First the randomness:

Some shots of Timmy and his wife friend Olivia trying to stay cool in the 100 degree day, playing in the sprinklers. They were cool at least for a little while but Sharon and I were baking and not breathing in the oppressive miserable heat. Uch. Oh, and see the goggles? Ya, the ones he wouldn’t take off since Sunday at the beach? The ones he wore all day, into town on errands? The ones that everyone asked him if he was going swimming? Too funny.

While at Sharon’s house the other day for a playdate, she was busy with the baby and the kids wanted some crakers. When I opened the cabinet I gasped and yelled "holy sleeping with the enemy"! You know what I’m talking about. All the labels were turned the same way. All the same sized boxes were lined up accordingly. Sickness!!! Her husband thought that was hysterical. I really really must take a picture of it to post cause it’s just not the same without proof. But really. really. totally sleeping with the enemy.

John’s car was rear ended on the Cross Island Parkway on his way home tonight. By a hummer. Some damage to the rear bumper and the headrest is all screwed up. He’s so happy as you can imagine. Now his neck hurts (you know, in the same place he got the original surgery a few years ago). He is so pissed about the whole thing and when he called the insurance company (the other driver’s) they were giving him the run around. Not so smart on their part. He informed them that their only problem was that their insured hit a personal injury attorney in a 2008 mercedes, in the rear. She’s not going to be having a happy day anytime in the near future in her big ol hummer.

Some recent Timmy stuff that’s cute (and some not so cute):

I don’t want to turn 4. I like to be 3. 3 is my favorite phone number.

John put baby powder on the boys after showers down at the beach. Timmy saw this and said "daddy, don’t put sugar on me!"

Still a lot of "my". My see it. My do it. My have it. Can’t correct him cause I love it.

Knock knock. (mommy says whose there) Timmy. (mommy says Timmy who). Timmy James Beyrer. And we all crack up. He thinks he’s the funniest kid in the universe.

The kid can really throw a hell of a fit. No one belives me. Not even my own mother. Until…. Tonight she babysat cause I had to work at the SAT prep place and John took the big boys to a Mets game. He hasn’t napped in 3 days and really tends to lose it at night. And he lost it. Big time. My mom even yelled at him. She’s never yelled at him once in his whole little life. But…now she believes me. See! I told ya!

"mommy, I have a joke for you". What? asks mommy. PookaPlanet. or sometimes Jaloney. (finally figured out what those two things mean…pooka planet is something from Backyardigans- its a volcano really called pu ka pele but in Timmy-ese it’s pooka planet. And Jaloney is what he thinks Woody says in toy story 2- but it’s really ya looney.)

Still calls Buzz’s wings his "eyes closed". Cause in the movie Buzz says I can fly around this room with my eyes closed, and then pops out his wings.

He’s so excited for "camp" this summer with his best buddy Jack. He keeps asking if its summer now and if school is over. Only one more day for him. Sad.

Need to mention that the gap in his mouth between his upper teeth and lower teeth when trying to close his mouth has improved drastically since getting rid of the papis. Now if he would just nap every now and then… All of the above pictures are among some of my new favorites, but wait til you see the other ones from this day. Wow.

And for the random kindness. As I was leaving the PT/OT place with Timmy this afternoon, a young woman probably in her 20’s was walking in on crutches. She obviously had some kind of disablity. She gave us a smile and a wave to Timmy. Timmy was looking and asked me what she was doing. I told him that some people have a hard time walking and the stick looking things she was using are called crutches. The crutches help her get around and keep walking and help her keep her balance. I didn’t whisper it or anything, so she heard me since we weren’t far away. She turned around and yelled "thank you". She told me that she loved the way I explained it and it was so nice to hear, and that I wouldn’t believe some of the rude, nasty, or dismissal type comments she gets everyday from people. She must have thanked me 10 times. She was so nice and made me feel so good. I hope we did the same for her. It just amazed me to hear that people are mean like that. Whats the big deal in explaining it to a child, I don’t know. I think by blowing it off if your child questions it just makes it seem like something shameful or bad. If you just answer them matter of factly, it just shows that everyone is different and that’s okay. Made the rest of my day all happy and fuzzy.

Man, time is really flying lately. I guess working every weekend makes the time go even faster. The next few weekends are chock full of shoots, but I am going to TRY to take a break (and get some family/beach weekend time in) in late July into August. Gotta do it or else I’m going to go a little nuts.

The boys had baseball and soccer on Saturday. It was their very last soccer game ever! They are not playing next year, so it’s all done. It’s just not their sport. Too much running (especially for Jack) and they are just not aggressive on the field. Baseball is way more their favorite. They are always excited to play and really enjoy it. It was about 90+ degrees on Sunday and they were all sweating like crazy. Did an "after" team picture- those poor kids! Don’t they look SO hot? Their coach this year was just awesome- she’s such a supportive person and so positive. So great, and that’s the part I’ll miss. Timmy was red and cute and got a spongebob icecream which he proceeded to drip all over my pants and then decided he didn’t like it anyway. Super. (All of the soccer pictures except for the team picture) was taken with my crappy zoom lens. We don’t get along very well. So please excuse the quality of these images). 

John is a coach for the boys and during Saturday’s game, called Jack at out first and the boy was PISSED! Threw his batting helmet on the ground and everything. Timmy had fun cheering on his brothers, but mostly he likes wearing the batting helmet. When the boys team is up at bat he spends a great deal of that half inning pouting cause he can’t have a helmet. Got some cute shots of them running the bases after the game and some shots of my friends sons together too. Timmy and their little boy became fast friends during the game. The light under that tree is just YUM! (okay, I’m cheating a little here…the baseball pictures are all from Friday evening’s game cause I didn’t go to Saturday’s game as Timmy was napping it up. All of the baseball pictures were taken with my 85mm lens. The poor guy spends a lot of time just sitting in my camera bag as the 50mm is my most favorite, versitile lens. I forgot how much I LOVE the 85 in the right situation. Great color, focus, and bokeh (background blur) on that one. I must take him out to play more often.)

Saturday morning after running over to the country club to get our lockers for the pool for the season, I did a wedding-ish shoot. One of the families I did a shoot for last year, her dad was getting married. Kinda last minute, but I ended up shooting the bride & groom and the whole mass as well. (I was originally supposed to only shoot the kids while they were all dressed up). Hopefully you can see those later this week.  Just one tease…(and isn’t the bride just beautiful!)

Today was my friend Sharon’s son christening, so I was both an invited guest and a photographer. Another 90+ degree today (so pleasant) but it wasn’t so bad if you were inside in the air! Pictures on that later this week. Just depends how quickly I can edit! John took the boys to the beach and I’m sure that the weather was much better down there. They even went into the pool and ocean! It’s kinda early in the season for that, but when it’s that hot out, I don’t think that you care if the pool is icy. Here’s one preview…

Can’t believe another week has come and gone. Time is flying. This whole year is kinda a blur so far and now that people are starting to book sessions with me up thru NOVEMBER, it just makes me realize how fast the summer is going to go, too. Time needs to stop for a little bit.

Busy weekend again. Friday night I had my beaches n buckets party here. A client of mine started her own business, selling flip flops and beach accessories. Super cute stuff- visit her site and do some shopping! I invited 108 people (yes, 108) and probably had about 35 all told. She sold a ton of stuff and I booked 2 shoots that night. I think it was a big sucess for everyone! Robin even came down from Conneticut which was so great. The only problem….waaaaay too much leftover food.

Timmy got "better batter baseball" this week for doing some good sleeping for the last two weeks (he now has a sleeping chart hanging in his closet and gets a sticker for every night he sleeps well or if he takes a nap- the nap is quickly becoming a thing of the past). And he got it from "toys from us"– not toys r us. He’s really getting good at it and whacking the hell out of the ball. Starting him young as he has years of baseball in his future.

Saturday my scheduled shoots were rained out so I moved my indoor one up a few hours. It was newborn boy twins and their 2 year old sister. Can’t wait to show you those pictures!! I can take all the twin pictures I should have taken about 8.5 years ago! And they signed up for the ‘growing up squared’ plan but they plan on doing all 4 shoots over the next 4 months so I should have lots of pictures to show you soon. The boys baseball game got rained out and their picture day was postponed. You know, I used to get so excited about picture day for school, for sports, etc. but now that I’m doing it myself, not so much. I know my pictures will be better than theirs (sorry if that sounds snotty)! I’m sending back all of Timmy’s school pictures except for the class one. They are just not HIM.

Jack is in rare form lately- way funny. When I told him that Aunt Robin was coming Friday night, his reaction was "yeah, like that’s gonna happen". (Aunt Robin & Uncle Joe kinda missed my parents whole wedding- they forgot. But you know thats something this family will never forget!)

Sunday, I had two shoots- one of which cancelled due to sick kids (hope they are feeling better, H!) but we are working on rescheduling that one. Ended up that I still had two shoots cause my favorite band- The Turn- was playing at a school fair and I shot there for a bit before heading into Brooklyn for my second shoot. Brooklyn was great (even though parking was a nightmare!) and those shots should hopefully be up later this week along with the Turn’s.  John took the boys to the beach for the day and it seems like everyone had a lot of fun. Oh, and finally as promised here are pictures of some of the around the house projects I’ve been working on. The picture wall still needs one picture on the top above the double frame- something panoramic I think.  

Hope everyone has a good week. More posts to follow tommorrow…

Not too much to say tonight, other than really….WTF!!!????? The Lost season finale was so awesome and so confusing. Craziness…moving the island. And I totally cried when Penny and Desmond found eachother. The best! Love, love this show and now I have to wait til January? NOT FAIR.

Just editing, trying to catch up on business, getting ready for the party here tommorrow night and the other usual stuff. In trying to get the house all spiffed up, I did a ton of planting yesterday and made a new friend.

Some of you may know we had been considering getting a puppy over the last week or so. But after doing a bunch of research on the whole training a puppy thing, we have decided now is not the time. Maybe in a year or so. Or not at all.  It’s just so much work. We were looking at a schnoodle (mix between a schnauser and a poodle). Our around the block neighbors have one and he is soooooo cute. We were going to get the one on the left. Come on, you know he’s adorable. I’m just not ready for more potty training since we only just finished with Timmy’s a few months ago.

So for now, I’m sticking with the snail. 

The owners and partners of the racehorse were invited to a brunch to visit with the horse and see how she’s progressing. And she’s progressing really well, which hopefully means she will be racing soon. At Belmont! She had been at Belmont for a while last year but she kinda just didn’t want to run anymore (sounds like Jack, right??!! Ya know, that’s my son who wants to play soccer but without running.) so they moved her to a facility in Old Brookville so she could still train but at a reduced cost.

She looked great (bigger and more muscular) and was so patient with everyone around her feeding her carrots, petting her, and taking her picture (see, it wasn’t just me with the camera!). She really is good at posing for pictures. Let’s hope that means that she will be in the winners circle sometime soon for the real thing!

The boys had a great time with "their" horse and are both really into feeding and petting her. Timmy enjoyed the horse…until….

Yup, he got horse-sneezed on! You can even see the snot/spit flying in the picture, not to mention his face of utter disgust (Jack’s too). Poor kid…everyone was laughing and he was crying. He didn’t like the horse much after that, but they made up later in the morning.