2010 Summary: BEST YEAR EVER

January: Made the decision to make 2010 best year ever, half marathon with my sister, Phoenix trip, get serious about my photography, new camera




February: San Diego trip, Legoland, met Erin and Jen, visit Irene, Ira Glass, snow, soccer








March: bought dream lens, 10 years with Jon, 100% potty trained, joined Unitarian Universalist fellowship, baby showers, second half marathon, turned 36




April: adult swim class, Mondo Beyondo, bikes, Lloyd, Chris and Cash visit




May: met Karen, beach trip, Jen and John visit, boys' fourth birthday, TV detox, lightning bugs, Ohio trip




June: Star Wars, Lindsay visit, Gigi visit, swimming, New York trip with Jon, Roxane visit, Ann visit, part time




July: 4th of July parade, Beth visit, meet Irene's twins




August: Carolina Tiger Rescue, photography classes, music festival, Chicago trip, family beach trip of a lifetime




September: bought dream home, pumpkin farm visit, four inch heels, first canvas




October: Vegas trip with BBC ladies, met Lesley and Cathy, professional pictures with Cathy, DC/PA trip, Warrior Dash with Joanna and Maria, NC state fair, Star Wars Halloween




November: moved into dream house, sixth wedding anniversary, Jen visit, hearing aid, Warrior Dash Austin with Texas ladies




December: sledding, snow snow snow snow, rainbow, holiday program, Roxane and Gigi visit, best Christmas ever in our new house




I won't even make the joke that I am tired just reading that list. 2010 was a spectacular year filled with joy, laughter, loved ones, and at times, complete insanity. I woke up each day with my best friend. I got unconditional love from two wonderful sons. I jumped over fire (twice). I ate chicken wings. I worked on maintaining my tribe that keeps me sane. I looked at people with my camera and tried to capture their souls.

I hope 2011 is bigger and better. I plan for it to be bigger and better.

I hope each and every one of you will be along for the ride.





Happy new year.

Moments in excellent parenting

Alex got two points!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Two more days to Show Me the Mommy!

Don't forget that you have two more days to Show Me the Mommy! My favorite picture wins a Starbucks gift card.

Christmas candids 2010

As I learn more and more about photography, I set the bar higher for the photos I am willing to share here. Then I decided that was stupid and I should share what ALL of our family photos look like... not just the best of the best. Enjoy!

Lest you think my children always cooperate for photos, here is a completely failed photo shoot.




In ALL of my adult years, I do not remember ever getting more than one cold a winter. Now into my second man cold, I realized WHY I am getting sick... two nose pickers in my house.




This is as close to a genuine Nate smile as I have ever been able to capture. But why?




Oh yes... my angel boy "respecting" the tree.




Did I mention the boys dress themselves now? This one gets his fashion sense from me.




I haven't had my V-8!




Jon is a pretty awesome husband and father to encourage me in my photo ideas.




And Alex? CLOUD NINE to be able to jump off the couch to Jon. Look at that face! The Spider-Man socks make the picture to me.




Jon HATES photos where he is looking to the side with his mouth hanging open. Therefore...




Obligatory Christmas morning deer in headlights do not take my picture I've got presents to open shot:




It wouldn't be Christmas without Alex crying. This time, he was upset that Nate was singing and playing the guitar louder than him.




Oh I can't do it. I can't end on that photo. Alex has been such a sweetheart this year and seeing him in the snow this week, I have fallen in love with a new part of him I never knew existed.




I've resurrected my other blog and will be posting pictures there daily. It seemed perfect to kick it off with a nature hike Alex and I took by ourselves in the snow on the greenway by our new house.

Christmas 2010

I thought FOR SURE this would be the year the boys dove into presents and ripped them apart in a short period of time. Yet again this year, the boys opened a present, played with it, then moved on to the next present. One thing I did not expect was Nate caught on to the fact that they both got, in general, the same thing. When he opened a pair of Star Wars pajamas, he excitedly told Alex to open up his pair of Star Wars pajamas. And when Alex opened something, he wanted to know where his was.

They love all their new presents and the At At has been a huge hit (how could it NOT be a huge hit?):




We had a fantastic visit with Roxane, and as always, it was entirely too short. She and Gigi took the boys to see Alex's first theater movie and saved me and Jon from suffering through Yogi Bear. They also baby sat so we could go out and I tried chicken wings for the first time. More Mondo!




Sign of a patient grandma: smiling through getting sticks to the head:




We also had a great time with Gigi:




We had a blessed year and a wonderful Christmas and hope that you enjoyed time with loved ones as well.




Today I'm posting the posed pictures... tomorrow the candids. Brace yourselves!

Happy holidays!

Grandma Roxane and Great Grandma Marguerite (Gigi) are here so I'm signing off for a few days to enjoy our Christmas vacation. Our Christmas cards designed by Mel from Larson Lingo were exactly what I wanted!



Hope you all have a great Christmas (or whatever it is you celebrate)!

House pictures, part one

I've gotten a lot of requests for photos of the house now that we are moved in. It is going to take a long, long time to get the house decorated, but I promise to show pictures along the way as we "finish."

One of the first rooms to be completed was the jack and jill bathroom off my office. I knew exactly how I wanted it to look: beachy. On the bathroom sink, I put out a bowl of green, brown, and white sea glass we found while on our beach vacation.




One change we made before we moved in was to put a drink fridge in the butler's pantry. This has come in so handy as we've entertained as we always have a variety of cold drinks (wine/beer/soda) ready to serve:




But by far, my first obsession in decorating has been the dining room. We already had red slip covers and once Christmas is over, the red decorations disappear for the year so I wanted this done pronto. My friend Bridget was instrumental in helping two decorating-challenged engineers get this completed. Still to come is a red and white table runner and drapes... already have the fabric picked out, just need to get them done:




It feels good taking our time to slowly fill our home with objects we love. I am so incredibly impressed with how Bridget was able to help us decorate it in a way we would love - every piece is decorative and functional.

The next big project will be the great room once our sectional arrives at the end of January.

Photo organization questions answered

As I promised, here are answers to the questions asked on my photo organization post. Let me know if you have any more questions! I'm glad to hear I've inspired some people to back up!

The most common question asked - how long does this process take?
In general, I can go through an entire month of photos and edit them in one evening after the boys go to bed. I watch tv or listen to This American Life podcasts while I delete. After I am done organizing, I burn the discs, move the photos to the external hard drive, and order copies.

Megan asked - How do you do a back up? Do I buy an external drive? Like how much do I buy?
There are many ways to back up. You can back up to DVDs. You can back up online (mozy.com starts at $5 a month). You can back up to an external hard drive. It really depends on how much you want to spend. We have our hard drive networked to our computers to easily transfer files back and forth. Space is pretty cheap... I think ours is 1 terrabyte?

Joanna hypothetically asked - If you have been taking pictures for 4.5 years on a number of cameras and you have dumped the photos, often with repeated naming schemes, all over a bunch of different hard drives, how the hell do you fix that enough to be able to institute this wonderful plan?
This is a classic legacy software system problem! Personally I would buy an external hard drive. Create folders for each month of each year. Move the pictures from one computer at a time to the hard drive. Once they are in their appropriate month folder, rename them to something unique then move to the next computer. Break it into manageable chunks so you see progress.

If you have a wireless home network, I would encourage you to transfer files by connecting with a cable directly to the external hard drive. Your internet provider limits wireless file transfer speed.

Beth asked - And do you print matte or glossy pics? Is one better than the other? Or personal preference?
I prefer matte photos because glossy photos reflect too much ambient light (for me). When you come visit in February, I will show you my printed photos :)

Marcia asked multiple questions - you do nothing on a weekly basis? what about blogging? Do you make copies of those pictures as they happen and then still do your big monthly organising thing?
To keep the tutorial brief, I didn't get into what I do throughout the month. I take pictures almost daily, and I post photos on my blog fairly frequently. I have my computer and camera configured so that when I download photos from my camera onto my computer, it creates a new folder with the date.

For example, I took pictures of the boys on our recent ice day. When I uploaded them from card to computer, my computer automatically made a folder called December 16 and stored the RAW files there. I reviewed the files in Bridge, marking rejected ones as I went along and giving stars to ones I liked. I picked the two I liked the most.

I opened the picture of Nate in Camera RAW, changed the white balance, exposure, and clarity (I had overexposed it on purpose but wanted to tone it down). I then opened it in Photoshop CS4, ran my favorite color action, made some minor tweaks, then saved the file. Ditto the picture of Alex. I uploaded the pictures to flickr to post on my blog. Since I planned to upload them to facebook, I also ran the free Totally Rad Actions Facebook Action to get a high quality version that fits facebook size limits.

When I get to the end of the month, I DO NOT duplicate all this work. I just move all the December 5, December 16, etc photos into one big December folder and work from there. In most cases, I only keep the jpegs. If the photo is really something special, I will keep the RAW file for future editing.

Since switching to RAW, not once have I ever thought to myself, "I wish I had kept that RAW file." because I only keep the ones that blow me away.

(ALL of this workflow is different when I take pictures for other people. I keep ALL the pictures I give them in case something happens on their end.)

Do you only take pics of the kids or other things too and do those ALL fall into the 50 pics max that are left?
People are my photography muse, so I generally do not take other pictures. Sometimes I take pictures for blog posts (house photos come to mind) but I don't print those so they get deleted.

Melissa asked - What do you grab in a fire? Are you going for the albums? The boxes? The external hard drive? Your DVDs?
Assuming the kids and Jon were safe, I would grab the external hard drive. I've backed up all of our digital photos there, including our wedding photos. This is why I'd like to go to an online service.... just haven't had the time!

Cathy asked - Where do you order your photo boxes from?
I bought them at Target. It should be illegal how much time I've spent at Target since moving during the holidays.

Nicola asked - How do you print your photos? Like how, where, and how much does it cost to print like 20 photos?
Right now I print them all at mpix.com. (I took a photography class where we had an entire list of labs we were supposed to try and that's on my 2011 list.) They are $0.24 a print for 4x6. That may be pricier than other places but the quality is far beyond the average print shop.

The other thing to consider is digital file size. My camera takes photos at a ratio of 8x12. When I print a 4x6 (or 5x7 or 8x10), it is going to crop some of that photo. If you send digital pictures to most places, they crop for you with no information about how they will crop. When you upload your pictures to mpix, they show you how they plan to crop and you can change it for each photo.

This is why I strongly encourage you to delete, delete, delete. It costs money to print photos, so use that money wisely!

Mel asked - How do you back up your blog?
Here is a post with my blogbook from two years ago. In that post is a link to this post where I explain how I create my blogbooks. Quick answer - I copy and paste the entire month of posts into Word.

And because I can't end a post about pictures without a picture, Jen asked what I do with the printed photos. Here is my work desk (I telecommute full time), my favorite place to display photos:




I change out the photos on my pinboard frequently for inspiration. I find it encouraging to see how my photography is progressing as the photos improve with each batch. And I love seeing my three boys as I work all day.



(Yes, that is the Pottery Barn Daily System and I LUV it.)

Back to regularly scheduled mommy blogging tomorrow.

We all knew how that was going to turn out

Last year we didn't take any photos or video at the holiday program because we wanted to just enjoy the show. We felt bad afterward that we didn't have any photos or video to show the grandparents because it was adorable, all those 3 year olds screaming at top volume. So this year we grabbed the camera and video camera, although I compromised and took photos of the boys at home where the lighting is much better than the gym.

Don't they look like little investment bankers?




It is cold cold cold here, so the only way I can get them to take quick outdoor photos for me is bribery. This time the bribery was in the form of choosing whatever shoes they wanted to wear outside.




Both boys sang their hearts out and despite The Golden Nose Picking Rule, Alex nervously picked his nose during the performance. OF COURSE HE DID. (this is post-pick)




The rest of the weekend was filled with holiday activities. We attended our church's family holiday service. We rode the Durham Life Science Santa Train to the North Pole and saw Santa and Mrs. Claus. We had hot chocolate and a fire in the fireplace. The boys decided to make Christmas pictures for the grandparents. And we made a blizzard of snowflakes... they could have done this all night:



Age 4 is an amazing time to be parents to children around Christmas. I love seeing the sheer joy and excitement on their faces, and each day, they wake up excited that it is one day closer to Christmas. To me, this is what the holidays should be like.

Except, please, just a tiny bit warmer.

Ice day! And holiday program! And photos!

Ice day!

I wish I could say the boys and I had a magical wonderful ice day at home but someone was in a bad mood before nap and someone else was in a bad mood after nap. I made the most of it, but MAN it reminded me of the newborn days with twins where I would try and try and try and there would still be crying all day.

I even had the brilliant idea to go in the backyard and play with ice and scream out our crankies. It didn't work. At least they enjoyed my awesome living room fort.

Holiday program!

The boys have their much anticipated holiday program today if the roads clear in time (snow/ice melted then refroze overnight, we're on a two hour delay). Alex told me the most important rule of the program: "No picking your nose because people will take pictures and pictures of picking your nose are NOT BEAUTIFUL."

I'm sorry, but I will always be the parent that laughs at these things.

Photos!

I promise I will write a follow up photo post to answer questions. In the meantime, Marcia and I emailed offline. Of the 8000 photos I've taken this year, I've turned two into canvases. I told Marcia you will know The One when you see it.

The boys let me take exactly three pictures each of them yesterday. I had to reaaaaaaaaaaallllllllyyy think before I pressed the shutter. It was an amazing photography meditation. This one is *close* to The One:




I didn't have a patented head tilt one of Alex so I took this. This might be The One because that is his real happy face:



In theory, it sounds crazy that I've taken 8000 photos this year. In reality, taking those 8000 photos (and deleting the majority of them) has gotten me to the point where I can take 6 shots and come out with two that I love. In 2011, I'm resurrecting my other blog and starting up Project 365 to clear out this blog of posts about my photography journey.

Don't forget it's Friday and it's time for Show Me the Mommy!

How I keep my photos organized

We have a snow day here in Raleigh so I'm publishing a post I've had in draft status for months. Back to the kiddos!

**************************

I take a lot of pictures. We're talking thousands of pictures this year, people.

Marcia made a list of 36 things she'd like to accomplish this year similar to my 36 wishes list and one of them included getting a photo system in place. I thought I'd document my photo system and open it up for feedback, suggestions, and comments.

Laura's Monthly Photo Plan

1. At the end of every month, I gather up all the cameras in the house and download all the photos and videos from them. How do I remember to do this? I have a list of chores I do at every month end! These include backing up my blog, changing my contacts, filling out medical flex spend reimbursements, and cleaning out my car.

2. I create one folder for that month and put all files in that folder. My folder naming structure is "Year, Month Number, Month Case Family Photos." This month's folder will be "2010 12 December Case Family Photos". I include the month number so they sort in month order.

3. I review every photo and video and delete like crazy. Every month I have anywhere from 300 to 1000 photos. The more you delete, the more delete happy you will be in the future. Ask yourself:

• Is this a picture I will care about in 10 years? If no, DELETE.
  
• Is it out of focus, not flattering, too similar to something else... DELETE.
  
• Does that video suck? DELETE.

(Advanced move: I review my RAW files in Bridge, rejecting along the way. When I get to the end, I delete all rejected files.)

This is the hardest part. We all love pictures of our kids. Do you need 30 pictures of your kids doing the same thing? No. Do you need one great photo? Yes.

4. Now that I have a more manageable number of pictures, I review the entire set again and DELETE AGAIN. This will generally bring me down to 20-50 photos for a month.

5. Now that I have my pile of keepers, I batch rename the files via Photoshop to "2010 December 01", "2010 December 02", etc. This is also when I edit, and by edit, I mean I calibrate my monitor and make changes in Photoshop to improve the photos. Often during the editing process, I realize I don't want a particular shot so I delete again.

I AM A DELETING FOOL!

6. When all the photos are edited the way I want them, BEFORE I delete anything off my memory cards, I back them up to a DVD.

7. Then I back them up to my external hard drive. Only when am I comfortable they are backed up in two places do I delete them off my cameras. (My eventual plan is to move to an online backup service.)

8. I upload the pictures to mpix.com, order 4x6 print copies, and wait for them to arrive. I get the back of them printed with the Month and Year. (This is five months of photos):




9. When they arrive, I put them in chronologically ordered photo boxes then pat myself on the back for being so organized. (This is five YEARS of photos):




So... I know the first questions you are going to ask.

QUESTIONS

Q: Do you really print ALL of your photos?

A: YES. Why keep the digital file forever if you don't want a print? I'm all for online media but in my lifetime, we have gone from 3.5 inch floppies to disk drives to CDs to DVDs. Are you going to transfer those images to the latest media FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE?

And do you really think you are going to review them on the computer forever?

Q: Why do you print them all?
A: By printing them, I am assured of only keeping the photos that mean something. I also like to display pictures and make physical albums.

Q: Don't you think two backups is crazy?
A: No. ZERO BACKUP IS CRAZY. It is setting you up for losing ALL OF YOUR PICTURES. And even if both my backups fail, I still have the printed pictures. The ultimate backup!

I've worked in software for 13 years... I can tell some very sad stories about people not backing things up. Here is one sad story.

Q: How can you delete pictures of your precious boys?
A: Deleting photos is like any other skill. The more you delete, the better you will be at deleting. It costs me money to print my photos so it better be an awesome picture if I'm spending money to keep it.

So... this was a lot of information. Any questions? Any suggestions to improve my process?

The kids never need to know the whole story

Can you keep a secret? I failed a couple of classes at Caltech.
(Don't worry mom and dad, 50% of students fail a course there.)

It was a good life lesson to try as hard as I could and still fail. That had never happened to me before college and I think everyone needs that lesson. I probably know more about science than 99.999999% of the general public but I still sometimes feel self doubt when the kids ask me science questions because of those failures.

Yes, a degree in engineering from Caltech and I worry I can't answer 4 year old science questions correctly.

I almost failed optics. I find this ironic because I love photography, which is all optics. But... I *almost* failed optics. I didn't fail.

It rained all weekend here. Miserable cold rain. Sunday we were all hanging out in the second floor bonus when the sun poked through the clouds despite the heavy rain. I told the boys to come downstairs because when the sun comes out and it's still raining, it makes a rainbow. We looked in our backyard:



We could see a whole rainbow from end to end, proving yet again science is pretty freaking cool.

Alex quietly observed it while Nate shouted and yelled and wanted to call people to tell them about it. That sums up their personalities perfectly.

Oh, the laughing

One of the most delightful aspects of age four is seeing the boys develop a sense of humor. Recently we were watching old videos of the boys together and we watched this one of Nate saying "mommy" when he was 10 months old (SUPER exciting for me!):



That evening, Nate pretended to be a baby again and said, "Mommy" to everything I said to him. I asked him:

Who loves cookies? Mommy.
Who has the stinkiest breath? Mommy.
Who farts the loudest? Mommy.

With each question, he laughed harder and harder. It was awesome.

Then there was the time Alex went to answer a question and accidentally belched out his answer. I thought they were going to fall out of their chairs from laughing so hard.

I read about this Maru the Cat video on a blog where the author said her kids laughed hysterically. I watched the video and it's just a cat jumping in and out of a box, nothing that funny. I showed it to the boys last night and they laughed so hard they were breathless. You would have thought it was the funniest thing they'd ever seen.

Please try showing it to your kids and let me know if they find this hilarious too.

Room to breathe

You don't blog daily for five years without learning some bloglife lessons. The biggest lesson is don't ever blog about good sleep or no illness. As soon as you hit publish, there will be a night of horrible sleep or you will wake up to the sound of someone puking.

I've also learned as soon as you blog about something, it changes. Two weeks ago I wrote about us reaching a low point at 4.5. This weekend was the exact opposite - it was a high point.

We had a weekend where all four of us got to do exactly what we wanted to do.

It took 4.5 years with twins to get there but we did it. No refereeing fights. The boys played together well and independently. We are caught up from the insanity of moving right before Thanksgiving and Christmas. Lots of time for me and Jon to recharge (HUGE!).

And.... I seem to have figured out how to get BOTH BOYS to cooperate with my crazy photo schemes. The day after I finalized our Christmas card layout and sent in my order, I snapped this photo of the boys:



Thanks universe, I really needed this weekend in a big way.

Show Me the Mommy!

Don't forget I have a giveaway going on this month. Best Show Me the Mommy picture in December gets a Starbucks gift card! Get creative peoples.

We've moved into the picture hanging phase of living in the new house. Jon put up my daily system this week and as I searched through pictures to put on my pinboard, I found this:




I have the camera out a lot. I plan to have the camera out a lot more in 2011. It's not that hard to hand it over to Jon to ask him to take some snaps.

I want more of these pictures in 2011.

Jon and Laura's achilles heel

Every relationship has an achilles heel. Jon and mine.... real Christmas trees.

Let me explain. When we met, we lived in Chicago in the city with no car. Obtaining a Christmas tree meant WALKING to a place that sells Christmas trees, picking one out, carrying it in FREEZING COLD, hauling it up the fire escape, then setting it up in tiny apartments. And don't even get me started about taking it down.

Also don't get me started on Jon and messes. I love that Jon is a neat freak but he can not stand the tiny pine needles everywhere.

Everything was going kind of okay with real trees until Jon had back surgery. Then guess who was responsible for carrying the tree in the cold? It's one of those crazy realities of our relationship - Jon is 6'4", but with a bad back, my shortie self does the heavy lifting.

After Jon's back surgery, EVERY SINGLE real Christmas tree experience involved:

• sweating
• yelling
• cursing
• huffing and puffing and muttering under breath
  
• silent treatment for the rest of the night
  

It was so bad we actually had to sit down and have a "talk" about getting along when putting up a real Christmas tree for babies' first Christmas.

Real Christmas tree for Jon and Laura = Merry Effing Christmas!!!

We finally decided it was crazy to do this and got a very nice pre-lit fake tree. BUT BUT BUT that doesn't mean our tree is not special. Every year since Jon and I met, we have exchanged ornaments with each other. Every ornament on our tree has significant meaning.

This ornament is from the year we got married. Our reception was at a botanical garden in Florida where they grow orchids:




This ornament is from the year Jon's sister got their dog Rudy. We dog sat Rudy and loved/love him:




In continuing the tradition, when the boys were born, we picked out ornaments. Now they pick out their own. Guess what they picked this year?? Captain Rex and Darth.




We will most likely always have a fake tree, but like Charlie Brown's, it is a special tree. Every year as we decorate the tree, we take out ornaments and reflect on those years together. This is our 11th Christmas together and the pile of ornaments is huge!

This year was particularly sweet as we explained to the boys what each ornament meant. It's not a real tree, but I wouldn't have it any other way.