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I heard her telling Avah that she wanted to use a pillow for their “newborn pictures”

I heard alot of posing instructions being tossed around

I heard Sam’s little voice saying “shheeez”

This is what you get when Briana has my point and shoot…

I don’t talk alot about homeschooling on here. I just don’t seem to ever get around to it. Id love to shout from the rooftops how wonderful I think that it is. Tell everyone what a blessing it has been to our family. How amazing it is to see my girls grow so close to one another. To know that they really are best friends. To see that excitement in their eyes when they learn something new. And how I know that their days are spent learning through living. Learning through reading. Learning while playing. Their days are full of imaginative play and nature study. Its really a beautiful way to grow up. This spring we added something amazing to our homeschool routine. We have begun to follow the Alphabet Path….and what a beautiful path it is! Its been so fun for all of us!!! We just tacked it on with our normal math, grammar, history, and science studies. We love it all. We even used the flower fairy CD at our tea party. Its beautiful music!! Ok, so you can see I’m excited! Anyway, last week was “D” week. We did not have time to make these donuts because we got very sidetracked with dinosaurs. lol. That’s ok…Valentines (or Balentimes) day was the perfect day to make Decadent Donuts! We decided to make it a little more appropriate for Valentines Day and used a heart shaped cookie cutter to shape our donuts! I think they look wonderful! Avah did a GREAT job! Enjoy the pictures!
And here is a recipe! Grab your kids and have fun! It was a YUMMY treat for sure!!!
What you need:
•a roll of refrigerated biscuit dough
•a bag of good chocolate chips
•a cup of heavy cream
•sugar and cinnamon
•premium vanilla bean ice cream (think Blue Bell…)
•oil for frying

Take the biscuits and flatten them with your hand. Use a cookie cutter or your finger and cut out (poke out) a hole. We fried our “holes” lol. Heat your oil and fry your biscuits. It doesnt take long. Mix the sugar and cinnamon on a plate. Roll the donuts in the sugar mixture. Heat the cream on the stove. Melt chocolate chips in the cream. Stir until smooth. Top your donut with ice cream and chocolate syrup. YUMMY! Its very easy…and Im sure you can figure out what to do from the pictures below…my directions are probably scattered. LOL

Enjoy!!!

hmm so I remember saying something about blogging once a week for 2011…and what week are we in now? Pretty sure I failed at that “resolution”…ah well. We have been busy around here! Its been cold. Too cold. We had snow…again…and while I was excited to see it..and take a few pictures in it….I was certainly ok with seeing it melt away. School is in full swing again after our holiday break. We keep things moving around here!!!

A couple of weeks ago, the girls decided to host a tea party for Valentines Day. I mentioned it to my friend Allyson…and we decided it was a go! So, I threw a little something together….it was so fun! I never hosted or attended tea parties as a child. I don’t remember playing tea party either. Maybe every once in a while, but I think we played restaurant more often. So this was new territory for me…but my brain was swimming with ideas…and I have so many more for future tea parties!

Here are a few pictures of the party details. I do have some “action” shots..but they are on my phone and I cant find the cord that gets them off of my phone…so this will have to do for now.

It shouldn’t be too hard to picture a handful of little ladies dressed in their best dresses…gathered around a much too big table and sipping on “tea” should it?

Enjoy! We did!

I just took a trip down memory lane…OK I just read parts of my old blog. I came to one conclusion. I SUCK! I mean I totally, completely, and horribly SUCK! I don’t think I have mentioned my own family or kids on this blog in like a year or something. What kind of horrible wife and mother am I???? I mean, I have 3 categories on this blog. 1. wife 2. mama 3. photographer. I think we can all agree I have the photographer category nice and full. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER 2? So we can also all I agree that I will not win blogging mother of the year!
It may be a little early for new years resolutions…but I’m going to go ahead and write number 1 down on my list.
BLOG ABOUT MY FAMILY!
So there! I said it! I will blog about my family at least once a week next year. I WILL!

OK …back to ignoring my blog for a while.

Where has the year gone? I remember the days leading up to my due date. I was a huge. I was miserable. I wanted him born NOW! And then he was here. Perfect and adorable and all mine. There is a magic between a mama and her son. I cant really put it into words, but its there. This year has been so wonderful. Everything he does melts my heart. My Samuel is the sweetest little guy. Of course, each new day brings so much happiness, but I found myself wishing for more time before he turned one. Funny that I was praying for time to pass quickly that last month of pregnancy…and wishing for it to slow down during his 11th month. His birthday has come and gone…and you know…he may be one…but he is still my baby boy.

When I was a child, one of my favorite places to go was my Granny Kmiec’s house in Brenham. As a toddler, I would beg my Grandma to take me to “Brum” to see “Granny Mich“…I know..how cute? While we were there I would play with her doll named Nora. I would sneak wedding mints from the glass dish in the dining room. (and get sick on the way home because I ate WAY more than normal people do) And I would flip through her calendar and look at the stickers. Each person in our family had a sticker on the box marking their birthday. If you are not a part of my Kmiec family, this may not seem like a big deal to you. We have a pretty good size family…so the calendar was full! It smelled good too. Scratch and sniff

My calendar doesn’t smell good….but its been pretty jam packed lately. With September quickly approaching, I need to make this announcement now. As of September 1, 2010, I will only be booking 1 session per week. So please, if you need a specific month/day/week/whatever, get on the calendar as soon as you can! Why am I doing this? Ill give you 3 reasons. Briana, Avah, and Samuel. No really, we are a homeschooling family, and our school year starts the first of September. In order for me to provide you with a reasonable turnaround, and to maintain my sanity….I have to do this.

This is very important to anyone wanting newborn portraits. Please schedule your session BEFORE the baby is born. We can use your due date. This way I KNOW I need to leave some flex time in my schedule for your new bundle of joy!

Don’t forget that the holidays will be here before you know it! If you want family pictures taken for your holiday cards or for Christmas gifts (pictures really are the best gift ya know!) please think ahead and get on the schedule. If you wait until the last minute I may not be able to fit you in.

So call or email me for fall sessions! Don’t forget that a 50% deposit is due at the time of booking.

And we all know we need a picture to juice up such a boring post…..

A couple of snapshots of the boy. Sam with his cousin Tanner and Sam with his cousin Jason. I think he had a little fun huh? Love that big smile!!!

We took a field trip to Blue Bell a couple of weeks ago. While we were waiting, Briana smiled quite a bit. She was showing off her toothless grin. She lost a tooth up top. Loosing teeth is a bit of a sore spot for me. I don’t do well. At all. In fact, 90% of the times that I have fainted in my past are due to teeth. Briana’s friend, Alexa, told me that her daddy calls her Toothless Wonder. It has a nice ring to it right?

That week was very eventful for the tooth fairy. Briana lost a total of 3 teeth in a matter of days. I have always worried about my kids loosing their teeth. I admit, the way I handle the loss of teeth would NOT win me Mother of the Year. Not even close. Because I let my 3 year old handle that. Yep. She wets the rag for Briana. She holds the tooth (and waves it proudly in my face…while I try to hold down my dinner). She checks Briana’s smile to see if there is anything gross hanging or showing that might make mommy “fall out”…haha. Enough of that, its not easy to write this.

Stop laughing!

First, Briana lost a bottom tooth. Like LOST it. In the yard. This was like her 3rd tooth to loose outside. About an hour later the girls were playing in their tent. Giggling and singing. Suddenly, I heard crying and the word blood. I ran in to see what was bleeding …Briana’s mouth. Her tooth. not good…not good…find Juan…dont pass out….

Briana was upset about this because this tooth was NOT loose before. While they were playing, Avah bumped Briana in the mouth. Knocked her tooth loose. So loose that it fell out. Yep. Tooth number 2 for the day. Also lost somewhere in the house. Sigh… I sent Avah on a tooth hunt. She crawled around on the carpet looking for a bloody tooth. Yes…she kept saying it too…singing it actually.

Im searching for a bloody tooth! What? A bloody tooth. OH YEAH!

I should add, Juan was in the shower during all of this. I was feeling pale, and Briana kept saying she felt like she was going to be sick. All the while I hear Avah singing about a bloody tooth. She found it a few minutes later. She washed it off and sat it on the coffee table. Briana was pretty shook up. She isnt super excited when she looses a tooth. I think Avah is usually more excited.

She went to bed with sore gums and woke up with $2.00 under her pillow. She is ok with the tooth loss now.

Here she is…my toothless wonder…

A few months ago, I decided that I was tired of toys. Laugh..yeah yeah…. I am sure you are thinking HELLO crazy woman! You have 3 kids! You are going to have TOYS! Wait! Let me finish! I am tired of toys. Not ALL toys, but the kind that your kids beg you for, play with for 5 minutes, and forget. Those kind of toys! It is such a waste of money! Not to mention, they do nothing for the growth and development of our kids. I decided I wanted my children to have quality, timeless toys. Mulitpurpose-use your imagination to make it work-kind of toys. So I locked myself in my kids room, and I got knee (ok Im short, so it was more like waist) deep in toys. I threw away/gave away 80% of their toys. I kept things like dress up(anything that was not torn or too small), dolls (only the ones in good shape and no doubles), only 3 extra doll outfits and a handful of blankets and bottles, blocks, kitchen and playfood (wood or felt only), puzzels, and their doll house. Let me just say, its SO nice now! I still feel overwhelmed sometimes by the amount of toys there are, but I know that its because I have 3 children in one bedroom.
ANYWAY…. I have been wanting to get the girls some playsilks for a while now. If you are not familiar with playsilks, let me tell you about them. They are simply a piece of silk. They come in all sizes and colors. They can be used for just about anything. So far, they have been used in our house as doll blankets, skirts, butterfly wings, doll slings, and we even scrunched up a white one into a baby bottle to pretend it was milk! Veils, tents, super hero capes. Yes, my girls like to be super heros when they watch Super Why.
Of course, I would never take the simple way out and buy them already dyed. So we ordered 10 white silks from Dharma Trading Co. We got the 35″X35″ and 2 of the 11″X60″ to use for ribbon dancing. LOL! Then we picked up a zillion packets of Kool-Aid…well maybe it was the off brand, but they were 10 for $1.00 and Im pretty cheap.

The first thing I did was soak the unwashed scarves in some warm water with a bit of vinegar.

Then I mixed 3 packets of Wylers fake Kool-Aid with 1 1/2 cups of hot tap water. I mixed them in glass jars. Then I stuffed one playsilk into each jar.

Then I set the jars into a pot that contained about 2 inches of tap water. Brought it to a boil. Not a splashing, crazy boil..just a nice easy boil. While the water was boiling, I squished the scarves down into the water mixture. When I thought the color was set (either the water turned clear or milky depending on the color used) I took the pot off the stove.

Thats when I put my kids to work. I had them cool off the jars.

Next, I rinsed them in cold water. The water should run clear. I had some problems with the orange and red. They didnt set all the way, but I plan on hand washing these, so it shouldnt be a big deal. If I have to re-dye them, it shouldnt break the bank!

They thought the silkies (that is what they call them) smelled very good!

Then we hung them out to dry. That took about 5 minutes. The girls thought that was far too long though!

Arent they pretty? I will share some of the girls playing with them soon. This post took long enough though!

I will gladly show pictures of the kids room. I am sure you are curious as to how I fit 3 kids into one bedroom. Right? If you would be interested in something like this, leave me a comment. Im kind of a nerd when it comes to organizing. Especially my kids things.

Dont you just love that new car scent? Or the way new clothes smell? How about walking into a brand new house? If I could choose a scent for my new blog…yeah I know…but if I could…it would be one of those three smells! I am beyond beyond thrilled to show off this new blog-site. I have worked extra hard on this! I only have a few more additions that will come over the next couple of weeks. I wanted to wait for it to be perfect and done…but when is anything ever really done? So, with great pleasure, I welcome you to the Brandi Tejeda Photography blogsite. Its all here. All in one. Everything I love about a website and a blog wrapped up in yummy goodness! Enjoy!

And because what good is a post without a picture….a little Sam goodness

I love her smile.
I love her frown.
I love her tangled hair.
I love her dirty pants.
I love her backwards shirt.
I love her independence.
I love her spirit.
I love being her Mama.

I love her smile.