Pictures in the Park

It's been a long while since we've had family pictures taken. Somehow it always seems like a thing we should do but never get around to. As the family picture-taker, it's not always easy to get picture of myself, but this weekend I decided it would be a good time to take some updated pictures of the kids. 

Although it is May, and things are starting to get greener, it's still a little early for too many blossoms. Still, a park is a good place for fun pictures. The park we went to has some little trees that the boys like to climb. They picked there to get their pictures taken. With the objective of happy faces, it seemed like a great choice!

They aren't super patient with being in front of the camera, but I managed to squeeze in a few good ones. Here are a couple of my favorites:

Then, as we were leaving, we walked by these logs on the ground that had some gorgeous, teeny flowers growing up all around them. They looked to me like fairy flowers:

Not a bad days catch!

Random Musings

Speaking of photos and capturing split-second, perfect moments...

Each month, with much preparation to set the scene beforehand and a quick finger on the shutter during, I manage to get Moon to hold still for about 2 minutes while I snap an updated picture to add to my month-to-month Facebook album.

Each month I take at ton of photos (in those 2 minutes) and then, cross my fingers, and hope that at least one will suffice. Happily, so far, there's always been at least one winner. Though - confession time - the perfectionist in me is never *quite* satisfied (the lighting is weird, the color is different than previous shots.. etc) the saving grace is that the subject is impossibly cute, thus rendering every photo fabulous.

Seriously:

But, so often, it's the candid, behind-the-scene shots that are the *real* winners. For example:

This month's was especially hilarious:

Aaaaaaand he's OUTTA here!

Galleries Galleries Galleries!

Slowly, but surely, I've been getting all my pictures and stuff up on our walls. With this open-layout our of place, we don't have an excess of walls, so I've been having great fun creating gallery walls.

First, up in my bedroom:

Then, in my work space:

And, most recently, I put one up in the stairwell. This one I put off saved for last (hard to reach and impossible to repaint if I messed up), but it turns out, it all came together quite smoothly.

I only needed to arrange the templates twice before I found the perfect layout:

Then, to limit the amount of future-wall-patching, I hung nearly everything with the happy, removable, picture-hanging strips. Though, I decided the larger pictures needed nails, just to be safe. Still, only two nails in this whole bunch!

Boom! Loving it. Also, loving being done decorating my walls for a while. 

On to the next project!