Just a few more pics from the last few days, since I know family will enjoy seeing them.

All the cousins together:

Photographing 4 kids ages 6 and under is tough, people!!

And the photo shoot I did with my nephew. Did you know pink ties are yummy?

Little darling!

The rocking chair was my sister’s. I think it was a gift from my grandfather, who passed away when I was 13.

And the watermark? Is part of the rebranding project I mentioned a few months ago for our photo biz. Photo Mojo will still be around for the event/concert side of my husband’s photography. Photo Denbow will be a team effort, and I’ll be taking a more active role in the photography side, instead of just the post processing/business end.

That’s enough photo editing for now. I have a 2 1/2 year old sitting on my lap, refusing to sleep, who wants me to fix her chipped fingernails. Hmmm…

Before Christmas, we considered putting a kiddie camera on Daphne’s wish list. Now, every photography forum and website I’ve ever looked at has told me not to bother with those crappy little cameras, and just get your kid a cheap point & shoot. Considering we have lots of cameras just sitting in storage, we decided to go ahead and let her play with our old Olympus.

I was a little concerned that she wouldn’t be able to work it. But, she hasn’t had any problems. She LOVES it! All she wanted to do was shoot, then look at her picture. Totally chimping. That’s OK, her mommy is a reformed chimper. If that’s even a word.

As of this afternoon, Daphne has her own Flickr account. Digital Daphne. It’s Friends and Family only, but I’ll be sharing a few of her images occasionally.

Mommy’s car, AKA “The Toaster”

Her toes

Tree (I know, these aren’t very exciting. Sorry)

Toys

Not bad for a two year old, I think. Photoshop is next. Ha!

Happy Palindrome Day!

Chris and I had the opportunity to get away by ourselves for a few hours while Daphne went to the movies with her cousins and grandparents. Woo hoo!!! We started out by going to lunch with friends at Lankford’s Grocery.

You might have seen it featured on Guy Fieri’s show, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on Food Network. Chris & I used to love to go to little hole in the wall places to eat, but that gets harder to do when you have a kid.

After a brief trip through the Rice area, we went thrifting in Montrose. I was trying to find a few cheap 100% wool sweaters for felting/crafting purposes and totally hit the jackpot at Goodwill. Doesn’t it make your week when you find exactly what you were looking for? That hardly ever happens for me.

Then off to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston to renew our yearly membership (thanks Mom!) and check out the new contemporary Korean art exhibit. Interesting. I’m going to go back to see if there really was a person in the giant bunny costume. And was there really a family in the other set of animal costumes? I also had to briefly listen to the “You call that art!” rant from Chris. If you ever go to a museum with me, please refrain from saying things like that, or “My 2 year old could do the same painting.” I will probably tell you to shut the hell up. Playfully, of course.

Then it was photo walk time. Every place we considered (Hermann Park, Rice Village, downtown) was packed. No parking. Complete insanity. Not to be deterred, I just started taking pics from the passenger seat of the car.

Hello, husband!

Chris shaved his goatee off recently and it’s freaking me out. Not that you can tell from this pic, because he didn’t shave this morning. Give him another day and he could completely grow it back. I don’t really love facial hair on men, but for some reason like my husband better with the goatee.

A fake tree in the Museum District. Hmmm…

And my artsy shot of the day. I call it Nuclear Blast. Or more accurately Not Paying Attention to Metering and Exposure on the Old D90.

Hey, Jen, take a pic of the Mexican Consulate. Oops, missed it.

And hey, Joel Osteen. *cough, false prophet, cough* Hehe.

And one more. I call this Whatchu Talkin Bout Willis?

So, yeah. Photo walk was a bust. But we still had a really nice day!

From my Flickr stream, and in no particular order And I suppose I should just call this post, My Favorite Daphne Photos of 2009. You’ll see why.

Bono. Yep, one bucket list item could be crossed off when we saw U2 in October.

Daphne and Torah shopping at the Children’s Museum in August.

Elmo party and the Elmo cake from hell.

Daphne’s 2 yr photo shoot. My favorite-

And my husband’s favorite from the same shoot-

And another picture of Daphne. This really captures her well. She’s always a complete mess.

Bath time-

First bluebonnets picture-

Modeling the very first dress I made for her-

And now for something completely different, here’s my husband being a total goofball. I actually have no idea what he was doing, but when I saw the shot I immediately thought zombie. So I zombie-fied him. You know, zombie is a fun word to say. Zombie, zombie, zombie.

We hope to start off the new year with a photo walk, probably downtown or in the museum district. A great way to start off 2010.

Until next year!

Can’t even begin to describe how much I love this girl.

Just going back and editing some of her old photo sessions. And I realize I’m totally biased, but dang, she is a cute kid. She really did get the best of both of us.

When you look through your box of childhood memories, what do you find? School pictures and report cards, a baby book, things you made as a child, trophies, old vacation pics and newspaper clippings? And if you are lucky, maybe you have a baby blanket made by your grandmother, or a little outfit your mom made for you.

Here’s something from my box. I’m wearing a top my mom made for me. She even hand embroidered a little scarecrow on the pocket.

Mommy & Me

And here’s Daphne 30+ years later in the same top. (retro effect from Poladroid)

I hope that I can see Daphne as an adult, appreciating the love and time I put into the things I made for her, and passing them on to her kids.

From my Flickr Faves:

1. IMG_1314, 2. Scrap bucket, 3. Birdy Applique-Freezer paper stencil tree, 4. freezer paper stencil, 5. fabric flower, 6. Fabric flowers, yay!, 7. Fabric flower garland, 8. IMG_4934, 9. Farmer’s Market Twin Bedding, 10. Wreath Round Up, 11. kanzashi projects4, 12. Kanzashi Bag, 13. Kanzashi Vintage Purse, 14. today, 15. Purple in Love, 16. Ava in Brown, 17. little girl’s dresses quilt, 18. Back to school clothes, 19. The yellow cabinet, 20. snow bunny, 21. scrappy owl treat bag, 22. Campy and the Mallows, 23. My fabric buffet, 24. summer FUN

For my photography friends out there, how often do you go back and re-edit old photos? I will occasionally go back and play with one of Daphne’s baby pictures, now that I’m better at Photoshop. When Daphne was a baby we shot with my old Canon point & shoot, and our Nikon D50 in an automatic mode. Hehehe. For those of you with a dslr, please do yourself a favor and get out of Auto or any of the priority modes. I’m not saying my photos now are great, but I do think I saw a big improvement in my photos as soon as I started to shoot in Manual.

This pic of Daphne was taken in our cave of a living room in B’ham, with my Canon. Argh. Horrible. And to make it worse, I think I actually edited this one in Lightroom. See the vignette? What is it about new photographers and the vignette? I totally abused those when I first started to learn photo editing. I’m getting better.

Daphne at 4 months old. Her first pigtails! And here’s a very quick re-edit:

I still have some work to do, but at least the exposure is better. And I did a little color correcting (how did she end up with Fremen eyes in the original?). And for the most part, I am not of fan of heavily edited eyes. You know what I’m talking about… the photos you see where the eyes have been brightened and sharpened so much they don’t look real. I wanted to lighten her eyes just a touch, so you could see the funky sectoral heterochromia thing she had going on in her eyes at the time. And I also took out some of the pigtail shadows, but still need to work on that area. I wish I would have kept the original SOOC photo. My digital asset management sucks.

But it’s a start, right? We’ve taken thousands of pictures of Daphne, but have printed just a handful. I need to go back and edit our favorites from the last 2 years and get them in a photo album!

I think this might be one of my favorite pics of Daphne. Taken tonight.