Love letters and other good stuff (aka, The catch up post)

LOVE LETTERS
I wrote each of my girls a love letter randomly this weekend. We had a tough week last week, and I needed to remind myself of how much I love them. It's not like I forgot, it's just that I was preoccupied by the amount of whining, bitching, complaining and overall pain-in-the-assing that they were doing (Is that a phrase? If not, consider it newly coined).Corinne needed help reading hers, but I folded up Taylor's and put it where she'd eventually find it on her own.

There's something special about a written letter. Not so much an email (though I love those too), but an honest to goodness letter. I'm not a big phone person and would much rather get a text. And I'm horrible at verbally saying exactly what I feel, hence the name of this blog, so I'd much rather write it all down. I'm sure the letters I wrote to them will eventually find their way to the trash or a box in the garage, but the letter Taylor wrote to me in response to mine will be treasured forever and ever.

"Dear mom thank you for my Letter. I think that you are the best mom ever even though you do not say that. but I know you are. You do almost everything! to make me happy. You are downstairs Right now dowing something. Well I'm dowing This. I Think you well Like this note. I think That you are so good at cleaning You are nice kind and butiful and talinted. Her's a picshure to show you."

Below the letter were six pictures. One of me vacuuming while Zero is barking at the vacuum, and a few more of me giving hi fives and saying "wow" to Taylor.


It was one of the sweetest letters I've ever received. She was so sincere, and so excited to give it to me. It was a good reminder to me that most of the time in our family, you get what you give. When I take the time to tell them what I love about them and play with them, and do all the things I know they NEED, then I get happy and loving kids in return. Sure, there are those rare days when one or all of us choose to be grumpy regardless of how we're treated, but that's really the exception to the rule.

 OUR NEW RIDE

Totally unrelated, but also filed under #thingsilove, is my new car. Our 2013, Ford Explorer.

 We are ULTRA frugal when it comes to cars, and we've been driving around the same two cars for ten years. They were paid off, so we said we'd get a new car when they broke down. And the darn things never actually broke down. Not once. But they were sure looking beat up, and it was just time to upgrade. We bought the "basic" model, which makes us laugh. My car talks. The basic model, talks. It asks me who I want to call, and I can tell it what song I want it to "sync" from my iphone. But more importantly, the driver side window goes down. I couldn't say that with my Saturn. It was mortifying having to open the door at McDonald's to place my order.

I'm SO thankful that I have a husband who is such a go-getter at work. He doesn't want to brag, but he's moving on up at the Gas Co., and we are SOOOO proud of him. He makes it possible for us to have nice things and live comfortably, and we are all very thankful for what he does.

He came home the other day with another present for me, which I'm typing on right now. A new laptop. Again, our computer was ten years old. We run things into the ground here at the Pollard house. If it doesn't blow up, we try to find a way to make it work for years and years. But that old beast is being handed down to the kids, and I'm enjoying this fantastic little machine that doesn't over heat and make scary sounds. When Corinne is in school and I go back to work, I have big plans for spoiling Wes. Payback will come one day, and I cant wait.

I LOVE PHOTOGRAPHY

And lastly, I'm loving photography more and more.

I initially thought I just enjoyed taking pictures of kids and families, but I've worked with actual models the last two sessions and have loved every second of it. Being able to examine a set up and pose and really think about what makes it interesting or beautiful, is so much fun! I feel like I'm getting better and feeling like I understand my camera more and more.

Here are some of my favorite pics from the last shoot.

Me. Not a model.