Memories Captured: Bonding Time

I have taken hundreds of photos of my children. Just in the last month.

I have taken thousands and thousands of photos of my children in the eight and half years I have been their mother.

But then there are those photos that you get and you really don't realize that you captured an essence with the photo. I have taken a few that I look at and can see the moment.

I can feel the emotion that was happening at that moment.

I love this photo that I took this last summer of my children at our final beach trip of the summer.
 We walked on the beach to say goodbye to the ocean, the birds, the salt and sand.

We left them behind and we took some memories home with us forever.

I'm linking up with Galit and Allison.

New Years Eve: A Year in Pictures

So I tried to get photos for my post from my husband's computer for this post and I was doing like he said and clicking away at the pictures and when I was finally done....after going through a years worth of pictures.....only 16 downloaded. So I had to go back again and pick the ones I wanted and messed up again.

I will not attempt to rearrange them, because I do not want to run the risk of losing one and having to go back on his laptop again. So here is my 2011 in no particular order.

Santa Claus at Sea World December

Little E getting his first treatment since his was an infant , July

Miss K on her 8th birthday, August

Little E with a cake mustache at Miss K's party

Bolwing at a birthday party, September

Last beach weekend of the summer, September

At the pool on the last beach weekend, September

Saying goodbye, September

Our first Monarchs, October

10 year Anniversary, October

The hubs and I, Channelside Tampa, October

Monarchs hatched, November

Posing after painting the house, October

Church picnic, November

First Performance with the SODA POPS, Rosen Shingle Creek Resort, December

Ready to perform, December

First Christmas with Sadie, our foster turned adopted pooch, December

Fishing trip with my dad, January

First trip of 2011 to Sea World, February

Little E with his guitar that was donated by a friend, January

First beach trip of the year, Spring Break, March

Birthday Party in the park, March

First Camping trip in 2011, Salt Springs, March

Easter Egg tradition, April

First time Easter egg hunting at my house, April

Random photo, May

Trip to New Smyrna Beach to visit relatives, May

After a full day, Father's Day weekend, June

Recital for SODA Dance Studio, Ballet Ms. Dion's class, June

Short haircut for Miss K, June

Summer begins and mommy takes kiddos to work, June

Little E turns 4, July

Shamu Rocks,Summer at Sea World, July

Visit to Uncle Travis, Aunt Christy's house for the first time, July

So I hope you stuck with it and viewed my year in photos.

I hope that 2012 holds as many surprises, good and bad, as 2011 blessed us with. We have had so many life changing experiences this year and hope to continue in the directions we have been heading. May God bless us and you all this year and that it prosper in the ways you hope for.

Happy New Year!!!

Happy Birthday

We had an amazing time today celebrating this little guy's
fourth birthday. After all the guests had packed up and left
for home, we took some time to play
on the playground where we held the party.

Little E is a great subject for photography.

He and his big sister love to pose for the camera.
And he still got to enjoy running to everything
on the playground while I chased him with my camera.

Happy Birthday to my sweet boy.
You are growing up too fast
my little man.

Wordful Wednesday

This past Saturday Miss K's dance studio had their
Studio Photo Shoots for their upcoming Dance Recital

I brought along
my camera to take some photos of my own of her beautiful
face in her oh so cute costumes
Glad I did, the photographer wouldn't let us take photos once in the
"studio" with the backdrop

Tap Outfit

Acro Outfit

Ballet Outfit

Safe than Sorry

I take a lot of photos of my kids on my digital camera. I'm really bad about saving the photos to the hard drive on my husband's mac computer. Honestly, I have no idea how to so I have to wait for him to do it. So my 8GB disc had 908 photo files on it from December to April.

I'm semi careful with my disc, making sure to keep it dry, eject it when the computer says it's safe, but I never thought about not carrying it in my pocket. I've carried it in a pouch in my purse and it was fine but something happened to it in my pocket.

Last night I put it back in the camera and tried to take some photos of my dog. One click was all I got. Then it wouldn't work anymore and I thought the battery was dead. I looked at the display and it said CHA instead of a number count. I was like, what??
So I pushed the play button to view my photos and the display read, This Card cannot be used.
OH MY GOD! My stomach sunk. I started sweating, freaking out and needed to turn on my computer. Of course, the darned thing was taking FOREVER to boot up.
I put the card in the sd slot and only heard like a no no no beep. Not the nice bing bong it makes when it recognizes the card.
The computer was not seeing the card, I checked "my computer" and the port was not showing. I pulled out the card, licked (yes, licked) the metal end and slid it back in. Something in the spit worked and the computer recognized it had the card in. I opened the icon and it read, THIS FOLDER IS EMPTY.
I think I went into shock. Normally I would cry, shout and act like a child about a crisis. But I remained calm and tried to think of what to do. Those pictures were on that card and I had to try and recover them.
I Googled "sd card recovery" and clicked the first option. It was fate and I got lucky to find a program that would let you download it's program as an evaluation to attempt to recover lost photos or files. If it didn't work then you were not out the money. It's called winrecovery.
It searched my card and starting downloading the files into a file on it's program and after it's done, you can view the files/photos to ensure that it did it's job. After viewing you then have the option to purchase so you can save the files.
It worked!! It was worth the money to recover photos that were irreplaceable. Memories that would be lost.
Lesson learned? Don't forget to upload photos regularly. We'll see about that. No promises. But I do have a back up plan in the event of an emergency.

Sea World trip 02/19

We took the kids to Sea World on Saturday
It's so nice to have annual passes so we don't have to rush in
and rush around the park to see EVERYTHING
in one day. We took our time seeing the shows that we wanted
playing a few games while daddy rode the Manta. (Miss K was still not tall enough)
Little E LOVED the shark encounter and checking out the manta rays.
This was the first time we took the kids to feed the sting and manta rays
they LOVED it!

Miss K looks so funny. She was telling me about the games and
trying to win the stuffed animals


Riding down the conveyer through thee Shark Encounter tube

Sea World has changed how you feed the dolphins and it's
a much better experience. We had a great time!

My two sweeties waiting for mommy
Daddy took a great pic!

Let the Blessings Flow

I'm in LOVE with these photos,
with the two little blessings that God has given me
with the amazing job that Jennifer aka MckMama did
on these photos
of my little beauties

I LOVE the sibling love

God has truly blessed me

She captured the silliness my little man exuberates

I can't believe my little girl will be 8 this year
where does the time go...

So thankful for the blessings that the Lord
has poured out for me