Day 106 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

Today I snagged all nominations for the Mother Of The Year award. We woke up early, had a nice breakfast (which Wildman ate with a spoon instead of his hands), got dressed and made it to the park with plenty of time to spare. He had a blast playing and we picked up lunch before coming home to a short nap before physical therapy.

Day 105 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

With the addition of my new reflector, my favorite model showed up to have some pictures taken. Usually he just fakes like he is going to have his picture taken then bolts out of the frame before I get the shot. Today he actually humored me by being still for awhile.

Day 104 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

Part of today's activities included moving around my backdrop stand and discovering my long lost metallic reflector. Sometimes it pays to do some spring cleaning.

Day 103 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

Today was cold! But in anticipation of the warmer weather headed our way this weekend, my neighbor has uncovered his pool. As my husband can attest I have mixed feelings about pools in backyards. My irrational side thinks they are death traps waiting to snare my toddler. But on the other hand, how nice would it be to be able to take your kid into the backyard and let them burn off all that excess energy. The naps afterward would be phenomenal!

Day 102 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

When you have a kid they like to leave you "gifts" in weird places. Some kids like to hide things in your purse, your pocket, or in your bed. My kid likes to leave things in my shower. He better be glad that I looked down before I turned the water on.

Day 101 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

Poor little gummi bears. So tiny and tasty.

These lucky guys ended up not getting eaten because I decided to use them as models. So I lined them up and photographed them from a zillion angles and once I was done I threw them in the trash. Not the most dignified of burials but far better than being eaten.

Day 100 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

Day 100!!!!! Woohooo. Today my husband and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary. Since the traditional gift for the 6th anniversary is candy, we took a mini-day trip to Havre de Grace, MD and visited Bomboy's Homemade Candy. It was like heaven to Wildman - who we had to drag alone for lack of a babysitter. We then walked down to the pier, hung out until we thought we were going to get rained on, then headed back to the car. While down at the pier Wildman spotted some dandelions and wanted to play with them. Since dandelions are part of my logo I knew I had to snag some pics. The day was finished off with my favorite food - PIZZA for lunch, and lobster for dinner!

Day 99 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

And this was the next step. Being as though Wildman is completely fascinated with doors, we had to remove the sliding doors off his closet. He would literally get up at 3am and go bang the closet doors back and forth. Now they are gone. If it takes this much to out smart him at 2, what the heck am I going to do when he's a teenager????????

P.S. I am now using the closet in his room as a secondary closet. Obviously all his clothes are not going to fit into this tiny thing.

Day 98 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

This is the next step in our never ending bed time saga. The wall to the left is a shared wall with the closet to our master bedroom. As a result we hear lots of kicking and banging when someone doesn't want to go to sleep. So to out smart our toddler I had to move the bad several inches off the wall. Now before he can go to bed I have to drag out a bookshelf, a toy basket, a kitchen, and then move the bed of the wall. Fun times...

Day 97 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

This is not a joke. This is my actual fish sandwich from McDonald's. It is actual proof that the country is in a recession. Someone at this fine establishment has taken to dividing the sliced cheese in half (and apparently by hand!). So to that I say "McDonald's if you are going to give me half a slice of cheese then please drop your pricing accordingly." I will stalk my mailbox impatiently waiting for my 12.5 cent refund.

Day 96 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

As always if you are just joining my blog please visit this page for an explanation of this series.

This image to me symbolizes a big issue that I know I can't be the only one having. You get so busy with feeding your child, dressing your child, keeping your child from tearing the house apart, and you look at the clock and it's late in the afternoon. You then have to think back carefully over the day and figure out if you've fed yourself, finished dressing yourself, or even had a moment to breathe.

Day 95 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

As always if you are just joining my blog please visit this page for an explanation of this series.

Today's image is yet another swing at adding Wildman to my series. And for future reference, the "selves" that are dressed alike are the same self having a conversation or in this case a difference of opinions.

Day 94 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

It was a love at first sight. They were yellow, they had monkeys, and they were rain boots. No words had to be exchanged, they were coming home with us.

Day 93 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

So here's my confession. I missed some days of photos. Whoops! But guess what? The show goes one. I'll just pick up right where I left off and keep going. It's my Project 365 - I'll do what I want!

On this lovely day, I actually was able to get up, get dressed, and grab my camera before my son even thought about getting out of bed. So I did what any loving mother/photographer would do. I busted in there and starting snapping pictures, using my bounce flash--of course. After a few flash bursts, (which were mercifully pointed at the ceiling) he started to wake up and wonder what was going on.

Good times, good times.

Day 92 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

If you are just joining the blog please see Day 74 for the explanation of this series.

And here is the finished project. He was less than cooperative, but it "sort of" works. You can't really tell but I'm attempting to change his diaper. I will probably reshoot this image and try to make that more clear. At least I achieved this week's goal of having the people interact more so score one for me. And as a total side note, look how great my legs look! :-)

Day 91 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

So this picture is one of my set ups for my thesis project. I am trying to add Wildman to the some of the photos (without much success). There are a lot of moving parts to these photo shoots and they often require at least some part of an outfit change and all of the other "elements" have to stay in their exact position so that I can merge the two photos together. So you see how this could be a problem when you add a 2 year old!

This image is pretty typical of what happens. He looks directly into the camera and poses. Oy Vey!

Day 90 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

So my family came to town and one of their favorite restaurants is The Cheesecake Factory. There is literally a Cheesecake Factory 7 minutes from my house but some how we ended up on an adventure and went to one that was over an hour away. Oh well, stranger things have happened. Now on to something strange.

For Day 90 I took two pictures with my phone. One was a picture of my silverware, and I was going to make some witty commentary about how we use plastic all the time and blah, blah, blah. Then I got my chocolate cake and I took a picture of the whipped cream because it was just so perfect. What I do not remember taking was this picture that is now posted for Day 90. Like I said... stranger things...

Whoops!

Gotta get ready to pick the munchkin up from daycare. I will finish updating when I return. So if you're here now, don't forget to come back again later.

Day 89 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

If you are new to my blog you might want to start with this post.

I'm thinking of titling this one "Who's Watching The Kids?" It is a play on having kids vs. not having kids. But even the self who is supposed to be the Mother is actually daydreaming with the bubbles.

This week my challenge was to bring into play an overlapping of "selves" both literally and figuratively. You will notice that there is only one clothing item swapped out between the two. This gives you a clue that the selves are closer than my other images where they are dressed completely different.

Day 88 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

His first encounter with "Baby" was when I was loading approximately 8000 pictures from my external drive into iPhoto. I then played him a slideshow that featured even the most mundane moments of his life, caught on camera. Every time he saw his newborn self on the screen he would yell "Baby!" and thus "Baby" was born.

Now he will sit at my desk and happily take picture after picture of himself, posing all the while. My Mom joked that he is better at using the computer than she is!

Day 87 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

I admit it. It's my fault. I'm a photographer, I'm a student. I spend the majority of my time working on the computer. Add to that checking a few message boards and writing some emails--and the message being sent to my two year old is very clear. The computer is amazing! You must spend at least part of your day banging a keyboard and clicking a mouse. And so he does. So much so that I revamped my original clam shell iBook for him to use. Well, that worked out great until he discovered Photo Booth on my 27" iMac, who I lovingly call "Big Daddy" and who he calls "Baby."

Day 86 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

This image is another from my Mom-me series. It is visual representation of an internal conversation. When you are at home with a toddler you often find yourself talking aloud. Sometimes it is to them to engage in the conversation, and sometimes it's to yourself--just to have another adult to talk with.

Day 85 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

So this is about how you do something and somewhere inside there is a "you" when you were younger that would have never been caught dead doing that particular thing. It is the latest in the Mom-me series. My instructor wanted me to try out having both me's in the same outfit and interacting with each other. I don't think I like it as much as the different outfits but I had to at least give it a try.

Day 84 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

Happy Easter! Welcome to the celebration of the 1st Annual Empty Easter Egg Hunt. Monkey Man & Wildman had a blast finding the eggs in the backyard. Wildman ended up with this super cool airplane basket that didn't belong to him because M was only interested in finding the eggs that were made to look like sports balls. Fun was had by all and Wildman got to work on his all-terrain walking. Look at him, he's a trooper!

Day 83 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

BFFs in the making, whether they like it or not. So Bex & Monkey Man came to visit us over the Easter Holiday. Monkey Man & Wildman took awhile to warm up to each other but other than a few fall outs (and a in tandem tantrum) they did really well together. On this day we went to the what we are titling "THE WORLD'S TINIEST ZOO". If you have never been to the Brandywine Zoo in Delaware, don't worry, you aren't missing much. If you try hard enough you can stand at the front gate and throw a rock and hit the back of the zoo. But the boys didn't seem to care as long as there was candy involved.

Day 82 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

When the weather permits my husband takes Wildman out for a walk before dinner. He loves going on the adventures with Daddy and Mommy loves having the house to herself for the 10-15 minutes that they are gone. I took this picture because I want him to remember how much he was loved by his father. In today's black family the father figure is disappearing. I am so happy that my child is able to grow up with a positive role model right in our home.

Day 81 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

Introducing... Dr. Evil, our cat. After a looonnnng stay at my sister's house and a brief stay at Shari's house. Dr. Evil is finally settling into our new home. Having a pet is like having a second child. I forgot how I did NOT miss changing a litter box, keeping up with pet food, and replenishing the water dish with bottled water (which is a taste he developed at my sister's house).

Day 80 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

Up until now the one thing that was missing from our house was the family table (and the crumbs on said table). My husband and I had gone for so long with out one that we forgot how important it could be. But with our toddler hopping up from his tiny table every time we turned our back-- it was time. Since buying it we have fallen in love with the table. Siting down to have conversations, eat as a family, or just hanging out. There are many articles that describe how important it is to eat together as a family so I won't bore you with the statistics, but if you have gotten away from this tradition - maybe it's time to bring it back.

Day 79 - Natasha King Photography - Project 365

Spring has sprung! So that means that in addition to warm weather, I get to sneeze my nose off, itch my eyes out, and breathe through my mouth. Then I noticed that the Wild One was walking around grabbing his nose and breathing really loudly. It took awhile for the light bulb to go off that maybe the pollen was bothering him too. So a quick trip to the local pharmacy and a bottle of saline is now our new best friend. Happy Spring.