So, yesterday marked the first day of being with my kiddos part time instead of them being in daycare full time and me working full time too. Monday was a bit of a struggle, today was a little better and i am hoping that tomorrow is even better.

At our house, we do something called - good day bad day during dinner. It's where we ask each other, even the kiddos, what was the good part of our day and what was our bad part of our day. We ask the kids what we should start off with first and usually their response is - bad day bad day!!

When we do this, even when I have had a bad moment in my day - I have to pause and really reflect and consider - was it really that bad? And usually, it isn't, so I end up being all meh, I didn't really have a bad day but I guess..insert the supposed bad day incident but in the whole grand scheme of things it's sort of lame. I guess, I should be real thankful...and I am. Because even if the guy in front of me cut me off today, or the person in the grocery line who pretended not to see me with my 3 items and 2 kids while they unload a cart full of crap - I am going to assume that they are just having a bad day, perhaps much worse than what I think my own worst day is and let it go because in the whole grand scheme of things, there was so much good in the day that the bad, was merely a blip on my radar.

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No it's not like that really..I had to rent a Canon 5D Mark III for a recent wedding I second shot this past weekend and tried it out a couple of days before the big day - since I shoot with a Nikon primarily, I wanted to be completely familiar with the camera by the wedding date. It finally gave me a chance to see what all the hub bub was about though. It took me a bit to get used to the controls but everyone was right - there really is something about Canon colors and just its overall effect on the images that I can't really put my finger on it. It's sort of dreamy? I don't know what it is...but, the auto focusing - man that is a bummer. Apparently it's an improvement over the AF on Canon. My Nikon is just SO MUCH FASTER..and even with that sometimes I use manual focusing on my lenses (actually my 85 1.4 is a manual focus lens) - anyway, I know this should be for my photography blog too but I just can't keep up with all of my blogs anymore. I just need to choose one! or two...

Anyway, the above images are taken with the Canon 5D Mark III & an 85mm 1.2L (except the last image the lens was a 50mm 1.2L). Previous blog images posted here would have used my usual camera which is the Nikon D600 & most likely my beloved nifty fifty - 50mm 1.8G

(the wedding photos, you'll have to wait or go see it on my actual photo blog when I get to blog about them!).

But hey, it's something isn't it?

Spent a little time at a pool this weekend. I thought the kids would have loved it a lot more than they did..but in the end we all had a great time and I got to see an old friend, I haven't seen in a while. Always good to reconnect. Hope you all had a lovely weekend.

I brought out my camera again during bath time. Probably because, it's one of the only times I get to/need to slow down and take it all in and pay attention-for obvious reasons. Surprisingly, this time around, Jax was very willing to have his photograph taken. Usually now, he's just about had it with me & my camera.

Raima has been doing great at Jax's daycare and we've just received word that she can start full time sooner than we all thought! Since she's only 19 months and not quite 2 yet, the part time care was sort of a trial run to see how she would do amongst the older kids. Thankfully, she's been doing great!

In other news, operation get the kids sharing a room is still..quite an operation. But we're chugging along.

Bills bills bills. Again, still chugging along and surviving. Our grocery bill is a little higher now since Charlie's crossed over to the dark side and has started eating poultry. But it sure makes dinner time much easier on me. I may have to look at getting a crock pot to do one pot recipes.

Lets see, what else: in my photography biz news, things are coming along. I have many 20 hour nights where I work non stop and what very little spare time I have, try and juggle it with my family and my business. But that's ok. I don't mind putting in the work (and thankful that i have the support & help from Charlie) because I'm learning a lot and getting better each day. I have some personal projects in the works and plan on going to galleries in hopes of possibly getting exhibited. So, we'll see. My day job- same ol same ol...but I shouldn't complain. It provides me with flexibility, insurance for my family and even business experience. I'm thankful, cause I know it could be a lot worse and I could have a lot more excuses.

Anyway, I'll shut up now..here are some photos:

I had to throw in a color image - but I think that image is still startling in some way that I can't quite put my finger on? Could be just the green tint of our bathroom, though. Probably could use better color correction, but I kinda like it as it is. What do you think?

Hopefully you all are having a wonderful weekend, and some of us can sleep a little better at night. I know we've all been reading and or listening to the news lately on very important and scary things, like gun control and background checks and of course - Boston..So hold on to your families, be grateful for what you have now and take some time to slow down and take it all in..until next time folks...my love to you all!