early morning...first day of school.

Well this morning around 4:30 I lay awake in my bed with a restless baby... 5:30 rolls around and I get the call telling me its time to go do the water birth i promised i would do. So tired i lay in bed thinking of how to juggle three children in a home with 6 already and cover this mamas first water birth... and get Max to school on time for his first day. So i decided that i wasn't going to make it happen by laying in bed thinking about it... so I woke the kids up.. got them dressed and we drove over and had what i consider to be a successful photo shoot Lucy was on my back the entire time in the bundleboo and max and katy were mostly occupied by the other children... Katy was more fascinated with watching the birth. What a privilege it was to be there... she was amazing. There are a few more photos posted on my flickr.. you can find that link on the right hand side of my page.. hopefully i will have more updated soon.

Max did get to school on time... so super cute.. he decided that he wanted to be a big boy and ride the bus... his face lit up as he stood in line waiting his turn to get on. Picking him up a few hours later he was beaming and excited about his day. He's really looking forward to going back tomorrow. Yay for max!!!

(o i did get pictures of course of max.. i still need to upload them ...so I will post them when i can)

party fun...photo love

Its been a busy weekend! My parents have traded "Sunday dinners" for "baby Saturdays". Which simply means that I visit my family on Saturday and we spend all day playing and catching up. I love it. My sweet nephew is getting so big! I took this and a few others this Saturday.

Today, I spend about 4 hours at a 4 year old's birthday party. What a fun family... its really neat to get to see other families in action.

I know that this is a really lame blog post but I have to get caught up on ghost whisperer... my DVR is calling me!!!!

baby bella

baby bella, originally uploaded by RGonzalezPHOTOGRAPHY.

I had a photo shoot of this sweet baby girl this afternoon... I had so much fun!!! see here for the gallery.

Vacation summary

So we're back from vacation... a much needed vacation. It was soooooo wonderful to see family that we have not seen in some time. It was my father in law... Joe's 75th birthday... so we first went to the beach in North Carolina to celebrate with him and other family... we had a fantastic time! As you can see the Carolina beaches are beautiful!!! I got up early one morning with my sister in law and took our cameras out to photograph the scenery at sunrise. The house we stayed in was right across the street from the ocean... gosh I love the sound of crashing waves..so relaxing. This was the kids first time really enjoying the ocean. Lucy was hilarious...she laughed at the first sight of waves and from then on, I couldn't do enough to keep her out of the water... we all had a blast. Max, Uncle Nate and Andy spent time playing in the water and flying kites. Katy thought that walking the beach meant that she was in her own personal parade where everyone was there just for her. "Hi GUYS!!!!"..."HOWYA DOIN EVERYONE??" She was so funny and everyone there ate her to pieces.

The second half of our vacation was further south to South Carolina to see Mama Rose "gamma rose" and her sister Patty "gamma patty". They have a property that backs up to a small lake...lots of frogs...and there are supposed to be a few alligators in there also...yikes! They set up a theme week for the kids. Alligators and swamp theme... sooo cute. First we went on a boat ride through a local black water swamp. Now you wouldn't imagine that a swamp could be beautiful until you actually spent sometime rowing through one of these. The water was so black that the reflections showed like glass. The trees were draped in Spanish moss and the Lilli pads were blooming with these beautiful fragrant flowers. We saw turtles and alligators on our boat ride. Then we had a themed lunch... with alligator tales (green beans) alligator tongues (hot dogs) and alligator poops (cup cakes) ... oh and they decorated the juice boxes with pictures of alligators and called it swamp juice. The next day we took the kids the the local aquarium .. while were gone they set up a whole alligator party... equipped with balloons, cake and fun original swamp games.

Anyway, since we've been back a whole 24 hours now... we've began to tackle the garage project. Well I should say Andy is tackling it... I'm not brave enough. We'll see how far we get this week. Now to check up on everyone else... HUGS... good to be back.

Thinking outloud...photography

I am recently hearing amazing feedback from my family and friends... upon receiving a book from GiGi called 'Starting your Photography business' I realized how serious everyone around me is about any blooming talent I may have. I'm feeling it... but I'm so nervous about it...Its such a competitive market now as quality cameras are becoming more and more inexpensive. Although I do believe that professional photography its really an art... a special eye... and a unique flair...not just about the equipment. (tho having a nice tool is really important too) I really enjoy doing this... but could I actually make money... should I actually start a business doing this?? My style of photography is more journalistic than traditional (I think) ... is there an interest out there from family's to have someone document there children... rather than posed contrived images?? (more internal talking) Can I raise my kids... run a home... and work two businesses??? Am I over thinking?? Where to start? How do I market myself... when do I know to get serious? Hmmm...

ow... isn't this the funniest picture of Lucy ever... she is such a ham!

sleep sweet Lucy

sleep sweet Lucy, originally uploaded by bundleboo.

Lucy was watching "crack for baby brain" or "baby einstein" last night... I think her ears may still be bothering her. I came in and she was asleep half off of the couch. To my credit I do put a body pillow on the floor next to the couch. The exposure was about 2.5 seconds to get the picture bright enough. How sweet is this tho... (Mon, the camera that I use is a canon rebel xsi...love love love it!!!)

My sweet nephew...thank you mom!!

I had the pleasure of photographing my new nephew today...so sweet I could just eat him up. Ali is just so beautiful...she photographs so well. See my first out of home photoshoot on my flickr photostream..I'd love to hear what you think!

My mom is creating a masterpeice in her home for little joey and my three monkeys. I cannot believe how cute this mural is... more coming soon!

trains...blankets, paci's, thumbs

(Max's "special white" comfort blanket)

Its been pretty uneventful around here the last couple of days. Max started school back up yesterday...he was so excited to see his friends and his teacher Ms. Ann. Today Max's school was closed because of the icy weather....although I think that if you spit outside when its cold they will cancel the schools. I remember in New England the school systems were open for everything. It would have to be at least 6 inches of snow on the ground before they would even bat an eyelash at closing the schools for the day.

Anyway, so we stayed inside and played... the kids are taking a nap right now... so I am getting some much needed blogging and housework done.

I wanted to talk about the remark that Max's dentist made about him needing to stop sucking his thumb. Eerrrrr...I don't know that I'm ready to make him quit...I mean they will all probably need braces anyway right? I just remember how much comfort finger sucking brought me. Max's teacher Ms. Ann mentioned how "sensory" sensitive Max is. They give him a feather or something soft at school to help soothe him when he is getting too wound up...and they do "deep pressure" therapy with him for the same reasons. Max's bed at home is tented in even though he really doesn't like the dark... its a nice get away and break for him when he needs it. All of this feedback that his teacher is giving me makes so much sense...I only wish I had known about it earlier otherwise I could have offered him more help when he was overstimulated. I took him to a developmental specialist a while back because we knew Max was super intelligent...but he was destructive trying to find ways to keep himself entertained. They labeled him as ADHD and sent us on our way. His preschool teacher has offered WAY more help. I just don't know that I'm ready to take away a coping mechanism that he obviously needs. So whens enough??? Same with Katy...although I think that she could manage better without her paci.

Max is still into trains, any little line or curve in the furniture suddenly becomes an express track to who knows where in his little imagination. He always has on his train mantra...and concentrates deeply as he chugs his toys everywhere... today's shots and editing here.

More photoshop fun!

Today I took some pics of the girls and then worked with them on photoshop...I wanted to try out layering and gradient tools. I need to learn how to clean the edges up better after I cut the person out and lay in a background layer. Any suggestions on how to get the cut edge to be cleaner? I ended up using the smudge and blur tool to get a nicer edge...but I hope there is an easier way. Also, what do you think of the logo...I think it looks much cleaner than my signature.

To Check out the rest of today's photoshop adventure... go here.

Happy New Year!!!...Modesty

Happy new year everyone!!! My new years resolution this year is try and balance my hobbies...I seem to be jumping from one interest to another to another... I think its because I get bored quickly working on one thing...or reading from the same book...so I switch it up often...it drives people around me crazy ...lol. As you can see this weeks adventure is photography...although I have jumped into it with both feet...I feel that it will hang around for a while. (I take pictures every day for this blog...and it really feeds my cravings for creativity)

Last night I brought in the new year with close friends. The kids were with me...and awake until 1am in the morning. A little out of sorts today but it was fun! Andy stayed home by himself, he wasn't feeling well or up to staying up late...I don't blame him, he has to get up at 4:30 in the morning to work everyday.

I had a discussion with one of my friends last night about her job as a 4th grade teacher. It scares the crap out of me to think that Max will be in public school next year. Grade school children just aren't as innocent as they were when I was that age. The topics of conversation and vulgar sexual gestures towards one another AND the teachers is just outrageous. She made a very good point in mentioning that the children that were "sheltered" from nudity, private talk and were given the short end of the stick when it came to raw answers to curious questions...these children were the ones seeming to be the most vulgar and disgusting when it came to "family life" conversations with peers and vulgar antics.


I have questioned myself recently on how to define modesty for my children AND enable them with body confidence and awareness. I think that if we enforce a don't show, don't talk about, don't touch rule when it comes to body etiquite... I fear that they will think that naked means "dirty" as a result... naked means "sex" (later on down the road)... I want the two things to be TOTALLY seperate as far as they are concerned. Anyway, do you get where Im coming from? I want my kids to go to grade school and hear these comments and see these gestures and think....SO WHAT! No big deal... you're not so cool...and have good body awareness and confidence to not fall into the vularness of it all. (I could go on and on)


I am thinking of coming up with a fun "hobby" photograpy name...something cute I can stamp on the pictures to mark them as my own. Any ideas of a name...or design? More pics here from today.

cool kicks...snack time.

So far all of my children have worn converse high tops as there first walking shoes. My sister Catherine remembered how much I love these and got Katy an extra special pink pair for Christmas... I love these!!!!! Can't wait until Lucy can wear them too. I am not sure I like the signature on the pictures... I was just playing around with photoshop and was proud of myself for figuring out how to put it on there in the first place... its a pretty cool program concidering that the signature started on a peice of paper.

researching at circut city

It was a beautiful day and we spent most of the morning at the park and out and about. Andy took KatyRo and had some bonding time...while I took Max and Lucy on a play date with my friend Lisa...who I've been so totally out of touch with these days. (Lisa is not only my BFF but my saint business partner)

After dinner we HAD to get out of the house...the kids had late naps and tons of energy to spare...too bad we cant harvest it...right?! Anyway, we decided to go to circuit city to test out a few cameras that I have been day dreaming about. The two main ones are the Canon Rebel XSI and Canon Rebel XS... since I will probably be forever saving for one of these mid range SLR's... I've posted above a few pics I took with the camera while we were there...(I brought my own disc if you're wondering how I got the pics home :)

The kids were Angel babes...and were cracking me up. Leave it to them to have a little "boobie" chat in the middle of the photo department at circuit city. Katy decided to strip down barbie to nothing and proceed to discuss with max her Barbie's "girl" anatomy. The talk was about how Max is not a girl because he does not have "boobies", but Max was retaliating with Katy telling her that she did not have boobies either.(eh, I agree max) Katy...OH Katy... started getting really animated about the conversation and all I could hear was her little 3 year old voice getting louder and louder...saying "boobie" every other word. I had to lay the "please ease up on the boobie talk until we get home guys"... I am not embarrassed about my children's body fascination... I was embarrassed for the 13 year old boy who was turning red faced listening to my two. Oh geeze...sorry about that :)

If you want to see more pics of the circuit city trip visit my gallery at the top of my left gadget bar...Anyway, after taking the chip home and reviewing... I think that the XS is the camera for me!!!

Notice that Lucy G has two new teeth coming in :)

68 degrees!!!

We played outside today!!!! I would have never known that it was warm outside if Andy had not said something to me. I haven't been outside since Christmas...you know me, I don't do well in cold weather :) Anyway, the kids jumped at the chance to get dressed and play on the play yard... Lucy napped most of the morning, she still has a cold and her little toothers are still bothering her.

I am about halfway through the digital photography book that I borrowed. There is alot more to this than I thought. I was able to figure out the manual settings on my old kodak camera...and had some more fun with photoshop while the kids were napping. A lot of the pics are pretty grainy because of the camera quality and something the book calls "noise" or "artifact". The cool thing is, that none of these photos were cropped. My goal was to be able to take the best quality pics with my camera possible...if I crop the pics they lose a ton of quality.

sleeping sweetness~scissors~books

Lucy was so cute sleeping on my bed this morning...I just couldn't help but snap a few of her. This little skunk slept from 9:00 last night until 7:45 this morning in her crib!!! I think that Andy's snoring was keeping her up at night while she was sleeping in our room. All three of them are taking naps right now... I can't believe it! How did I get so lucky today??

Yes, Katy was allowed to play with scissors this morning...supervised of course. Any got the kids safety scissors and Katy has been busy making confetti for new years!

I feel really bad about this one, the kids got a hold of one of the Library books we borrowed and destroyed it...I mean, really...ripped all the pages out and tore them up also. What the heck! I was pretty frustrated about this one yesterday. How does one go about replacing a library book...I wonder if they will accept a monetary replacement or they expect me to find the book and buy an new one.

Have your kids put you in this spot before?

Camera play

My mom paid me a really nice compliment this morning about my photos...I never really thought anything of my ability to photograph. So I played around this morning with my camera settings and paid attention to what I was doing with the intent to get fun shots. This is what I came up with.

We had a pretty lazy day...the kids played with the train under the christmas tree until naps...Lucy was up and down with her moods all day... still fussy from her puppy shots the other day. Max was an angel child until his train would no longer cooperate with him then he wanted to break everything. I wouldn't let him break one of his toys so he told me "Mommy, I don't like you anymore." I was able to snap a photo of his face while he was telling me this. He loves me again. Who knows how he will feel in an hour...my little manic Max.