let there be light

don't you just hate it when you sit down to write something and.... blank... nothing. there you are in your chair staring at your screen & keyboard with nothing witty or even remotely interesting to say. well, that's me today. so forgive me for this post in advance! {pretty please!}

first off, ashley harris posted a team review of melody ross's line for gcd studios on the scrap review today. check out the great layouts & tsr team thoughts on the line here.

and as for daily life:
we spent a fabulous weekend doing about as much as i can think of to write. nothing really. we spent a bunch of family time together. saturday stan took the girls bowling while i headed to a weight watchers staff meeting. we met up afterward to pick up a few deployment necessities... a shower/toiletries bag & a new duffel bag for the traveling man. the desert always seems to do a number on his bags, and they don't usually survive a deployment. i, of course, teased that he was picking up a cosmetics bag & said he should try to get one of the gift with purchase bags at macys. no dice. guess he was looking for something slightly more manly than that. lol.

we got home after dark, so i pulled out my flash {sb600} do try for some not terrible flash pictures. after much fooling around, and a child who was seeing spots, i came out with this dandy of emma that i really liked. someone on facebook mentioned that she looks like a retro silver screen star. amazing how much of a difference turning a shot to black & white can make sometimes. i liked it so much i used it on my tsr layout (above). even added the xoxo, emma joy to the bottom for that movie star face shot effect. love that facebook inspiration. thanks guys! 

the saturday picture {with flash} went so well, i gave it a second run with torrey on sunday after church. it took me only slightly less time to get it right than saturday night. oi, this lighting deal is hard to learn! in the end, with minimal retina damage, i had another picture i liked. what a lucky mom i am to have such willing subjects!

forgive the random picture order. this was friday's after school shot. torrey with my very favorite tree in our yard. it's amazingly beautiful in every season. i'm not even sure what kind it is... but it flowers in the spring, is lovely and green all summer, turns a beautiful golden color in the fall... then has leafless branches with berries in the winter. what's not to love? i'm hoping we can zip up to the mountains before stan has to leave. we try to get up into the cascades this time each year to check out God's canvas. we live in such an amazing place and there is just so, so much to be thankful for.

speaking of being thankful... emma and i read "did i ever tell you how lucky you are?" by dr seuss together the other day. i love dr seuss' take on life lessons. in addition to being thankful for all of the blessings that come into our lives, we can be doubly thankful for all of those things that don't come into our lives. and if we're having a hard time getting to doubly thankful, maybe we can work our way into feeling not so bad by being thankful "for all of the things that we're not."

When you think things are bad,
when you feel sour and blue,
when you start to get mad...
you should do what I do!

Just tell yourself, Duckie,
you're really quite lucky!
Some people are much more...
oh, ever so much more...
oh, muchly much-much more
unlucky than you!

-Dr Seuss
Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?