We had a bit of neighborhood excitement this afternoon. Around 3:00 I heard screaming outside. At first I didn’t think anything of it. We have a neighborhood full of children that scream at the top of their lungs the entire time they are outside. If you didn’t tune it out you’d be running to the window every 30 minutes thinking someone had broken their leg, or was being abducted. One kid in particular use to ride his bike in a circle in the cul-de-sac, screaming at the top of his lungs. That child seriously needed some attention. I hope when Daphne gets to be that age I have the good sense to go outside and remind her the whole neighborhood doesn’t need to hear her scream, that is, unless she’s in danger.

After all the dogs in the area started to bark, I decided to investigate. I opened the blinds to see a police officer walking through my yard to a parked car in front of my driveway. The driver and passenger were out of the car, yelling at my redneck neighbors next door. Of course I was nosy and cracked my window to hear what they were saying. Apparently our redneck neighbor got in a fight and pulled a weapon on the passenger in the car. Good lord. This is Suburbia, not a trailer park. Pull it together, people. I realized the police officer was actually another neighbor that lived a few houses down. Soon 3 police cars pulled up and things settled down. I was hoping my redneck neighbor would be whisked away by the police. No such luck. Darn.

I’m so ready to move.

I’ve been a real grouch this weekend. Besides lack of sleep I don’t really know why. And I make it a point to never blog grumpy or angry, so that explains my lack of posting. Let’s hope I have a better week. In the meantime, enjoy this silly picture of Daphne chatting with me on GTalk with her Flock of Seagulls hair:

See the similarity?

So, pictures were a bust this morning. Princess Daphne was not amused by the bright morning sun and reflector. And I adjusted some of the color and saturation settings on the D200 (as recommended by Ken Rockwell) so the pics looked really unnatural. Like all the grass belonged in an Easter basket. I tried to fix it in Lightroom, but it wasn’t working. But that’s ok, it was all just practice anyway, although I hoped to get a few good shots. And a few more lessons learned- bright sun, reflector, shiny silk dress… not a good combo, and never wash Daphne’s hair right before picture taking. She needs those natural scalp oils to help lock her curls down. So, all her pictures pretty much looked like this:

Very solemn, and in half the shots she’s giving us a “Whatchoo talkin ’bout Willis?” look. And she won’t put her arms down when she’s wearing tulle, must be scratchy or something. Argh. But she does have a Snow White thing going on in this photo that I do like, since SW was always my favorite growing up.
This is the story of my life. Dress Daphne up in a fancy outfit, drive her across town for pics or take her to a studio and you get nothing. Put her in the floor of her room with unbrushed hair, a $2 Garanimals t-shirt from Wal-Mart and you get these photos:

I realize things will get easier as she gets older, but it’s still a little annoying.

Did you know you could iron tulle? Yep, it totally worked. We are taking Daphne’s picture tomorrow to practice with our new reflector and her dress was so wrinkled. I was afraid I’d melt the tulle, but it worked out great. The silk portion ironed well too. Here’s the dress:

I have no idea what I’m going to do with her hair tomorrow. We have 12 million bows and hair clippies but no light pink to match the dress. So, I’ll be sitting here, watching Battlestar Galactica tonight trying to create a hair bow. I suck at bows. Maybe I should get a small artificial flower or something from Michaels and glue it to a clip. That would probably look stupid.
After pictures tomorrow we are going to the Do Dah Day festival. The festival raises money for animal shelters and has bands and a big dog parade. Here are some of my favorite pics from last years event:

And since I’m a sucker for girly dogs:

And do not adjust your monitors, the following dog is pink. Her name is Raspberry and I think she stays pink year round, not just for pet parades:

Sunday, Chris has another photo shoot and then we tackle the yard. A busy, fun weekend. What are your plans??

A quick video - Daphne learns to feed herself.

For the last few years I’ve been trying to switch to more natural household cleaning products. I’ve used Caldrea (love their Green Tea Patchouli scent) and Mrs Meyers products for countertop and window cleaning. I just started using Charlie’s Soap all-purpose cleaner and laundry soap. I swear my laundry has never been so clean. I use Bar Keepers Best Friend on my sinks, stove top and bathrooms. I’m still trying to work out a more natural solution for the dishwasher. Everything I’ve tried so far just didn’t cut it.

Something else I’ve been trying to work out, though not a cleaning product, is a kid/dog safe pesticide. With our drought last year we had a horrible time with ants and water bugs/cockroachy things coming up from the garage and basement looking for water. I hate bugs. When our termite bond people were out last summer for our annual inspection the tech confirmed that lots of other people were having the same problem and sprayed the exterior of the house and our basement. But now that Daphne is here I don’t want to use Raid or some heavy duty chemicals. I’ve seen a few recipes online that use bran flour, epsom salt and molasses for bugs. I might try that in the garage and basement. And I might put down some boric acid. I thought I saw an ad for an eco/pet/kid friendly bug killer spray that Wal-Mart carried, but I haven’t found it in my local store. I’d love to have something to spray, since my aim sucks. Just ask my husband. And trying to hit a moving object, forget it.

Anyone have any ideas for bug spray or dishwashing detergent? I’d love to hear about it. Leave a comment.

I’ve had more than a few people ask what Daphne has been up to lately. Well, you know, she leads a pretty exciting life. Some days she’s a butterfly princess:

(more photo props, sorry for the bad pic) Some days she’s a ballerina:

Her appetite has increased, and it seems like she’s eating all the time:

Which also means she’s pooping all the time. I’ll spare you any poop photos (not that I have any). We are on poopy diaper #5 today and it’s just 3 pm. Oh yeah, and that wonderful Diaper Champ that worked so well for the first 8 months, not working so well now. Smelly, smelly. Maybe those Elimination Communication people have the right idea!

She still has no teeth, but does a pretty good job mashing up soft lumpy foods with just her gums. She really likes those Gerber graduate puffs. I wish I could find an organic alternative. And she drank from a cup like a big girl for the first time this week. Now whenever she sees my glass of water she wants a drink too. She still doesn’t think much of the sippy cup.

She likes to shop and charm all the sales associates. Yesterday at Wal-Mart the cashier told her “you’re no bigger than a minute” and sang Itsy-Bitsy Spider, hand motions and everything. How’s that for customer service!?

She is still walking while holding on to things and she has that army crawl thing down. She’s FAST.

She’s babbling more, but not talking really. I swear she said “hi!” this morning to Allie. She leaned over me while we were in bed, saw Allie, smiled and said “hi!” But it’s hard to distinguish “hi!” from all the other noises she makes. We are working on it.

She sleeps from 9 pm - 4 or 5 am, then is up to eat, and gets up for the day at 7. Which is still too early for me. When she gets up at 4 or 5 we just bring her into our bed so I can feed her and let her spend the rest of the night with us. She usually wakes us by pulling up on us and jumping. She wants to get up and play with her toys, not lounge around in bed. I will remember this when she’s a teenager.

I promise we will get better pictures of her this weekend. We are going to the Botanical Gardens to scope out a few sites for one of Chris’ photo shoots, then we are off to Do Dah Day. I think Daphne will enjoy all the dogs.

Since my iPod plugs directly into my car, I’ll admit I very rarely listen to the radio.  Another reason I don’t listen to the radio?  The lack of decent stations in Birmingham.  Several years ago I would listen to the “X” and their Beaner & Ken morning show.  I never listen to morning shows, but Beaner & Ken were hysterical.  Chris just pointed out Ken’s website where you can listen to some of their favorite bits.  This one always cracks me up:

Satan Calls Radio Shack

“Mark cannot help you now!!”And of course, there is always the Vulcan, god of the forge bits.  For those of you that aren’t local, Vulcan is a huge iron statue on a mountain overlooking the city.  I still find it funny that he’s wearing an apron and nothing else, which is why there are so many butt jokes.  These two clips aren’t the best:

Vulcan, god of the forge

Their “Ask A” and “Real or Fake” series were always good too.   Too bad they aren’t on the air anymore.

There’s a lot of brouhaha going around concerning a little boys t-shirt that Gymboree released last week, then pulled from its stores. Here it is. Can you tell what the controversy is about?

I won’t spell it out for you, because I don’t want the oddball hits on my site from people looking for porn, but let’s just say some people see a part of the male anatomy in the center of the shark. Oh please, it’s just a shark! I can’t believe there were complaints. People lucky enough to get a shirt before the recall have been marking them up and putting them on Ebay. Just in case you wanted to pay double for what the shirt was really worth.

Edited- I don’t work for Gymbo and don’t have any official confirmation as to the reason behind the recall.  Just passing along the online scuttlebutt.

For the last year and a half my husband has been getting paid to photograph various local events. It’s something he really enjoys and I like watching his photography improve as he gets more experience. After his last gig he decided to branch out and learn more about taking portraits. I fully support this because that means I’ll have even better pictures of Daphne as well as more opportunities to practice post-processing. So if you are in the Birmingham area and want pictures of your family or kids (and don’t mind being a guinea pig), contact me. Chris is willing to do a few photo shoots for free just to practice and build a portfolio. You’d just pay for any prints you’d like from the shoot.  No obligation.

Leave a comment with your contact info (don’t worry, the comment won’t be visible to anyone but me) or contact my husband directly at his photo blog. Just tell him I sent you.