A few years ago I bought a cheap fish-eye lens off of ebay. It only lasted a few months but had a great time capturing life with a kick.

Here is a shot of E back in 2008. I hate that he grew up. Thank God for photos that will keep him small forever, at least digitally.

Check out more “angles” photos at iheartfaces.com!

My little E has been ARGH’ing all day. Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day!

The last few years, as my kids have grown I have really started trying to “capture moments”. Maybe it’s the OCD Japanese photographer in me and I am just trying to find an excuse to take photos of every moment of my kids’ lives  – but I digress.

Z and E are 25 months apart. Our first 50 months of parenthood were spent changing diapers, trying to sleep and figure out what the heck we were doing. Not that we have totally figured out what we are doing – but after the infancy stage – we’ve really focused on making memories with the kids that will last.  Whether it be random road trips, or off the wall adventures – we try to make the most of our time together.  And since they most likely won’t remember any of these efforts – everything is captured digitally with photos or video.

Several years ago, after my parents divorced and my mom had moved out of our childhood home – she handed me a box of negatives and told me to keep them. I never thought anything of them, until I found a great deal on a slide/negative scanner.  That brought on sleepless nights – IMing with my sister photos that brought back all kinds of memories.

It’s amazing how an image can act as a time machine. These photos took me back to that very day. I can remember exactly the situations surrounding them, even though they were taken 20-25 years ago.

This was my 9th birthday party – here I am with the cousins I grew up with. It was a sock-hop, we limbo’d and played hot potato. Wow, besides baby photos this is one of  the rare photos I’m actually smiling in.

This picture cracked me up. Seriously – photos at a grave?  This is a disgruntled me, my crazy Brother and my Great-Aunt Sally. I wish I could say this was taken because of my parents’ crazy sense of humor – but I honestly think they just wanted us to remember the cemetary.

The vacation, I remember like yesterday. We had road-tripped to Washington DC. I remember my mom saving $1,000 for this trip.  We had made our way from Dallas to Beaumont to see my Grandmother who was dying. Then to New Orleans where we swam in a pool until I noticed turd floating next to me. To top that off, we also contracted lice.  Hours and hours of picking lice in hotel rooms = NOT FUN. Can you say Griswold’s?

I remember my Dad driving into the state of Florida – stopping at the state line and saying “Now you can say you went to Florida”. That was the only time in my childhood that I went to Florida.

We made our way thru Tennessee – stopping at Gatlinburg. I remember loving this town. The arcade had one of those quarter games, where you put your quarter in and try to knock it thru the level and dump more quarters down – any who –  I remember the machine just spitting out all of this money. I believe this was the start of my gambling addiction.

After what seemed like years of driving – we made it to my Aunt’s home in Richmond, VA. Her dog had fleas, she paid me and brother a penny for every flea we caught.

We then drove to Washington DC and saw the sites via a limo my cousin had rented for us. Along the way, we had to stop to remember another cousin (probebly my 4th cousin) at the National Cemetery. Nothing says HAPPY VACATION like a graveyard photo! I remember thinking “I am standing on top of dead people that I do not know”.

And HOW depressed do I LOOK? This must of been the beginning of my many years of depression and puberty.

When I showed this picture to my sister, her first comments were “OF COURSE BILLY GOT A MAGICIAN – I NEVER GOT A MAGICIAN”. My sister appears to be around 3, therefore I would be 10, my brother 7.  We like to refer to my brother as the “chosen one”  (just kidding Billy – kind of – we do love you though).

I am in the turquoise shirt – with my perm that my Aunt and Mom did themselves. They still rave about their mad perm skills. If I was turned around in this picture, I am pretty sure you would see one of those clips on my shirts that tied long shirts to the side. The shirt most likely would be puff painted. There are things that I will never make my child do or wear – puff paint and perms are 2 of them.

So this picture is 20 years old. 2 of my brother’s friends – I recognize because he is STILL friends with them.

WHAT IS UP WITH THAT WREATH? I remember it having our last name written in the middle. How sweet.

This is my darling little sister. She is 7 years younger than me and for the first 11 years of her life I resented her. Sad isnt’ it?

My brother and I tortured her as a child. I am sure she is still scared and seeking therapy for the torment we put her and her dolls thru.  Now she is one of my best friends.

I wonder what my kids will think 20 years from now. All of their photos are digitally kept. I keep several back-ups in fear of losing any. They will have over 100k pictures of their childhood to thumb thru and remember when. I can only hope their memories are happy ones. I will try to refrain from grave yard photos, perms and will try to make them smile in the photos. That’s all I can do.

I will admit — that I have had the idea of taking the kids’ baby photos and morphing them into fabulous exotic locations, so they can think when they were infants we traveled the world. “Look Z and E -  here you are on an African safari – you were too little to remember it, but it was amazing until the lion saw you and started heading our way. Thank God our tour guide had a gun with him!”

Oh the years of therapy – at least the therapist will enjoy their photos.

It was our 2nd night at Disney, a conversation on the bus ride from Epcot to our hotel, with a random bus rider – had Z telling this lady how she wished I would have a baby. So I blurted out – Z mommy is pregnant.  The bus was full, her ADD kicked in and was off and running busy telling the lady about her school.

Knowing how quickly Z is too spread rumors, I knew right away I had to tell E before his sister got to him. We sat the kids down and told them we had news. “Are we in trouble?” – “No, not really.”  We explained that we are totally excited to have a new baby coming into the world in several months.  E wanted to know if it was a boy or girl. Z wanted to know how many and asked if I could have 8 (Jon & Kate is her favorite show BTW). By the end of the talk, the kids were settled that we would have 2 babies – 1 girl and 1 boy.

After spending 3 days at Disneyworld, walking infinite miles – craving every stupid possible concession stand junk food  and consuming it – i’m happy to spend the next 24 hours laying around on the beach not thinking about anything. We are meeting my in-laws in West Palm Beach, where we’ll get to break the news. My mom-in-law has 6 kids and is always asking when we’re having more. This should make her weekend. My husband grew up Mormon. I grew up Catholic. You’d think we’d have 5 kids by now, but since being non-denominational, guess we just have 2.