Hey look, the baby woke up!

OK, last one. Really.

Last one

At highway speeds the road noise really drowns out the girls' DVD. Of course, we can't have that. We stopped at Wal Mart on day 1 to get some external speakers. I thought we could just put them somewhere in the back to help with the sound. Turns out, they're not loud enough either but the kids don't seem to mind sitting there holding them up to their ear when they want to watch the movie. For some reason, we find the visual really humorous. It reminds me of something that I can't quite put my fimger on. Or maybe it's just road-weary delirium. Highly possible.

What the baby's doing while I play with my new phone

Hi from the road

I love my new phone. My business Christmas present to myself. Chris was nice enough to take me over to the Apple store in Raleigh and I picked out my new Precious. Now I have a toy to play with while Derek drives. So I just figured out how to post here from the road.

Here's one from the Mohr Family Road Trip '08.

More from Christmas

I get pressed for time and rarely edit the outtakes. Doni reminded me with a recent post how much personality they have. Much more really than everybody jsut smiling for the camera. Here are a couple from yesterday.

This was taken before the middle one consented to join the shoot. If I remember correctly she was just out of the frame camera left engaged in some form of 3 year old histrionics. I like this one becuase Charlotte so adores her baby brother. She takes her role as big sister (and the oldest sibling in general) very, very seriously.




I like all of these because they show how much both girls like the baby. They usually like to paw all over him and get right up in his face. He loves the attention.







I thought this was a great big sister, little brother moment. It goes down hill from here I think, Eli.

Merry Christmas to Me

This was my gift from the kids this year. It's all I wanted for Christmas.



I wish I could tell you that they happily sat and played and posed for me, but that would be far from the truth. The amount of angst that 3 minutes in front of the camera generates is really quite astounding. We're talking Oscar-caliber performances all around. And then I had to tell them that there would be no lollypops for dessert and that Santa would take back all their presents and that baby Jesus would be sad. OK, I actually didn't say any of those things. I try not to bribe or threaten or cajole, especially over silly things like pictures. But believe me I thought it all in my head. And a few other choice things, too.

Seriously, it has been a wonderful Christmas (with more left to celebrate) and these three to wake up to Christmas morning along with my amazing husband and our whole extended family is truly all I could ever want.

He can sit

He looks like such a fireplug when he sits. Partly it may be the overalls which are a little big. Mostly, it's just him :) I can't get enough of squeezing this kid.

The missing link

It's been an awfully long time since Grace let me photograph her. We took a bunch more pictures this afternoon that I hope will materialize into our Christmas card. A bonus for me was a few of just Gracie that we took while Charlotte and Eli were getting ready.





I just love this kid so much.

More with the new floor

Photographic evidence that I do still have three children, and that the girls have not been kidnapped as was politely suggested by my Dad and Art on Thanksgiving. They just really don't like to sit for pictures. Charlotte indulged me for about 2 minutes today.

Grandma gave her 2 pairs of these tights and she wears them all the time. Today we went to the doctor for a rash on her face that is impetigo as I suspected (I retouched it out - thank you Photoshop). I guess the doctor forgot what room we were in when she tried to come back with the samples of the medicine for Charlotte's face. When we went to check out, the receptionist said, "Oh good, the doctor found you! She came running out here a few minutes ago saying 'which room? purple tights, purple tights.'" That made me laugh.

(Mom, I apologize for the punctuation nightmare on that last sentence. I actually did sit here and try to figure it out, but it eludes me this late at night.)



The baby indulges me for much longer. I give him another 9 months or so before he develops the camera angst.





Why oh why is the age at which these thighs are considered desirable wasted on someone too young to appreciate it.

My new floor

and my favorite little model.



A lousy snapshot of my very cute baby and my wonderful new floor in the big studio room. It's not quite done yet, actually, but we'll get it finished tomorrow one way or the other. Derek and I just quit for the night. Miraculously, all three children slept peacefully through all the banging. The system we worked out has Derek nail-gunning on one part and me hammering on another part at the same time. When the compresser kicks on, the noises combine to create quite a racket. Not a peep from upstairs, though.

More Eli

I have a few of the girls from this weekend, too. I need more pictures of them, but the baby is just so much more cooperative these days.

Eli

My fellow photographer and friend Doni has inspired me to play around more with textures and different processing ideas. She is better at it than I am. I don't know, do grunge and polka dotted hoods with floppy ears go together?

Love to Twirl

This red dress was called the "love to twirl" dress in the hanna Andersson catalog. I showed it to Charlotte and it was love at first site. Of the many things Charlottes loves, twirling is on the top of the list.

We talked about doing some pictures on the red couch and both girls were up for it. I tried some with Eli in there, but they just weren't quite right. We'll try again. Then we moved on to the jumping pictures, which are perfect.

I have a whole series of these, but this one is my favorite.





One of the boy.

Still a Peanut

Sometimes I think Eli is getting so big. Then, I put him is this box and I realized what a little guy he still is.






Derek helped me get him to smile. I usually toss shots that have this looking-over-your-shoulder eye contact, but captures of his cute smile are rare so this is a keeper.

New Room

We have been doing some small projects to make the studio parts of the house a little more presentable. The dining room had a dark blue flowery wallpaper on top and - I kid you not - bright turquoise paint underneath the chair rail. I knew i wanted a dark color to make a natural low-key room to shoot in. Plus, we like dark colored rooms. When I was a little kid (younger than 8) we re-decorated my bedroom and I begged my mom to paint the walls navy blue. It got nixed and I have wanted a navy room ever since. So, here it is at long last. I like it.



Eli likes to look at his hand when he lies like this. He holds his arm out in front of his face and wiggles his fingers with rapt attention. It is very cute. I have lots of shots like this.

The boy

absolutely refuses to smile for the camera. Generally he is the smiliest little guy. He lights up is you even look in his direction. If you talk to him he goes nuts making cooing, baby noises to respond.



I have lots more pictures to download and look at, but tonight only time for this one.

Today

It is just me and Eli spending a quiet rainy fall day inside today. He is sitting on my lap as I post this, actually. He has been super sleepy this morning, so I exploited it and took these pictures of him before we move the couch out of the big studio room. Another one of the knit stripey sleepers that I bought for him before he was born. Here he is modeling it.










We are celebrating the fact that he slept from 8:15 or so last night until 5:45 this morning without a single peep. Go Eli! For the past few weeks he has been about 50/50 whether he wakes up once or twice to eat in that same 10 hour period, so this is a big deal. We hope it is a sign of things to come.

Christmas in October

The Mohr Family Christmas was Sunday and it was a really, really nice afternoon with everybody together.

A quickly organized big group shot of everybody. Derek is propping Grace up - he had to wake her up her to be in the picture. She had fallen asleep in an armchair in the midst of all the activity.

My little patient

Charlotte was home sick from school yesterday. A bonus for her - her Aurora costume came yesterday, too. She put it on right away. I was happy to find a princess dress that was long sleeved and full enough for her to wear something under it if it is as cold on Halloween as it usually is.



I cropped this one a little funny so that you can see the very edge of my beautiful wallpaper with rocking horse border. All around my family room. At the ceiling and at the chair rail. It's really something.

She made herself useful by tickling Eli to try to get a picture of him smiling. He smiles all the time and it is adorable. Once I duck behind the camera, though, he stops.



Not technically a great image, but look at that little face. I love this one. I was telling Derek the other day how hard I have to strain to imagine that such a little peanut is going to grow into this big guy and be taller than me and everything.

All three

(but not in the same frame...still working on it)

The girls walking in our new backyard last week. We can cut through the empty lot behind us to get to the playground. I like how they are carrying the basket together.




Together on one of those ride-on playgorund toys that have been around forever.



One of the boy from inside this morning. I intended to take some sleeping pictures, but he had other ideas. I like this one, though, so I'll overlook it this time.




I think he looks like Gracie did at this age. I had a hard drive crash and I still haven't rebuilt the data from archives yet, so I had to crop this out of my website. I think there's a resemblance.

Happiness is

taking a nap on Daddy.




I need to work on some pictures of the girls, too. It's been awhile since I tortured them with the camera. They're growing all the time.