I found some old pictures…because I am a hoarder.

Back in 2009 my hard drive on my laptop crashed. On it was every picture I had ever taken of Sass (my first born). She was a year old at the time and when I realized every picture I had of her, except the small low res copies on Myspace (remember that site??) was gone, I was devastated. Totally traumatized, I left like I got kicked in the gut as hard as anyone could.  I had nothing. I literally felt like someone died.

What about my back up you ask? Oh…well, back then I was a new mother of a one year old and honestly must have figured hard drives were indestructible and I’d never lose one single picture. *sigh*

I know, I know….I should have backed up on an external hard drive, but I had no idea those things even existed back then. LUCKILY with the grace of God and some awesome computer programs, I was able to recover about 96% of the pictures lost. I was lucky. But as my history shows, that doesn’t happen real often. So now I have several external hard drives and have backups of backups of backups. I am a bit obsessed now.

I also now hoard my memory cards. I seriously can not bring myself to delete pictures from them. Even though they are on my current laptop AND two external drives, I just can’t do it. I suppose I still have trauma from that day. If I need more space, I buy another card.

So last night I went looking through some of my old memory cards and I came across a couple of old pics that made me smile. And a ton more to edit later when life isn’t too busy. So if you know me, those may never get edited. But I was very happy to see them and look back a couple years. Here are three of them that I just love. And to think they were just there, hiding in my hoard.

Thanks for stopping by!

~Melissa

Smoke Photography

My hand at smoke photography. I lasted all of 5 minutes before my batteries died in my flash. Though one thing I did learn in that short amount of time….make sure the flash does not reflect on the background! But I like what came out despite the flub. Next time I will have more time to play and work out the kinks.

~Melissa

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Reflections

This week’s challenge is “reflections.” Here is Sass on a nice warm fall day playing in water puddles from a rain storm we just had.

I only posted one other time for this challenge, I suppose I keep forgetting about it, though you can see the post here.

Thanks for stopping by and be sure to check out The Daily Post.

~Melissa

 

I did it…so…Baaaaah! | Elf on a shelf

Last year while browsing Pinterest I got wind of something called Elf on a Shelf. I feel like I must have been under a rock because this has been out for quite some time, though I just learned of it. So I find all these funny pictures all over and I decide to look into it. What is all this Elf business?

As I get to looking I found I LOVE the idea. Not about trying to teach my children how to be good by lying to them, but because it would open up some fun ideas for me.

In case you have been living under a rock as well, Elf on a shelf is this little ridiculously overpriced, creepy plastic headed, fabric bodied little elf that comes with a book. The basis is that this Elf was sent by Santa to watch your kids (already a creepy vibe) and to report their behavior back to him every night. The parents are supposed to move the elf to different locations each night the elf “returns” and the kids get to find him/her the next morning.

Naturally, funny people need to pick it up a notch and instead of just moving the elf to different places like the TV stand, Christmas tree, shelf and so forth, they have some fun with it.

Just do a simple google search or look on pinterest or even your favorite photographers blog and chances are you’ll be engulfed in the world of Elf pranks.

When I saw pics of the elf fishing for fish crackers or riding around with Barbie I was sold. I WANTED this thing. But I could not fork over $30.00 for this elf of nightmares. *the face is creepy* It really reminds me of those old ventriloquist dummies…and those things freak me out. I watched a movie when I was younger and it would come to life and kill people, I have been traumatized since. So naturally I want to get a little creepo and make up the notion it moves around each night while my children sleep…nope, I don’t want my kids to go through therapy at all. Anyway…

I really wanted this doll, yet the price tag killed it for me. Instead of buying the Elf on a Shelf, I ran into “Grandma Elf” at Marshall’s Home Goods Store for $7.00. I was like, this elf is equally as creepy (somehow this is something I think makes this allll the better) and it is movable so I can make it do more things. I bring it home, it lasts like 4 days and then she hung from the ceiling fan until after the holidays and the decorations came down. Honestly, she just wasn’t the same. 🙂 Here are some of the pics from last yr because I was too cheap to get the actual Elf on a Shelf. *PS, no, my kids actually did not see these at all…..

So this year I was like, I will just get it, definitely more for my enjoyment but Sass is almost 5 so I thought she might get a kick out of it. And boy has she taken to it. Sprout is still too young to care, but she does like finding the Elf my daughter -as witty and spunky as she is and who walks around and calls her sister “ILeeda” as she pretends she is someone else-named, “Elfie.”

On November 30th, I sit down and read the story to the girls and told Sass the basic run down of what Elfie is supposed to do (and I MAY have mentioned she can get mischievous). So the next day when Elfie appeared in a non funny way -though I thought it was cute with the sign and all-already my daughter was like, “That’s all she does?”

Geesh, tough crowd…I suppose I have to kick it up a notch. I have been busy with homework so I decided to do something I have seen before but I thought my daughter would get a kick out of and day two ended up like this…

That morning she comes running up to me laughing her little head off explaining what Elfie did, and bless her heart she put the bag of flour back into the pantry before she came to tell me. So she talked all day wondering what Elfie would do next.

Now at this point she is really no longer a deterrent for Sass to be good because even through all the, “Elfie is going to tell Santa!” she has been her normal Sass self. Now it is a fun game of, “how is mommy going to top the night before.” Or so it feels. My fault. 🙂

So night three I was thinking something with toilet paper needs to be done. I saw where Elves have TP’d the tree, but I really didn’t wanna do that to my pretty tree, so after talking with my friend who mentioned using chocolate chips for Elf poo, I come up with this…

This one Sass was up before me and ran down to see what Elfie had gotten herself in to, and I WISH I followed her down for this one. She has some terrible potty humor (don’t look at me!) and so I hear her and my youngest down there gasping as they take in the sights. I keep hearing, “GASSSSSSP, OOOOOOH MY GOODNESS!!!! OOOOOH MY GOOODNESS!” And my youngest kept echoing everything her big sister had said. Then they saw the poo. I hear an outburst of laughter and they came running up the stairs talking about it. I smile knowing what is about to come, and there they were at the edge of my bed with the doll toilet in hand talking, “MOM! Last night Elfie went poo and (she sniffs it) it smells a lot like cinnamon, and she tried to wipe her butt, but she got ALL tangled up and is now hanging from the curtains!”

I kick myself for not going down with camera in my hand….

She also cleaned up the toilet paper mess on her own. Now, if she would just do that with her toys.

Tonight I tried to think of what would be really funny to her….naturally it would not be something along these lines…

^^unseen adventure of Elfie^^

and went with this. I can’t wait to see if she finds it as funny as I think she will….

So until tomorrow….Have a great night and no nightmares…:)

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone! The girls sure had a lot of fun today and we are thankful Hurricane Sandy spared us so we were able to go Trick or Treating. It sure was cold out tonight, so the girls had to bundle up. Sass said I could paint her up like a zombie instead of her normal costume, Flora from Winx Club. I did something random to my face and J let me paint his face too. 🙂 We carved pumpkins earlier in the day and we went around our neighborhood at dusk, and let me tell you, the girls made out! We don’t even hit a fraction of the houses in this community and their buckets are filled to the brim. Terrible for my waistline…

Here are some iPhone pics.

And some other pics from our Halloween festivities.

Weekly Photo Challenge |Mine

I stumbled upon the Weekly Photo Challenge hosted by The Daily Post.

This week’s photo challenge is entitled Mine.

Here is what I consider mine. They are everything of mine, my heart, my happiness, my love, my light in the darkness, my hugs and snuggles, my laughter, my life.