial Day weekend.
Yay, summer!
Someone was pretty excited to be in the pool, in the deep end and playing basketball.
Just floating….here in the pool. 
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field day
Posting this on a rainy, yucky day but field day was beautiful and HOT. Like really, really hot. Like sweating in places that you didn’t think you could sweat, hot. But the kids seemed to have a great time (especially with the new ‘cooling system’ that they put in place) and I was just thankful they had the morning session. I went over to watch and take pictures of Timmy but stayed the whole time and took tons of pictures of well….everything!
Can you tell they were all a little hot?
The water stations were key. And the water was nice and cold!
The new cooling system for this year. GREAT idea!! I can’t tell you how much I wanted to get under there but with the camera it just wasn’t happening. The funniest thing was that they were trying to get all the kids under the spray in shifts and were making announcements about who’s turn it was, when all the kids just took off running and screaming under the water immediately.
Teacher tug of war is always a hit with the kids.
Timmy took this one!
Timmy’s teacher, the fabulous Ms. Jackson!
Timmy’s best girl- Ms. McClain. 
BBQ time. That’s a LOT of kids to feed!
The bbq team- and I have to say that I had a cheeseburger and it was fantastic!
Timmy had his first cheeseburger ever and loved it!
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couch to 5K
So, somewhere along the way my friend Heidi and I got the idea that we were going to do the couch to 5K program from beginning to end. This coming from me was a miracle in itself. I was never an athlete. I never could run the track in gym. Couldn’t even make it once around (1/4 mile) before I was so out of breath, heart racing and legs burning. But, I decided I had to do something to get into some kind of shape- a shape other than fat blob.
The app starts you off nice and slow with walking more than running (you run in 60 second intervals, then 90 seconds, then 3 minutes, then mixing between 3 and 5 min runs, then 8 min, then 10 min, etc) and ends up with 30 min of running. In a row. In the beginning I couldn’t run that 60 seconds without feeling like I was going to drop dead. By the end of the 9 week program (which was probably more like 12 weeks as I didn’t always do it 3x each week) I could run 30 min straight. Very, very slowly and with difficulty, but I still did it. And by the end of the run I look like a giant red stewed tomato. I will never be that girl- the one who’s all pretty and glowy and put together when running. I’m a frizzy haired, dripping sweat, panting, red like going to have a heart attack at any second faced mess. But at least I did it.
So even after all that, I still don’t like running very much. So for now I decided that I’m going to stick with the running, but not for 30 minutes. I’m going to go back to the intervals for a while and maybe work on my speed cause I’m soooo slow. Like, people walking fast could pass me, slow. I’m figuring that between the run/walking 3x a week and the pilates, something’s gotta work. And for those of you who have asked, there is NO actual 5k in my immediate future. I haven’t decided if I’m ever doing one or not, and I’m only up to about 2.25 miles in 35min so I still have a waaaaaays to go until I’m there.
I know a lot of people followed my status updates on the couch to 5K on Facebook and a few have started it themselves, which is awesome! Glad that I was able to inspire someone else. And thank you to all of you who sent encouragement my way during this couch to 5k journey. Big thanks especially to Heidi who got me started and pushed me along the way as we did the program (sorta) together, to Karen, Dean, Val, and Eileen who always wrote something encouraging. And of course to John who kept telling me I was doing a good job.
Oh, and I promised myself that if I finished the program I would buy some new running sneakers so yesterday I did- a new pair of Saucony’s that I got at Runners Stop in Lynbrook. Hoping that those will help with the shin splints I’ve developed in my left leg. It’s always something…