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chatting with Santa

December 20, 2012

I loaded an app on my phone that allows kids to call Santa and give him their wish list and it ALSO has a function where Santa can call your kids if they are being naughty (or nice) and remind the kiddo that they need to listen, or be nice or any other number of options. Tonight Sennet called Santa and (in private) gave Santa his wish list. Once Santa answered the phone, I needed to leave and Sennet hid under the covers. It was pretty cute- I wish there was a way to load the conversation he had with Santa….

elf on the shelf

December 18, 2012

We started The Elf on the Shelf tradition this year and Sennet loves it. We love it too because we can remind him that Mr Incredible Elf (that is the name Sennet gave him because he is obsessed with The Incredibles) is watching him and he better not be naughty or Mr Incredible will tell Santa.

visit to santa

December 14, 2012

It is hard to not realize what a special gift it is to be able to take your child to visit Santa when so many innocent children were shot to death while they were at school today. I was wondering how many of those children had not visited Santa yet- maybe their families had plans to do that this weekend. What about the gifts Santa had already brought for those children that will never be opened? I am heartbroken for those families.

toys for tot drive

December 13, 2012

Every year a photographer friend of ours Earl Harper and his wife Doreen, host a Toys for Tots party at their studio. They require everyone to bring a gift to donate and they have a keg of beer, wine, and lots of appetizers and desserts. The US Marines come in full dress blues and they take all the toys at the end of the night to donate to needy families.

We took Sennet to Costco and had him pick out a toy to give to Toys for Tots. We explained to him that some kids didn’t have a lot of money and that it was nice for other people to help them out at Christmas and buy them a present so that they could have a Merry Christmas.

He picked out a big yellow Tonka truck, and we told him he could take it down to the party and give it to the marines. He wanted to know what a marine was. I explained that they were a little like bomberos (firefighters) and a little like policia (policemen) and a little like pilotos (Blue Angels pilots). He wanted to see pictures so I pulled up some images on the iPad. He was excited about their uniforms and patches.

Throughout the week he kept pointing at the Tonka truck up on the shelf and asking when we were going to give it to the “submarines.”

Last night was the party so we all went down to Earl’s and Sennet got to give his toy to the marines for the Toys for Tots program. He was pretty jazzed about it and then immediately went to the tables of food, grabbed a handful of cookies and shoved them in his mouth. He ran over to me and yelled, “Daddy, I love cookies!!”

Sennet also got to play air hockey for the first time and like most things physical he was quite good at it!

child race car driver

December 10, 2012

Finally put some batteries in the remote controlled car that Grammy gave Sennet for his birthday six months ago. Needless to say, Sennet loved it. He also got frustrated with it because it kept getting “stuck.”

Wait for it. Wait for it!!!! Best of all what it looks like when the car is taken away because he is kicking it when it won’t turn the way he wants it.

how to become a dreamer

December 7, 2012

I am embarrassed and saddened to admit to myself much less out loud that I have never really had a dream and gone after it.

As a little girl, I never dreamed about my wedding. In the end, this was not such a bad thing and because I didn’t have a binder of ideas I had been collecting since I was 10, I went with the flow and planned the wedding we wanted when we got married and wasn’t forced to plan based on my years of *dream* planning.

I never dreamed about what I wanted to be when I grew up. In a way, this turned out to be an okay thing to because I sort of fell into real estate and it has been really good for me. At 25, I was too dumb to know I couldn’t do it- so I did it.

I never dreamed about what my family would be like or what my kids would look like. I didn’t have the kids names picked out. I didn’t have a set idea on what a husband should be like- honestly, I just never thought about it. This hasn’t been such a bad thing either as I got super lucky on both counts possibly because I didn’t force myself into a box based on my dreams???

As much as I love(d) my job as a real estate agent and as good as I am at it- I have never been passionate about it. I guess what I mean by that is that it came very easily (for the most part) to me and I had a natural skill and aptitude for it. I didn’t spend hours upon hours learning everything I could about real estate. I didn’t immerse myself in real estate and eat, sleep, breathe real estate.

I’m not sure how you give up on a dream once you have it???

Well, now I have a dream and I am absolutely smart enough to know I might not be able to do it. Self-doubt is a huge factor and the fear of the unknown and the what-ifs… Not to mention a hefty mortgage and planning for the future and Sennet and so on and so on.

My dream is to be a professional photographer. There I said it out loud.

Am I good enough? I think even 6 months ago my answer would have been no. But I look at other peoples work and more often than not- I think my work is better. But, is it?

Am I too old? It is really scary to think about starting over and that is basically what following this dream would mean.

Can I do it? Can I be successful? Will I try? Should I try? What if I fail? How do I try? What do we do if I fail?

All I know is that I live, breathe, eat, dream photography and want to learn and learn and do and do and learn and do more and more photography.

Who will come visit us if we move to Maui??