Our Christmas Card

Here is our Christmas card this year. I am sending it out to our closest friends this year as we could only get so many this year so here is the card for everyone to see.

Playing with Light

So I played with light last night. It is one of the days of inspiration and I wanted it to be creative. You tell me if I got creative enough.

Youth

So here is my post for the theme youth. My nephew was in a Thanksgiving Program at school and of course I took Jack with me. If you don't know this already Jack is my D200's name.

Self Centered

Day before yesterday was the inspiration day of self centered. Since I couldn't think of anything, I ran a bath. This was my self centered moment. And just so you know, that is juice in the glass. I'm to poor for wine. lol.

The Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List

A great friend of mine sent me a link to this so I am posting it here as we are homeschoolers too and I really felt like this applies.

The Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List

By Deborah Markus, from Secular Homeschooling Magazine, Issue #1, Fall 2007, and thanks to Tweetey for sending this list to me.

*1 - Please stop asking us if it's legal. If it is — and it is — it's insulting to imply that we're criminals. And if we were criminals, would we admit it?

*2 - Learn what the words "socialize" and "socialization" mean, and use the one you really mean instead of mixing them up the way you do now. Socializing means hanging out with other people for fun. Socialization means having acquired the skills necessary to do so successfully and pleasantly. If you're talking to me and my kids, that means that we do in fact go outside now and then to visit the other human beings on the planet, and you can safely assume that we've got a decent grasp of both concepts.

*3 - Quit interrupting my kid at her dance lesson, scout meeting, choir practice, baseball game, art class, field trip, park day, music class, 4H club, or soccer lesson to ask her if as a homeschooler she ever gets to socialize.

*4 - Don't assume that every homeschooler you meet is homeschooling for the same reasons and in the same way as that one homeschooler you know.

*5 - If that homeschooler you know is actually someone you saw on TV, either on the news or on a "reality" show, the above goes double.

*6 - Please stop telling us horror stories about the homeschoolers you know, know of, or think you might know who ruined their lives by homeschooling. You're probably the same little bluebird of happiness whose hobby is running up to pregnant women and inducing premature labor by telling them every ghastly birth story you've ever heard. We all hate you, so please go away.

*7 - We don't look horrified and start quizzing your kids when we hear they're in public school. Please stop drilling our children like potential oil fields to see if we're doing what you consider an adequate job of homeschooling.

*8 - Stop assuming all homeschoolers are religious.

*9 - Stop assuming that if we're religious, we must be homeschooling for religious reasons.

*10 - We didn't go through all the reading, learning, thinking, weighing of options, experimenting, and worrying that goes into homeschooling just to annoy you. Really. This was a deeply personal decision, tailored to the specifics of our family. Stop taking the bare fact of our being homeschoolers as either an affront or a judgment about your own educational decisions.

*11 - Please stop questioning my competency and demanding to see my credentials. I didn't have to complete a course in catering to successfully cook dinner for my family; I don't need a degree in teaching to educate my children. If spending at least twelve years in the kind of chew-it-up-and-spit-it-out educational facility we call public school left me with so little information in my memory banks that I can't teach the basics of an elementary education to my nearest and dearest, maybe there's a reason I'm so reluctant to send my child to school.

*12 - If my kid's only six and you ask me with a straight face how I can possibly teach him what he'd learn in school, please understand that you're calling me an idiot. Don't act shocked if I decide to respond in kind.

*13 - Stop assuming that because the word "home" is right there in "homeschool," we never leave the house. We're the ones who go to the amusement parks, museums, and zoos in the middle of the week and in the off-season and laugh at you because you have to go on weekends and holidays when it's crowded and icky.

*14 - Stop assuming that because the word "school" is right there in homeschool, we must sit around at a desk for six or eight hours every day, just like your kid does. Even if we're into the "school" side of education — and many of us prefer a more organic approach — we can burn through a lot of material a lot more efficiently, because we don't have to gear our lessons to the lowest common denominator.

*15 - Stop asking, "But what about the Prom?" Even if the idea that my kid might not be able to indulge in a night of over-hyped, over-priced revelry was enough to break my heart, plenty of kids who do go to school don't get to go to the Prom. For all you know, I'm one of them. I might still be bitter about it. So go be shallow somewhere else.

*16 - Don't ask my kid if she wouldn't rather go to school unless you don't mind if I ask your kid if he wouldn't rather stay home and get some sleep now and then.

*17 - Stop saying, "Oh, I could never homeschool!" Even if you think it's some kind of compliment, it sounds more like you're horrified. One of these days, I won't bother disagreeing with you any more.

*18 - If you can remember anything from chemistry or calculus class, you're allowed to ask how we'll teach these subjects to our kids. If you can't, thank you for the reassurance that we couldn't possibly do a worse job than your teachers did, and might even do a better one.

*19 - Stop asking about how hard it must be to be my child's teacher as well as her parent. I don't see much difference between bossing my kid around academically and bossing him around the way I do about everything else.

*20 - Stop saying that my kid is shy, outgoing, aggressive, anxious, quiet, boisterous, argumentative, pouty, fidgety, chatty, whiny, or loud because he's homeschooled. It's not fair that all the kids who go to school can be as annoying as they want to without being branded as representative of anything but childhood.

*21 - Quit assuming that my kid must be some kind of prodigy because she's homeschooled.

*22 - Quit assuming that I must be some kind of prodigy because I homeschool my kids.

*23 - Quit assuming that I must be some kind of saint because I homeschool my kids.

*24 - Stop talking about all the great childhood memories my kids won't get because they don't go to school, unless you want me to start asking about all the not-so-great childhood memories you have because you went to school.

*25 - Here's a thought: If you can't say something nice about homeschooling, shut up!

Today is Nature

And here are my pictures, I sure have really enjoyed just pulling my camera out for this. I am hoping that I will be adding some of my sessions from this week on here as well. So for my nature here is a sunburst not done as well as my friend Renee, and my nuts that I found in my tree. I sure thought the squirrels had cleaned us out. But I guess not.

Real Life and Content

So my friend is doing 30 days of inspiration and I am coming in a little behind (I think two days behind but I will try to post some of this on here. Yesterday was real life so here is Faith having a breathing treatment. Today is Content. So my post for Content is my Aimee who was content to sleep. I know I have tons of pictures of them sleeping but I tell you, it's the easiest way to take their pictures.

These are green channel conversions in photoshop. What do you think?

We are all sick!

But we are getting better. After the miscarriage we all got sick and have been fighting it for about 2 weeks. But it is finally getting better. Here are my poor sick kids tortured yesterday when we had to wait for my husband John at his discogram. It didn't show anything so we are back to square one. We are getting ready to do a spinal cord stimulator. We will post how it goes. Here are the pictures that we took yesterday. I really felt that it was therapeutic to take some pictures. I feel like I really haven't gotten to do it for fun in a while so this was nice.

Aimee's M & M's

Faith's leaf she found me.

Aimee checkin out a car coming into the parking lot.

Faith and her usual pose for me.

The girls were by a fence that had dogs on the other side. They really got startled for a moment.

Our news and some more pictures

Well I am sad to say that we had a miscarriage this week. We lost our new baby. We are very sad but we know that GOD has a plan for us and even though we can't see it we know he is taking care of us and he knows whats best.

With that said I have pictures of some planes I took over the last weekend before our sadness and just some recent shots while we are moving through this. I feel like it helps me to take pictures so I hope to take tons within the next few weeks to help me get through our loss.

Blessings to all of you who read this.

Another one of Gabe. The camera just loves his big eyes!

Little Faces Photography Website



My friend Tiff and her beautiful family:


The blue angels at the airshow we went to last weekend:
My birthday flower from my best bosses Tammy and Freda, I love you both so much!
My try with my black backround paper, had to do a lot of burning so I know I am doing something wrong.
And the bible verse that is getting me through this week:
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hears and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4: 6-7

Some old shots I forgot to Post

Okay so I took these a while back while I was driving, and I know what your gonna say, but I was stuck in traffic and you can see that my following distance was very big.

My Faith and her home haircut

Well my oldest Faith is 4 and she decided that she is big enough to cut her own hair. It didn't turn out so hot and we had to go to a salon to get it fixed. Here is the before and after. It is kinda growing on me though I sure do miss her long hair.


She is still my beautiful baby.

One of my Fav babies to Photograph

This is Gabriel, I have posted him before because he is too cute!

We are...

Pregnant! Baby number three tentatively due on June 7th. Praise the Lord, we are grateful for this blessing. To update anyone who actually reads this. My husband John is still disabled and we are just working our way through it. We have been blessed so far to be able to keep our house. With a failed back surgery at our backs and not sure what is next before us we are just relying on GOD to take care of us. He has done an amazing job so far.

We have more tests for John here in the near future but as of today he is not hurting too bad from some injections he had yesterday. We were able to go to the mall yesterday and walk around. Something he can't normally do. Pray that they find what is wrong soon.

We are blessed and content to know we are taken care of.

Thanks for reading this.
Tiarra

My Mobile Business Card

So I got my car wrapped. Hopefully I can scare up some business this way. Please note I am a terrible product photographer. I love it and it looks better in person than on here but this is the best I could do. I am trying to work on my brand and my advertising so look out world here I come!@

Just a few

I have been really busy lately so I have to say I have slacked off on pictures. Business is slow even though it shouldn't be. Oh well. Here are my pictures for today:



And my Aimee

I finally finished!

I finished MLKstudios class and I am so happy! Here is my diploma, followed by the pictures I took for the last lesson. I also bought me a logo and decided to change things up on here. So no more brown. Hope you all like it, though I do feel like I am copying my fav blogger Ellen. I hope to add some things to make this more my own!

Notice this one at the top, I got my new logo and I was playing around, I really love this picture of my Faith and I am gonna get it BIG! This was my portraiture photo.
My Landscape
Architecture
This is my Aimee all sad. I chose this one for my journalism shot.

just like this one. Would love to know what you think.

More fireworks, and of course another Sleeping Beauty

I know that I have posted fireworks this year, but Hurst (where we live) had cancelled their fireworks (the original fireworks post was from Pittsburgh tx) and they had their show on Labor day! So I had the oppourtunity to take more fireworks pictures. I think that I am getting pretty good at this fireworks thing. But Ellen, seeing as how you are like the only person who looks at this. You can tell me what you think.

And of course another image of my baby sleeping. I just love her lashes and I am happy to say that this couch was thrown out and a white leather one from Good will took its place. You sure can't beat a love seat and a sofa for $75!

My Best Friend came back

My Best friend who has been missing for 2 years came back to see me. Good thing I still live in the same place. She came back with this cute little girl that she was more than happy to let me photograph. I just love her she is so cute.

Here are the ones that I got. Talk to you later Ellen since your the only one who visits!