I'll fill you in on why I've not been here.
more sick kids, dwayne traveling, one root canal for me after cracking my tooth, and the past two days with a bitch of a migraine stopping me in my tracks. so I really haven't had a moment to catch my breath. But tonight my V friend is helping ease the pain and I'm able to function again.

I'll be back real soon with another intriguing poll question about poop or farts or the meaning of life or something.

First let's talk poop, shall we?
From the poll results it seems most of you poop on a daily basis.
I'm too embarrassed (yes Carrie I can get embarrassed) to tell you how much I poop a day. But let's just say men aren't the only ones that poop a few times a day ladies.
Poop is fun and all to talk about, but I much prefer to laugh over farts.
Sophie and I amused ourselves for a good 15 minutes with the Whoopee cushion in the aisles of Walgreens waiting for Holden's medicine Monday.
I like the loud farts the best. The Lummin farts can always make me laugh! Mine are the next funniest- especially when I blow a rare, long and loud one! dwayne's are only funny sometimes, more often very stinky. hi honey:)

But I decided not to ask about farts this week.
The new poll questionis: How often do you pray?
don't forget to go vote!

Now if I were to recap our last week it would be pages long and I'd probably put even myself to sleep. So here's a very brief update-
Holden is better. He had a viral infection that caused his little lung airways to swell and become inflamed (bronchiolitis), making it hard for him to breathe. had the fever, clingy crabbies, sleepies...the whole bit for the entire week.
He's all better now and we're getting back to normalcy after a week of rotating sick kids, dwayne traveling, doctor appointments... and now and I actually have time for myself tonight. My goal is to make my rounds through blog world and catch up tonight. don't hate me if I don't leave comments- I think my hands might fall off soon.
I had to take off my anonymous comments option because last week all of the sudden I was attacked by over 30 SPAM hits in a day! spam sucks.

I had a photo shoot with The Queen of Napville Thursday and her baby, Dulce.
I'm still working on the pictures, but here is the first one and so far my favorite.


Aren't they beautiful?!

Reasons I've been absent:

• preparing for Sophie's birthday party- shopping, prepping food, cleaning, baking and decorating too many cupcakes
• memorial service for Baby Reese (if I ever get time I do want to tell you about the beautiful service celebrating her life)
  
• tending to the sickly Sophie the day before her birthday party and hoping/praying she'd get better by the next day
  
• BIRTHDAY PARTY!! (she did get better)
  
• shooting pictures for our local library
• spending half a day at the ER- poor Holden was having difficulty breathing
  

I hope I can catch a few hours to myself this week (ha!) so I can share all the great stories and pictures...

We all think we’re so smart eh?
On the last poll ranking your intelligence relative to the population at large,
most people ranked themselves a 7 or 8.
I wonder what kind of results I’d get if I asked you to rate your driving skills relative to the population at large...
We'd all be 10's! I mean, I know for a fact that I’m a much better driver than most. It's all the other jack asses on the road that don’t know how to drive.
You think so too. Am I right?

If you took the last poll seriously then think about this:
What KIND of intelligence were you thinking about when you rated yourself?
Your mathematical/ logistical side? or are you a linguistical genius? a musical mastermind?
no one asked about that!
Surely if you people are all so smart you’d know about the Multiple Intelligences, Mr. Howard Gardner theorizes.

So what are your strongest and weakest intelligences?

*********
To keep it light hearted and immature this week, I'm asking
How often do you poop?

You can vote over to the side! ------>

I've sat down and tried writing a number of times the last few days.
I still haven't found the words I'm looking for. But I can't write about anything else until I write about this...
Our dear friends Sissy and Bud lost their precious baby girl this past weekend.
She was over five months old, a true fighter and a true miracle.
It’s too complicated for me to even begin to describe her condition. To be vague, she had a dysfunctional lymphatic system. But not a single other case exists like hers in this country.
I know it's been a painful past five months for sweet baby girl and her family. But I know they experienced joy and love together as well. And although it was much too short, she lived a life.
Here come the tears again...
Bud and Sissy will always have their sweet baby girl in the memories.

that's all I can say today

A little early,
but this photo perfectly fills the word for this Weekend's Word Challenge,

FULFILL

Meet Toni-
our loving female mutt we've had for over five years.
She was a wild thing from the animal shelter we adopted after she'd been dumped on the side of the road with her litter of pups.
After bringing Toni home we discovered she a had a black tattoo on her belly. How strange, I thought. Somebody had a sick idea of covering their dog's hide with their artwork.
But her tattoo makes her seem tough. I mean she's a bitch with a tattoo, yo!
Come to find out, maybe a year or so later after running into another dog with the same tattoo, all the dogs spayed at the animal shelter get one. It's like the female sign with a slash through it.
oooooooookay. got it.

Toni, for whatever reason, has been avoiding the camera ever since I got my Nik. She runs and hides as soon as Nik comes out of his bag. But this weekend camera-shy Toni didn't run and hide.
What I can't quite comprehend is why- this past weekend I got my new big daddy lens (so sweeeet), new flash, tripod, and a variety of other miscellaneous neccesities- now I'm walking around carrying an even bigger hunk of a camera. but Toni wasn't afraid.
Weirdo.

But FULFILL it is.
Nik and I finally got her!

Cheaters

After reviewing the poll results,

If you were having difficulty on an important test and could safely cheat by looking at someone else's paper, would you do so?
Yes= 18 people
Maybe= 9 people
No= 16 people

I have to say I'm not too surprised. I think the majority of us have probably cheated or considered cheating at some point in our lives.
But here's where I start stemming off...
If you replied yes- would it be ok for your child to do this?
Do you want to raise your children to think it's okay to cheat? Most parents would say no I'm sure.
As a first grade teacher, among other things I teach children that it is wrong to cheat. My rules were stated at the beginning of the year and I enforced them consistently. If ever I caught a student cheating I would pull he/she aside and talk to them about the incident. I would call their parents and let them know what had happened. Most of the time, their parents thanked me for the phone call because they didn't want their child to cheat on a test. Sometimes the child would get the chance to retake the test later.
I wasn't out to ridicule or admonish the child, but I as a teacher I felt I had a moral obligation. I couldn't condone cheating.

This is what astonishes me:
Apparently after talking with colleagues, some thought it was acceptable at times to let a student get away with cheating. I remember one particular instance I confided in a friend, also a parent, after catching a student cheating on his Friday test. She thought that I was wrong- I should not have called the student aside nor called his parents. She says, "you know he was probably really embarrassed anyway. It would only further lower his self-esteem..."
Friend thought it was completely ok to let the cheating student slide.
After all, we had cheated on high school tests together...

SO IS IT,
"Do as I say, not as I do????"

Please understand I'm not hear to call you cheaters out, I voted 'maybe' after all (and I no, I DON'T cheat on my sudoku), I'm not judging, I'm just sayin...
how do you teach children the right thing to do, if you yourself don't always do the right thing?


Now here's my new HAIRDO




And your new poll question for the week:
Relative to the population at large, how do you rate your intelligence?
On a scale of 1-10 (ten being the most intelligent).
GO VOTE!

Now that my headache hit the road and I chopped off 3 1/2 inches of my hair, my head is lighter and more clear. I can think again. And that means I'm blogging tonight. Probably many of you are out at holiday celebrations, parties, shows, family affairs...not me. I am at home on my mac. and I like it here.
Our big plans of spending the long weekend on the lake were spoiled with rainy weather.
Ah well, that's ok because summer lasts clear through til October here so that means plenty of other weekends for boating.
My other big plan this weekend is to get to the camera store and leave with a bag of loot!
So far all of my money-making plans for the phototgraphy biz have gotten me $43. (thanks Chris)
Oh yeah- and if anyone would like a gently used very expensive breastpump, baby swing, or even a cute Lummin- I'm willing to sell.
Perhaps after enough begging, pleading, and *convincing* I'll get Dwayne to throw some extra change my way...
:)


Look at this-
Isn't she beautiful?


(I had the pleasure of photographing Delaine's two adorable children last week.)