Join Our Chaos: Ten on Tuesday

I'm baaaaaaaaack! Did you miss me?

Well, we had our annual beach vacation last week so I thought I would pay tribute with a Ten on Tuesday. I'm actually starting this Monday night in hopes of actually posting on Tuesday. We'll see if I can even make it on time. Get ready, this is a long one!

1. Miss C loves to play photographer. Here she is in action. Don't you just love Little J's expression? I can hear him say, "Oh come on! Isn't it enough that I have to do this for you mom?!"

2. Little J didn't exactly "love" the beach. Let's face it, he pretty much hated it. I tried to get a couple of shots of his face on the beach, but in most of them he is screaming. So a lot of back shots to share. To his credit, he really wasn't feeling well last week. Lovely, huh? Little J is already a....how shall we say it....a "spirited" child. So add not feeling well. That pretty much sums up the vacation for him. We had such high hopes too. Oh well, maybe next year!

3. I've been trying to practice on "sun flare" shots. You know, the ones where you capture the sun beams in the picture (while trying to properly expose your subjects no less). It usually is best at sunrise and sunset. So I thought it might be a good idea to do this at sunrise with the two kiddos. Stop laughing. I know, I know. What kind of crack was I smoking? Well, I tried. I think in this series, both kids were screaming. Nice huh? I was so distracted that I didn't even get to really practice. I knew exactly what I wanted my settings on the camera to be. But in that moment, it all flew out the window. Never mind I was sweating running around trying to make them happy. So, this is the best I got.

This is what I was going for in terms of "sunflare" (I took this at a botanical garden through the trees)

To my credit, it was really cloudy that morning and the sun wasn't exactly "flaring"

On a side note, I saw the sunrise every morning while at the beach. Little J did not want to sleep in and I was afraid he would wake the whole house if I left him. Of course it's always nice to see the sunrise while at the beach. Just not every morning.

4. We took the kiddos for ice cream at our favorite local haunt. I don't know the name of it, but it's got fantastic ice cream and chocolates. In fact, these chocolates are amazing. Really to die for. How do you like that? A rave review and I can't even tell you the name of the joint. Kinda like a nah nah nah boo boo :)

It was Little J's first ice cream cone. He actually didn't actually have ice cream. It was strawberry sorbet. We're trying to do non-dairy with him, so that's what he got. I'm not sure if he is sensitive to it, but it's just a theory we are going with now. I dunno, do you think he liked it?

Here is Miss C. She's a little more "clean"

But just for kicks, here she was last year eating her very first ice cream :)

5. I just love this shot of Little J and his daddy

Unfortunately this happened and it was all over after that

6. Miss C flew a kite for the first time. We kept singing that song from Mary Poppins. Her version? It just cracks me up:

Let's go fly a kite

Up to the Highlights

Let's go high kite.....

Miss C gets that magazine "Highlights Five" for 2-5 year olds. I guess that is what is on her mind.....

7. Here is Miss C and her buddy "M" surfing on daddy's skim board. It was an impuse buy that turned out to be a really bad idea. J ended up fracturing his foot in two places after the first 5 minutes on the stupid thing. I'm not even going to go there, but I TOLD YOU SO!

8. It rained two days we were there. But I didn't mind. At least we avoided Hanna, Ike and Josephine. On one of the rainy days, we decided to head to a local acquarium. The kids really seamed to enjoy it.

9. Isn't this just the sweetest moment? Miss C and "M" spent a lot of time glued together. They loved reading to each other