Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Please VOTE for me!!!

Fellow bloggers...we won't even begin to discuss my lack of attention to this blog.  :)

I need your help!  I am a finalist in a photo contest and have the chance to win Adobe's CS5, the big mamajama of photoshop!  This is a huge opportunity for me!  In case I have missed you on facebook, or email, or any of the other places I am soliciting for votes...I thought I would get you here! Please, it will take seconds!!  I am image #5 and currently in the lead! :)  Voting ends Sunday, so please vote and SPREAD THE WORD!!  Thank you so much!!

VOTE HERE

or

HERE

My submission:

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Snow Schmo

At a time where I long for summer the most
Where I curse the flakes and the cold,
I am reminded of the pure heart and spirit of a child...


To my littles: Thanks for dragging mommy out into the snow!
(p.s. I am still counting the days til spring)






Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Life is too precious

I am reminded on a daily basis to stop sweating the small stuff, and lately it seems like God is SCREAMING this to me at the top of his lungs. I feel the need to share this reminder. We've been to a few funerals lately, a few too many if you ask me. I have a close friend who is on an incredibly tough journey (battle?) with her precious baby girl. And then this story that I am about to share with you. I was truly humbled reading their blog, "humbled" being an understatement. Heck I bawled for 30 minutes while I read Bronson's story. I don't know this family. The blog was shared with me by someone also feeling the need to share this reminder "stop taking life for granted"! It makes my daily struggles suddenly seem so unimportant. It makes me want to be a better mother, to not yell as much, to not sweat over the tiniest of things. I mean, who cares if Logan colored on the wall for the 10th time. His mistakes can be washed away, right? I hope this family does not mind me sharing their blog, I just think the message they can give us is so very important. This little boy is a true miracle, and example of the "power of prayer". Please continue to pray for him and his family, especially his mother that she might be able to forgive herself for her "mistakes". I think its pretty obvious that God has forgiven her...

DISCLAIMER: I was told to put this on here in case you missed the point of my post...this is a SAD and frightening/eye opening story about a child...BUT, if you read through the recent posts you will see His glory!
(start on Feb 1st post)
http://stakerzxposed.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html

Hug your babies tonight!

Monday, October 26, 2009

Thursday, October 15, 2009

The Gap casting call update...

So I did it. I shamelessly entered my kids in the gap casting call. Maybe one of those 20 amazing, awesome, beautiful/handsome, intelligent (just in case they read this) panelists will somehow (out of the billions of entries and cuteness overload) come across one of my children's photos. I mean if they actually look at them, how can they not pick them (other than *Ava's eye photo--whoops)? I won't solicit votes though. I mean, you can if you want...but I do encourage you to enter your own children!! And then if your child wins you have to take me on your trip to Las Vegas! :) The votes go towards the "fan favorite", which is not the same as being a finalist (those lovely panelists pick those)!

So, I thought it would be fun to vote, however I went to see the top voted kids...and they have like 20,000 votes! Are you kidding me? The top two are brother and sister, and let me tell you...those were SOLICITED votes. lol I mean they are cute kids, but uh, yeah not 20K votes worth. So anywho, I dont know 20,000 people, and it would take a lot more than the 5 blog stalkers I have to vote every day to even come close to that! I will still post the link so you can see which photos I submitted. I realized how bad I have been with taking pictures lately!! I need to get on that!! I need to get on a lot of things...like going and getting Logan out of his crib right now cause all I here is "momma din, DIIIIN, DIIIIIIIIIN MAMAMAMAMA" *din=Done :)

http://family.go.com/gapcastingcall/entries/ldilley4410/249200147/
http://family.go.com/gapcastingcall/entries/dilley331/

If you click "see all entries by ldilley" you can see the others. I also had to submit one under Chris's name because I didn't resize one of Ava's photo *ie the EYE, and all it did was post a picture of her eye. Gee, maybe we'll win on most artistic photo! :)

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Counting the ways my kids are AWESOME!

I think most parents have that innate ego that their kid's are the best, cutest, strongest, talented, etc...even when maybe they aren't so much. lol Well, I am no exception. Id like to share a random list of how awesome my kids are, if not only to prove to them when they are older that I DID remember to write some things down in their baby book (both are mostly empty at the moment---a lot like my keeping up with this blog :)).

Ava:

A few different times now that I have picked her up from preschool, one of her teachers walks her out to the car and just completely dotes on her..."Ava is such a good girl, she listens so well, she is just so adorable I could eat her (please don't), she is just so much fun I just wanna take her home (we can maybe schedule that)", etc. I feel myself blush a little when I hear how awesome someone else thinks MY child is, and a little proud to hear that she listens so well to other adults. She IS pretty awesome.


The fact that she came up with "What in tarnation?" all on her own.

She is already starting to refer to her daddy as "father". Perhaps one of my favorites. Our random conversation at breakfast the other day..."Mommy, remember when father bought me a train for the Christmas tree." And last night before bed, "I wish father were here."

She has no fear. Something that as a mother I wish she had a LITTLE bit of, but it still proves her awesomeness. She was the 1 yr old, climbing the highest slide by herself at the park. She is the 3 yo gymnast who does flips on the bar, with praise from her gymnastic teacher about being fearless. She is the preschooler, who asks her mommy to drop her off at the curb. She wants to walk in all by herself. She is Miss Independent, that's for sure!

I love the way she can walk into a room and make friends with everyone there! She LOVES to socialize, and is always trying to plan out our day. I love that she is so outgoing! She takes after her father on that one!

Always says at random times of the day, "I love you mommy". "Logan, I love you" or "I love daddy/father." "I love grammy/grandpa", etc. She is a very thoughtful little girl, full of love. Basically, she is awesome!


Logan:

Started saying daddy right around a year, maybe even earlier (told you Im not good at writing this stuff down). Said mommy right around 16 months, also about the same time he started saying daggy instead of daddy. I LOVE IT!

Has no problem tackling his sissy in a tutu or princess dress (see picture below).

He will try to repeat just about everything you say, and if he doesn't he just laughs...like as if to laugh at you for even suggesting he say that! (I know what you are thinking, age appropriate right? Well if you heard him say elmo you'd understand! His voice deepens, and he puts special emphasis on the oooo. I'll have to post a video of all his words. I know its something all kids do, but watching a baby learn to talk is just plain awesome!

Has been known to climb on top the counters, the highchair, back of the toilet, back of the couch, back of the chair...he climbs so much, I'm pretty sure he is part monkey...or maybe that's just "all boy".

When he does climb on something he shouldn't, I know this because its always followed by him saying "tada"! I have turned around after hearing "tada" only to find him standing on the top slat of the kitchen chair, on top of his highchair tray, and standing on the back of the toilet while I was in the shower! He is for sure going to give me a heart attack! "Tada" also means, "I just put ketchup in my hair", "I just put ketchup in sissy's hair", "I climbed on top of the bathroom counter and knocked down all of mommy's makeup, and now I'm wearing it", etc. Basically, "tada" is like "uhoh" only 1000 times worse. haha

He is very sweet and caring. After watching my friend Mary with her baby, he now will sit and rock a baby doll in his elmo chair and "burp" the baby. He loves babies! One good thing about him being around so many girls, he is gonna be an AWESOME boyfriend and one day husband and father. Yes, I can tell this at only 17 months. As wild and crazy as he can be, he has such a gentle soul. Basically, he is awesome!



Stay tuned to vote for my awesome kids, after I enter them in the gap kids casting call! Its not that I think my kids are the cutest kids ever and will hands down win, its that they have no clothes that fit them and there is a 1000 dollar shopping spree on the line. So please, even if you don't think they are cute, come back and vote for them, so that they might have clothes to keep them warm in the winter! :) Thanks for reading!

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Babysteps Photography, Lesson 1: The On/off button

Here is what I have learned so far: I won't learn anything unless I turn the camera on! I started out reading all these "learn how" websites (which I will continue to do knowing me), only turning the camera on to see how the heck everything actually applied to my camera. And, I'm pretty sure the manual is written in a foreign language. :) I have learned a good lesson so far, the manual and the websites won't do me any good unless I just turn the camera on and start snapping away! So I did! And my husband has participated as well (I will admit a bit of jealousy cause he seems to know a lot more than I do and his pictures look better than mine!) Bear with me, as I just uploaded over 400 pictures to my computer!!! We have had a great couple of weeks to capture--The Great LaPorte County Fair and even a little mini family getaway for a friend's wedding. Here is a sweet pic of my little man (courtesy of Images.by.Chris) to keep you entertained while I make my way through editing the other 400 some pictures! :) MMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmm, ice cream!