Katharine Elizabeth Photography {the blog}

You’ve seen adorable Sam here before.  For his newborn pictures, his one-year-old pictures, and now his 2-year-old pictures!

Two.  He’s TWO!

And cute.  He’s CUTE!

Our session was mostly focused on taking pictures of Sam, but we did get a couple of him with his older brother.  Who is also cute.  With a heavy bias toward handsome.

Being brothers is good stuff.

Thanks for a good morning together, Sam.  Happy birthday, little guy.

My son is at school today, but my daughter is home from preschool.  So she and I headed to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts for a bit.

We spent the first 10 minutes of our visit trying to navigate away from the hoards of school field-trippers who were just stepping off their school buses when we arrived.  But once we were able to break away from the group, we had a nice time walking around and looking at whatever struck our fancies.

My daughter made me take a picture of this statuette of two dancers (found in a shipwreck). And when I asked her at the end of our visit what her favorite piece of art was, she said this was it:

My favorite was this giant painting that I luckily — because my daughter was resting her “tired feet” — got to admire for more than the usual 2 seconds before being dragged to the next gallery.

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but my daughter is the more “intense” child in our family.  Not in a bad way.  Just in the intense way.  She is happy and good-hearted and sweet, but she does not flow along with the current of the stream.  She pulls herself out of the water and onto the bank whenever she damn well feels like it.

This picture of her at the top of the museum stairwell is so very her.  Waiting, semi-patiently, for me to catch up (I had stopped to look at the museum map).  Tolerating my slowness, but still letting me see a bit of her annoyance.

It was fun to have some time with her today.  In the quiet gallery rooms, and with her stimulated by all of the art, we had some good conversation.

After looking at a painting of Jesus and Mary, she said, “I thought Jesus had a broomstick.”

She was completely serious.  And I didn’t laugh.  And then we talked about it.  Right there in the quiet gallery.  And that will stay with me.

We had fun today, too.

We got lost for a bit:

And then found our way out.  She wanted me to take a picture of her pretending to be one of the Roman sculptures before we left. I don’t know if there are any Roman sculptures out there holding a tiny Rapunzel doll … but if there are, she does a dead-on impression:

It was a good morning.

I’ve voiced my fair share of complaints in life about how difficult and tiring and mundane it can be on the days I’m home with the kids.  But I know that at some point in the future, each time I’ve complained will be canceled out — and then some — by the times I wish I could have this time back.

If you live in the southwest metro, there is a great publication called Savvy.mn Magazine that is published monthly by Southwest Newspapers and geared toward women of all ages.

In addition to its regular April issue, Savvy.mn Magazine also published a special “Kids Issue” during April.  And for her article about better photographing your kids, editor Kristin Holtz very kindly asked me to provide some tips.

Ms. Holtz graciously included all 5 tips that I sent her and — I cannot tell a lie — I was pretty darn excited to see them in print.

If you’d like to check out the tips and you don’t already subscibe to Savvy.mn Magazine, you can pick up a free copy at any of the locations listed here.

The magazine is available in Shakopee, Eden Prairie, Prior Lake, Jordan, Chaska, Chanhassen, Bloomington, Edina, Hopkins, Minnetonka, and several more southwest suburbs.

Even though I’m still a little miffed about the chain-yanking nature of our Spring these last few weeks, I am very happy that it appears to be here now.

Finally.

Take your time, why don’t you.

It’s great to be outside again and to see other people outside, too. Walking, biking, running, playing in front yards. Out of our winter hibernation caves. Ready for fresh air and for Vitamin D that doesn’t come from the pharmacy aisle at Target.

My husband and I spent some time outside with the kids last night after supper. Our neighbors were doing the same, so we ended up enjoying the nice, spring evening together. Below is their adorable one-year-old on our front porch. She was looking through our screen door at our cats, yelling, “Hi Keeeey!” (hi kitty).

At which point I died from the cuteness.

I am typing this from the grave.

Welcome, Spring. I’ve made a note of your tardiness. Don’t let it happen again.

I mentioned it before, but we had a LOT of stuff going on in February and March.

A trip to the Duluth waterpark ~ very fun, although it took some mental handiwork to force myself to ignore the cloudiness of the water and the sheer number of bodies in the pools.

A winter weekend in Wisconsin with friends ~ if you can’t beat winter, you might as well join it.

A new cat ~ she is 3 and she has the biggest belly you’ve ever seen. She came with the name “Kitty,” but my husband has been intermittently calling her “Guadalupe,” my son calling her “Lupe,” and my daughter calling her “Loopey.”

A milestone birthday ~ our youngest is officially five. This was that magical “benchmark day” my husband and I used to reference during conversations back when our kids were still 1 and 3. “Well, when he’s 7 and she’s 5, THEN we will have it all…”

And even though it’s not the way we pictured it back then (the sky didn’t open up on the 5th Birthday Milestone and rain down extra free time and disposable income), we were still right.

Because we do.

Have it all.