HE WON!!!

Thank You So Much to those who voted for Lucas!!!

HE WON!!! Your vote won him $500!!!!!!

Final Voting!!

The Final Voting for the 107.5FM Jingle Kids Photo Contest is ready!

Please Vote for Lucas by selecting Entry #21 at:

http://www.1075theriver.com/pages/jinglekids_final.html

Voting for the final round will be from 8AM on December 14th to 7:59AM on December 18th. The winner will be announced on the morning of December 18th.

Thank you!!! :)

Evening at the mall

Last Friday, the kids and I went to the mall to drop off the Angel Tree gifts. We would like to help out in delivering them, so if anyone actually gets back to returning my calls, we may get to do that. Anyway, after dropping off the gifts, we got some hot pretzels and drinks. Alex had gotten this blue raspberry slushie, which all 3 kids ended up enjoying. Afterwards, we just walked around the mall; there weren't that many shoppers and we took our time just browsing.

Christmas Greeting Card

I created a Christmas greeting card using Photoshop and ordered some through mpix.com. So for my friends and family this is what the front and inside of the card looks like:

(front: milk and cookies in hands)

He made it to the Top 5 for his Round!

THANK YOU to those who voted for Lucas in the 107.5FM Jingle Kids photo contest!! Out of 27 kids for his round (Round 1), he made it to the Top 5. Click on the "Round 1 - Top 5" button at:

http://www.1075theriver.com/pages/jinglekids.html

There will be a final voting for the top 20 around December 14th. I'll post a link when that's ready. Thanks again!! :)

Create and Send Christmas Cards

Just heard on Mix 92.9 (www.mix929.com) that if you want to create Christmas cards (great project for your kids/students to do) and have them sent to those who ordinarily would not receive one, you can do so and the radio station will deliver them. Send your created cards to:

Mix 92.9
ATTN: Cards from Kids
504 Rosedale Ave
Nashville, TN 37211

I'm not sure if we'll get involved, although, I know Alex would like to do this since she loves any art-related project.

On a somewhat related note, we went shopping yesterday for Alex and Andrew's Angels, and of course, ended up spending more than the recommended amount. Andrew's Angel needed a winter coat, blanket and wanted a blue power ranger. And Alex's Angel needed a winter coat and wanted a barbie and Dora doll. If the Salvation Army does need help, we're going to see if we can help in delivering the Angel Tree gifts.

Please vote for Lucas!

I submitted a picture of Lucas in a local radio contest.

You can Vote for Lucas by selecting Entry #21 at:

http://www.1075theriver.com/pages/jinglekids_round1.html

You may have to click the Vote button twice.

Voting is only available thru 11:59PM on 12/01.

Thank you!!! :)

Give thanks with a grateful heart.

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving!

We helped out with the Meals on Wheels on Thanksgiving Day. Usually, we'd go to one of Michael's aunt's on that day (about an hour and a half away), but this year, I wanted to try the MOW. The kids had drawn pictures for the Senior Citizens, and I was going to take my camera to take pics, but Michael heard from some police officers that some people like to rob the MOW volunteers. They'll stand outside a Senior Citizen's place of residence waiting for the food to be delivered. Stealing from the elderly. How sad is that? We only had to deliver food (which wasn't much) to 5 women who lived in a high-rise that was surprisingly located only about 5 minutes away from where we live! I enjoyed it, and so did everyone else. I think we'll do it again next year. Michael had already started cooking a turkey (among other things) that morning, and so by the time we got home, it was almost time for us to eat. So we still had a delicious Thanksgiving meal. We pretty much rested the rest of the day and weekend...although, I did have to work (from home) on Black Friday.

We've already bought most of Alex and Andrew's Christmas gifts. I haven't got anything for Lucas yet, but he'll be happy with anything. He really LOVES Hannah Montana lately. Everytime he sees her on the Disney Channel, he stops whatever he's doing and stares or starts dancing and singing along with her. He calls her "Hantana." I videotaped him saying Hantana; if I can figure out how to attach the video, I will.

One of the local radio stations Mix 92.9 is doing this Angels on the Air thing where you can call and "adopt" an angel from the Salvation Army's angel tree. Alex and Andrew heard it and said they wanted to adopt an angel, so I called and Alex will be getting gifts for a 3-year-old girl, and Andrew will get gifts for a 4-year-old boy. They're so sweet to be so thoughtful. :)

All My Babies Are Gone Now

A FWD I received...

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All My Babies Are Gone Now
By Anna Quindlen, Newsweek Columnist and Author

All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow, but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past.

Everything in all the books I once poured over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach, T. Berry Brazelton, Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education -- all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories. What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations -- what they taught me, was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all.

Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his sibling at 2.

When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow. I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China. Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.

Every part of raising children is humbling. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the "Remember-When-Mom-Did" Hall of Fame. The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language -- mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, "What did you get wrong?" (She insisted I include that here.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?

(She was thinking the same thing I was, apparently...no Simpsons here either!) But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night.

I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.

Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.

Vicks on Feet and Mustard for Burns

We spent last weekend at my in-laws. While we were there, my MIL had accidentally burned her hand while she was getting something out of the stove, and at first she put some cream (for burns) on it, but then she took that off and put mustard on it instead. She let the mustard air dry for awhile and reapplied it again and let it dry. It actually helped to heal her hand more so than the actual burn cream. Isn’t that funny?

Then later on, Andrew was coughing up phlegm; he's had this ongoing cold for almost a week. My MIL put some Vicks on him, and then she said that if you put Vicks on the bottom of feet, it makes the coughing go away. Alex had also woken up with Andrew’s cold on Sunday because they had slept in the same bed Saturday night, and she was coughing the whole way home. So Sunday night, I put Vicks on the bottoms of their feet, and I didn’t hear either of them cough at all during the night! Usually, I’d be hearing Andrew hacking. And Alex seemed perfectly fine the next morning. Andrew did start coughing a little bit again, but he said he didn’t cough at all during the night. He seems a lot better, too, after having this nagging cold.

I decided to google "vicks on feet" and "mustard for burns" and came up with a lot of results. Isn’t that weird?

8 Years and climbing

Yesterday was Michael's and my 8th year Wedding Anniversary. Time really seems to fly. I guess 3 kids can do that to you. We just celebrated by going to Olive Garden with the kids ...while it was storming outside and a tornado was sighted (seriously).

Halloween 2007

Happy belated Halloween!

It's almost become tradition where we go TOTing (trick-or-treating) with about 4 of our next door neighbors every Halloween. We all have kids around the same age, and it's just nice to get out.

Lucas did not want to have anything to do with his costume even though he had picked it out in the store. He was pretty much crying as we put it on him. Although, once he realized what TOTing was about, he was very happy. He would say hi to the people and then say "TAY TOO!" (ie thank you) after he got candy.

There was only one upsetting incident that happened as we were all out. Some girl was backing out of a driveway and almost hit a kid - no one from our group. Then she proceeded to speed up, and while the parents in our group were telling her to slow down, she decided to yell, "F@#$ YOU!" out the window. I'm sure she had no idea that one of the parents in our group was a police officer, but after she sped off, he went to go talk to the home she had departed from. They were saying that once she leaves their property, she's not their responsibility. Anyway, we let him deal with them and continued TOTing.

Of course, the kids were pooped by the time we got home. We just put the candy up in the pantry and had pizza for dinner. Good thing they didn't have homework that night!

Photographer vs Client's Point of View

I recently had an order placed on my website, and I just think how it's interesting that the pictures I as the photographer would choose are not the same ones as what my client likes. I've had others comment on how they like such-and-such picture because I really captured some facial feature, and it's ironic because those were ones I was close to scrapping! Just goes to show that what a photographer thinks is bad is not necessarily true for the client.

Where to go for Spring Break?

I've been trying to think of some places for a family vacation during the kids Spring Break (last week of March). At first, I thought of Pawleys Island, which my friend Rachel went to with her family in the summer. But then I realized it would be too cold to go there in March. Disney's out since Lucas couldn't handle all that walking. Hawaii would be great; Michael and I were there a few years ago without the kids, and I'd really like to go back with the kids, but there's that whole dinero factor. I'd really like to go to a beach that's family-friendly and where there's stuff for the kids to do. One of my coworkers went to Orange Beach (in Alabama?), but I think that would still be too cold in March. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know - imphotomom@yahoo.com Thanks!

I miss Hawaii! This was taken with an old point and shoot - probably a 4MP camera. Viewpoint taken of Waikiki beach while parasailing.

Corn Maze at Rippavilla Plantation

One of my coworkers had mentioned this Corn Maze at the Rippavilla Plantation (http://www.rippavilla.org/cornmaze.asp) in Spring Hill, TN. I had never been there, and I thought it would be a good place to take the kids. So we went there last Sunday. The maze itself wasn't as green as one would like, but I don't think the owners could help the drought. I'm 4'11", and most of the cornstalks were a little bit taller than me. The weather was perfect, and the kids really liked it. Alex and Andrew would lead the way most of the time, and we just followed them. Lucas seemed to like it at first, but then he just wanted to be carried, and if Michael or I didn't carry him, he would cry. We would purposely get lost in the maze, but we were probably out of there in 15 minutes. Here's some pics taken at the plantation:

Happy Birthday, Jenna!

Because I love taking pictures of children, I think birthday parties are a perfect time to whip out the camera. We recently went to a neighbor's party for their 3-year-old, Jenna. Here's just a few pictures I took at the party. I love this first pic of Jenna. We couldn't stay long enough for the cake.

Joining the world of blogging.

So I've finally decided to join the world of blogging. I'm mainly doing this so that I can display snapshots of my family and friends and other favorite photos.

I work fulltime as a QA Analyst for a company in Nashville. I love my job and the company I work for, but I'm also starting to turn my passion for photography into a small (really small) business. You can see more of my work at: http://jenbresson.smugmug.com. With 3 kids and a husband and all the ongoings that are involved with that, though, there's only so much time I can devote to photography.

If you are in the Nashville area, and you happen to see an SUV with the license plate FOTOMOM, you have probably cussed me out for driving slow. LOL! Sorry about that. I've lived in the south for about 7 years now, and I think it's made me even more laidback. :)

I took the following picture with my camera phone which I believe is a 2MP. This is my youngest, Lucas (2-yrs old); the picture was taken after picking him up from daycare. Just an example of what probably should not go on my professional site.