Who: Moi.

What: A month-ish of photos sans words.

Where: On the blog, of course.

Why: I want to be a better housekeeper (seriously!) and I want to see if blogging less will equal more focus on organization and general cleanliness. I have some projects—you could call them “trouble areas”—that I’d like to get cleaned up soon. So I’m going to flex my photography muscles, let the writing ones atrophy a bit, and build my true biceps by throwing away lots of crap. Wish me luck!

…and an iris.

My girl loves to paint. I think I’ve said this before, but she’d roll her whole body in paint if I let her. (New summer activity perhaps?) If I give up my timetable, and my desire for cleanliness, and my pursuit of easy, simple activities, then painting, Liv’s choice, is perfect. Why is it so hard to do that as a mother? To set aside my own interests in order to do something my child absolutely adores?

Friday was a relax-at-home kind of day and painting fit the bill for afternoon entertainment. I opened the craft cupboard and there garage sale picture frames sat, looking all boring in their wood frames. An hour later they were coated in orange, teal and a glorious hodge-podge of colors, the last precisely replicated on Livia’s ten fingers.

My computer contains so many images of Katherine looking gorgeous that it’s kind of ridiculous. I’m pretty sure Katherine doesn’t have the ability to take a bad photo!

I had been looking for a model to take around town and Katherine is at that point in life where she needs senior portraits—it was a win-win situation. Plus we truly enjoy each other and the conversation with her (and her sisters) is always a pleasure. Thanks, Katherine, for a great photo shoot on Sunday!

I like this image of Livia in her summer sundress. She looks so carefree, so young and sweet. I want to capture moments like this as she grows.

The funny thing about the shot is that she’s pretending to be a crab as she walks down a hill in a Phoenix park. See blurry proof, complete with crab claws, below.

Kids are awesome.

Meet my beautiful and talented sister-in-law Chelsea. Check out the earrings—she made them!

And I’ve got to say, after a few minutes of simply sitting next to her in her car, I wanted to get a tattoo.

Chelsea has one of the most enthusiastic and fun spirits of anyone I know and hanging out with her is always fun. It’s hard to leave a sister behind, but I suppose that just means we look forward to our visits with her even more.

Howdy, friends! We just returned home from a family vacation to Phoenix, Arizona. We had a wonderful time hanging out family while soaking up some Arizona sunshine. My favorite thing about heading that direction is that the geography is so very different from here. I love landing at the Phoenix airport amidst the vast brown landscape, broken only by enormous outcroppings of rocky hills and mountains. It’s like landing on the moon after being in the green spring of Nebraska.

Our first morning on vacation found us exploring the Boyce Thompson Arboretum with Jeremy’s cousin Jeff and his family. We started early enough in the day—on a cooler day no less—and it was still hot. But the unique beauty of the area was really something to behold and my camera found plenty to capture.

Purple cactus. How cool is that?

I always thought I’d be *that* mom who did cool things for her kid’s class, cool things like go on field trips. Yet I must confess that the idea of going on field trips with preschoolers (much less volunteering in their classroom) sounded pretty awful. I am profoundly grateful for the awesome women who teach my child’s class—God bless ’em—they are some kind of special.

After the first field trip this year, Livia caught on and realized that other mommies drove them to the destinations. And she wanted her mom to do it, too. So, on this last field trip of the year, on Livia’s birthday no less, I joined the kids.

And I had fun. Imagine that.

It was Liv’s birthday and the destination was the Pioneers Park Nature Center. Totally fitting for my nature kid! Despite the fact it was cold and really windy, the class had a great time and I had fun getting to know her classmates a bit better.

Kindergarten field trips, here we come.