A View of Lisa's World

where I've been...a photo essay...

I used to be one of those people that couldn't understand when other people said the end of the school year was crazy. But I'm eating those (and a few other) words about school age kids. But that is another story.

At the end of the school year we went on a couple of field trips...one on foot.

120 kids walked to lunch to celebrate the Holy Ghost Festival (Chamarita) here in town. We stretched 3 or 4 blocks and it was really fun. It made me happy to see all of those kids at the traditional lunch. (must be the old Portuguese lady inside of me)

Todd of course didn't love the meat...hello? not an adventurous eater (I have to take the genetic hit for that one). He did however enjoy the bread.

Then there was the big zoo field trip...

Matt took the day off of work and we got to hang out at the zoo with a group of 6 kids from Todd's class. We called them the Cheetas....

but the boys especially were more like monkeys!!

Then there was the great Kindergarten pajama party. I think this was the most talked about event of the end of school season.

and then it was the last day of school..which I spent with a lump in my throat because my boy is no longer a kindergartner.

Tomorrow I will share the Mohawk my child has for Summer...

(its not what you think!)

a fun moment and the break-up box...

This is the break up box, and it is something I was really glad to have leave my house today. Before anyone goes getting any ideas. I was breaking up with a job not a person and it has been a long time coming. Maybe someday when the the loan market stops being a big fat mess, I'll process a loan again, but for now, it is goodbye to all of these numbers and files and work without a paycheck. I can't quite put into words how it feels. I'm not really good at quitting things, but in this case it feels really good.

I'm so glad that I am free of this for the summer...and that I can spend more time doing other things....like photography and spending time with my boy.

Like today, after school I was finishing up the edits of the cutie patootie newborn I shared the other day, and Todd decided to do a little coloring project rather than jump right into his "screen time".

We chatted across the table about his day and about what kinds of things we might do this summer. I'm thinking about one of those activity box, pull the slip out of the jar type of deals to keep things mixed up around here (more about that when I figure it out) but for today we were chatting about different things he might like to do....like "make root beer floats one day" etc.

It was nice....and when he was done he said, "this was a very fun moment, I've got to remember this."

sigh....way more important than numbers in a box.

Sweet Newborn- Half Moon Bay Newborn Photography

Finally, as promised, more images of the adorable Mr. Mateo that I had the privilege of photographing recently. In keeping with my newborn record, he didn't sleep much...I'm seriously starting to think that sleepy pliable newborns are a myth. No matter, because this boy was handsome and for the most part happy during our whole time together.

I was seriously giddy (once I got over my nerves) when mom told me that she had a guitar that was incredibly important to her Flamenco fanatic husband and a mantilla veil that had been her great grandmother's in cuba. "Something special to represent each of us" she told me. Like I said, nervous...but giddy.

I shared one of the images from those shots the other day...here are some more.

I realize he looks perfectly sleepy in these shots, and he was for a couple of minutes (ha) but most of the time he looked like this....little man doesn't want to miss any action!

We of course had to take some shots on the old scale. He was so mellow up there, I couldn't believe it.

Ok...not totally mellow...

I played around a bit with a new white blanket which was so much fun...

I was dying to get a photo of the darling cupie doll hair...

I absolutely love these next two shots. L-O-V-E ....

What you can't see in any of these photos is that we also had a little audience...

Big brother who is 15 months old....and also quite the charmer.

Thank you to Heidi for sharing her beautiful boys! I'll be getting the full gallery ready soon!!

If you are looking for me today....

I will be hanging out over here.

Scrapsupply is having their 5 year anniversary!! I'm so excited for them! I have been so lucky to be a part of their team for...hmm...how long have I been a part of their team?? A few years now? Time flies when you are having fun!

The store is absolutely fabulous, with everything I need to scrap, quick shipping and M & Ms. Can't beat that!! And the team of scrapbookers that I get to work with is not only beyond talented, but just wonderful, wonderful people.

SO today, come and celebrate Scrapsupply...say hello and try out one of the TONS of scrapbook challenges on the anniversary message board. The theme is games we play and there are enough ideas there right now to keep me scrapping for months!

And speaking of great ideas...the latest newsletter from there is full of them too!!

And speaking of games we play....I created this layout about the latest kindergarten toy craze!

Half Moon Bay Newborn Photographer-quick sneak

I'll be back with a full sneak peek hopefully tomorrow. I just had to post a little something because I know that Mommy can hardly wait.

I don't want to appear greedy...

but 5 minutes wasn't quite enough of this.

doing nothing...

or just about nothing is pretty nice once in a while. This weekend we just hung out at home and for the first time in a long time I didn't really have any hard and fast deadlines, or audits etc. to get ready for. It was glorious. Except for the fact that the sun never peeked out, not even for an hour and that makes me unhappy. Come on....is an hour or two too much to ask for? I'm not even particular about the temperature, just show me some blue sky would ya?

I did embark on updating my photo organization and backing things up, which for a brief moment felt like it was going to take me 100 years, but ended up just taking a weekend, so that was actually a pretty big accomplishment. It just didn't feel like I did anything because the chair has a permanent butt imprint on it since I barely got off my rear the whole weekend.

I did go on a midnight run to find my mom's lost dog last night, thankfully he was found....and I spent some quality time hanging out with the whole gang on Sat night...so I guess I did plenty, I just never put on makeup.

Anyway, during my photo organizing I realized that I didn't share fiesta photos from Todd's school fiesta a couple of weeks ago. The sunny skies in these photos makes me sigh, but that is neither here nor there.

At the Fiesta Todd performed a rocking Macarena (I'm hoping to have a video to share soon...oh and speaking of videos that reminds me that we made one this weekend of a puppet show created by Todd...note to self to get that posted).After the performance there were tons of carnival games and food booths etc.

 

Todd totally rocked the scarecrow squirt and the gumball smash...

and of course, he loved the playground obstacle course...

I think I'm going to be glad for this weekend, because the coming week is jam packed and I'm not sure my butt will hit the chair again until next sat. Good thing, maybe the imprint will fluff up by then!!

catch up time...

I've actually had a bunch of things to blog about yesterday but ran out of steam. I'm getting low on energy again tonight, but I don't think I can subject people to the photos of my brother's lid much longer. So random catch up time...

• yesterday was the dreaded IRS audit. It took hours to put everything together but I guess I did an ok job. They said to plan for 4 to 5 hours but we were out of there in under 2. There ended up being no change to our return and he "liked my documentation"!! Woo Hoo..go me! It felt so good to put all of the paperwork back in the box and back up on the shelf. Whew.
  
• I will take some photos of the new office space...it is really not all that different from the old space, but it has been great to work in there lately.
  
• Last night Todd told me that he wants to be a photographer. He said he likes seeing if he can make things look "cool" with the camera. Hard to argue with that. I spent a week trying to get a great shot of Huck for a recent project and in 30 seconds Todd shot this.  
• He also got really excited and thought that he was the first person ever to think of taking this shot.
   
• Today did not go as planned. I dropped Todd at school and grabbed a coffee. Then I ran to drop a key off for Moriah. I had taken Pearl with me in the car...she loves it and is usually a really good girl. The key word being usually. It took me 20 seconds to walk up to drop off the key and when I came back and opened the door, the first thing I saw was the bottom of my coffee cup. It took me a minute to realize that was because the grande cup of coffee that I had yet to take a single sip out of was now just an empty cup...and everything in my center console was swimming.
  
• I'm embarrased to say that the coffee incident plus the lack of sun pretty much sent my day so far off track that I never got it back on, so we decided to stop trying and go to the movies. It was nice to get out for a bit and the movie was cute.
  
• I swear there was more I thought I was going to blog about, but it is no longer in my brain.
  

this is what happens when Moriah goes out of town...

This weekend, with Moriah and Alex out of town we've been seeing a little bit more of my brother. Today he was here hanging out and we were going to have dinner. In my defense, I'm pretty sure that he had a hat on for the beginning of his visit. I was knee deep in receipts for the dreaded audit, when I heard Matt ask him what the heck was going on with his haircut.

Geoff said, "why? did I miss a spot?"

I swear, I needed a laugh today...but this took the cake.

Lucky for Geoff, his brother in law has the same haircut, and the tools to get it.

that feels so much better....

so my husband said to me earlier..."dude, you've got to update your blog!"...sad state of affairs when he is telling me to blog.

So...catch up time.

• The organization-a-thon is complete. Instead of every drawer and cabinet screaming at me that things are out of control every time I open it, angels sing.
• My IRS audit is on Tuesday. I'm not happy about that.
• I actually gave my left brain a break this afternoon and created a layout for the Scrapsupply anniversary celebration. There are SO many great challenges going on over there. Check it out!
• Tomorrow I go through a year's worth of Target receipts line by line...to say I'm not looking forward to it is an understatement.
• I am hoping that the auditor is done with me after the supposed 4 hour appointment next week and that this doesn't drag on past that.
• It was a lot of fun to create a layout in my newly re-configured and organized scrap space.