Rock Star Babes, okay, maybe not

So, this is how my teaching partner, Holly and myself dressed for Halloween this morning at the preschool. Yeah, kind of scary, I know. I think we decided that our band name was "Hearts Aflame" or something lame like that. My name was Sasha. If you think this is scary, you should have seen two of the other 4 year old teachers. They were dressed like members of the band Kiss. Seriously. At a preschool. I kind of like being a blonde.

The Bridge

I'm a little late posting about this. Many of my other blogger friends have already told you about this.

Anyway, a group of amazing kids from Kenya came to Lake Jackson over the weekend. They are a group of orphans and vulnerable children who are sharing their love of God through song and dance. They are with a group call The Daraja Children's Choir. Daraja means bridge in Swahili. (I think it's Swahili...it's Swahili, right?) They came to our church and it was just incredible. There aren't words. Their joy is infectious. As I heard their stories and watched them sing and dance I just couldn't keep the tears from coming.

I had the honor of meeting three of the young ladies the day they came in at the Stunz's house. I went over with the boys for a little visit. The girls, Marci, Rahab, and Gladys loved playing with Mikey's floppy hair. They were really interested in knowing more about his adoption. They wanted to know what happened to his mother. They wanted to know when we would talk to him about being adopted. Hard questions. I didn't want to leave that night. Jackson didn't want to leave either. He asked me on the way out to the car if he could stay and spend the night. There's just something about being around these children that is just indescribable. You can just feel the presence of God when you are around them. It's like their love of God is not snuffed out by all of the other junk of life. I think in many of our lives, you can maybe see a glimmer of Jesus every now and then. With these kids it is just an ever present radiance that they carry. I want that. I don't know how to get that.

Randy spoke on Sunday about injustice. That is one passionate man! He spoke about the orphan and the widow and the hungry. How are we helping? We can't try to solve every bit of injustice, but we need to do something. And what am I doing? Just doing what I can to keep my own life rolling along most of the time. I have such a heart for kids, especially kids who are orphaned. I have an ache lately to adopt another child, maybe a little bit older child. I know adopting one child doesn't help the many and it doesn't really solve any global problem. But it does help the one. Adoption is rescue but it is so much more than that. Seeing these Kenyan children, many of whom are orphans, just made this desire to adopt again even stronger. Adopting from Kenya or any other country is not realistic for us at this point. There are many orphans right here in our county. There are orphans who nobody wants because of their age or race or abilities or past. They are unwanted because of the label put on them on paper. If we ever were to adopt again, Phillip and I would have to be unified in this desire. We're not there yet. We may never be there. Maybe I'm just living with my head in the clouds. Maybe it's not right for us right now. Maybe our family is complete. I'm not sure what our part is or how we should act. I guess we need to pray. We may not have a lot to give financially at this point in our lives. We do have abundant love to give. This is not meant to be a guilt trip aimed at Phillip or anyone unsure about adoption. It's just where my heart is right now. I don't know how to make it go away.

These children from Kenya touched so many while they were here. I think their presence here stirred something in everyone who encountered them. For me, they boosted my desire to adopt. For others, the desire is to give financially. Others will feel the need to go on an overseas mission trip. Many people are changed from meeting these kids. I hope we won't let it fade. I hope we will seize the desires put in our hearts and know how to make sense of them. I hope we will seek and find our individual ways to act.

I'm lazy at relationships

I'm kind of a passive friend at times. I'm one of those friends that you have to make an effort to be friends with. I'm sure at times it's not worth it and I totally understand. I'm not good at remembering birthdays, inviting people over, or needing to hang out regularly. If I've got two or three people I'm deeply connected with, that's great. I don't feel the need to have a huge circle of friends. But I do have a lot of friends who I really don't stay in contact with all that much. These are people that I genuinely love and miss being around. It just seems that there aren't enough hours in the day to actively pursue deep friendships and I'm just simply not interested in the surface level stuff. And so that's partly why I blog. I know that I can sit down in about 10 minutes and tell all that's going on in my life and whoever wants to read it, can. Then hopefully I won't have to tell everyone who cares about what's going on because they'll already know. Saves time. So occasionally I come across a friend or family member who asks me how I've been and what's been going on. My first thought is to tell them to read my blog. And I get annoyed that they don't read it. If they had a blog, I would add it to my feed reader and read every new post. I want to say, "Well, if you actually care what's going on, then read my blog." That's very lazy of me. So if I've ever said this to you, I'm sorry. I take for granted that other people aren't wired the way that I am. Some people need to sit down and have conversations over coffee or whatever. And I like that too I just don't have time to sit down with everyone regularly. I'm cool with writing about my life and reading about yours and hoping that will keep us connected on some level. That's probably not the way to try to have relationships with people.

Jackson unleashed

Jackson now has his own computer. He has my hand me down imac. Now that he has his own computer, he has decided to start his own blog. He made his first post a little while ago. What you see on his blog is dictated by him and typed by me or Phillip. We will try to get him to post several times a week. Should be interesting. We will pretty much type exactly what he says. He has a poll on there right now for you to take a look at.

We're thinking it wold be best to prompt him with questions about stuff from time to time. So if you have any questions that you would like answered by Jackson, post your question in his comments section. It will have to be stuff on a six year old level and you should expect a six year old answer. We'll probably get him to define words occasionally or tell a story or just different stuff. So if you have any ideas, just let him know. Just keep it clean and keep it on his level. He's pretty bright but he's a first grader.

24" imac

I just got a new computer. It's awesome. That is all.

Jackson: sensitive and demanding

A week or so ago I was looking at the pictures I took of the boys out at Varner Hogg. Jackson came in and wanted to look at the pictures too. We got to a few of Mikey. I said something like,"Aren't we so glad that we have a Mikey?" ....or something along those lines. Anyway, Jackson's eyes welled up with tears and he nodded. I asked him if he was crying and he said, "I just love Mikey so much and I'm glad he's here.".....or something along those lines. We both just sat there with tears in our eyes looking at pictures of two brothers put together by a God who knows exactly what he's doing.


Flip the coin over.


This morning I was asking Jackson what he wanted for breakfast. I gave him a couple of choices, one of which was pizza. I know, pizza for breakfast, what a way to start your day. Anyway, he said he wanted pizza. A little while later I started fixing their breakfast and I wasn't really thinking about what I was doing. I fixed him a waffle and told him to sit down and eat. He looked at his plate with a look of disgust and said, "I ordered pizza." A few minutes later after he started eating his "order" I heard him yell from the other room, "Where's my drink?!"

Now I lay me down to sleep

I found out about the non-profit organization NILMDTS or Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep today. I didn't know this kind of thing existed. This is an organization that pairs professional photographers with families who have just lost a baby or know that they will be loosing a baby soon. The photographer captures the moments that the family has with their little one in the hospital or in their home. It is totally voluntary and the photographer gives the family a CD of their images for free. When I found out about this I knew I had to try to volunteer. I filled out a request this afternoon to be a part of this. I got an approval e-mail a little while ago. Needless to say this would be extremely difficult for anyone to do. And I will be no exception. But I can't not do this. I know first hand how precious those moments are. I'm really glad I found out about this.

Made it through day one

Today was super easy at the preschool. I put a few pictures on my photoblog if you care to look. I'll be posting more tomorrow and the next day.

Busy few days

Today, Wednesday, and Thursday I will be taking school pictures for a preschool in Angleton. I got this gig from a photographer who used to live nearby but has since moved to the Houston area. It's a pretty big deal for me. I'll be photographing over 100 kids and the school staff. It will all be outdoors because I don't have (and don't want) a studio set up. I'm also offering some slots on Thursday afternoon/evening for people to come back for sibling or family shots. I sent home waivers for parents to sign so I'm hoping I'll have lots of new faces for my photo blog and website. I'm offering packages that they have *hopefully* preselected prior to seeing their picture. I'll snap a few of each kid and only edit my favorite and that will be their package picture. I thought about doing the proof thing and ordering after the fact but decided against it. I need this to go well. I'm a little worried because I'm coming down with a cold kind of thing and I'm loosing my voice again.

Next week I'm doing the same kind of thing at a daycare in L.J. That will be more kids in one day. I'm hoping to establish relationships with these two facilities so they will contact me in the future for their pictures. I'm also planning on sending out flyers to every preschool in L.J., Clute, and Freeport.

So I guess we'll see how it goes. I think I'll wear my lucky flip flops.

True Humanitarians

I saw this on a friend's blog and thought you might like to see it. I think you will be truly touched by their act of good will. These guys will grab your heart. I bet these boys are a handful.



So, yeah, not quite sure what to make of this. I will steer clear of boy scouts from now on.

Soon and very soon

My current computer needs to be replaced...bad. It was a great computer when we got it however many years ago. It's an imac of some sort. I'm not even going to attempt to tell you anything specific about it because I have no idea. All I know is that's it's barely able to function anymore. I've got a lot of stuff running on it. Photo editing takes me easily twice as long as it should because of this thing. The "spinning circle of death" is my worst enemy right now. So the plan is to replace this sucker some time in November or December. I'll be getting one of the new 13" macbooks and a new monitor. I'll also be getting the latest version of photoshop and aperture. I was really hoping to upgrade some of my camera equipment but the computer situation is more dire. I still might be able to upgrade the camera anyway. It just depends on how the next couple of months goes with the business. My current camera is fine but that doesn't make me want an upgrade any less. I've really never been much of an accumulator until this photography thing happened.

Jackson knows that when I get a new computer, this current computer will become his. For a 6 year old to have his own mac is pretty cool, I think. Once I get all my stuff off of it, Phillip's going to reformat it or something. I'm seriously totally inept when it comes to technical computer jargon....sorry Phillip. I told Jackson yesterday that I will be getting a new computer soon and he was pretty excited. He decided it would be an even better idea if he gets the new computer and I just keep using the one that I have. He says that he needs a laptop so he can take it with him wherever he goes. Dream on, kid. So we'll set him up with his own desk and stuff in the office. He will be able to go to http://www.hasbro.com/starwars to his heart's content. Actually, his internet time will be closely supervised and limited and all that unfun stuff.

I'm getting pretty busy lately. I've got the next seven Saturdays booked or partially booked and some other days sprinkled here and there. I'm afraid I'm going to get a Christmas rush soon and I'm hoping I don't have to turn people away. I guess that would be a nice problem to have. I've also got six wedding gigs between now and February. Only two of those weddings are actually my bookings. I'll be second shooting on the others for a local wedding photographer. That is a great way for me to get wedding experience without the pressure of perfection.

Mikey just woke up so that means my day has officially begun. It won't officially end until around 11:00 p.m. I better get started.

The dog needs a bath

Scott has probably gained about 8 lbs. since we got him. Every time Mikey is in his highchair Scott sits right there next to it waiting to gobble up anything Mikey drops or throws. The dog will eat pretty much anything. Since he does this he often gets food dropped or thrown on top of him. We have found taco meat stuck in his fur, chicken nugget pieces, bread.... He's got a glob of dried yogurt stuck in his fur right now. That happened yesterday and I haven't had a chance to bathe him yet. Scott is starting to get pretty fat. I used to take him on regular walks but since they've been working on our street I haven't been doing that. I don't want him tracking dirt and mud in the house. Once the street construction is done, Scott needs to start exercising and loose some of that gut.

I've got a hankering

BTW, I did not take this photograph. You can click on the picture to follow the link to this person's flickr page.

Canon AE-1
Originally uploaded by Jumbo Jack

I would like to get a film camera. I think it would be fun to play around with. I was watching Spiderman and Peter Parker was using a film camera. This is one that would be pretty cool. I just think it's cute and I'm sure it can take pretty good pictures if you know what you're doing. This particular Canon film camera does not use the same kind of lenses that I currently have. If I get a film camera, I'll most likely get one of the older model Canon EOS Elans or something.

The problem is that if I got one and took a roll of film with it, then I would have no idea what to actually do with the film. Processing film at our house is not really going to be a possibility. I guess it kind of defeats the purpose of having one of these if you can't process the film yourself. Can you still take film to Target?

I guess spending $200 on a toy isn't very practical. I guess I need to do some more research.

The one for the Christmas card

I guess it's nice to know that I have our Christmas card pictures out of the way. One less thing to worry about. This is the picture of them together. The only one.

Hintze boys fall '08 photo shoot attempt #2

I tried to take some pictures of Jackson and Mikey about a week ago. It did not work out. We tried again this morning and things went much better. Still certainly not the best shoot I've ever had but I'll take it. I think I got one useable picture of the two of them together. Jackson did not feel like cooperating and when he did bother to smile, he looked pretty geeky. And Mikey, well, he was just Mikey. All in all, it was good and I'm glad we gave it a try. Here's a very silly one of Jack. The more I look at it, the scarier it looks.



If you would like to see more, you can go to my photoblog.

To the Mall with Mikey

I went to the Mall this evening with Mikey for about an hour. One hour. I just had to get out of the house. I was feeling totally claustrophobic and tense. I don't really know why I thought going to the Mall with Mikey would ease that. Phillip stayed home and cleaned up the house. We went to the little kid play area. Here is what Mikey accomplished while we were there.

1. Sprinted out of the play area at least 15 times - He runs as fast as he can for as far as he can before I catch him.

2. Tackled another toddler

3. Stole lots of shoes and either ran away with them or threw them randomly

4. Ripped people's bags away from them and threw them

5. Stole a cell phone and ran away with it

6. Got plowed into about three times by very large children - When this happens he basically shakes it off, smiles, and runs away as fast as he can.

7. Stole an unattended drink cup and poured the ice out and proceeded to eat all the ice off of the floor until it was gone

Now keep in mind that I hardly sat down the whole time we were there. This didn't all happen under lackadaisical supervision. I was running all over the place to keep him from or stop him from doing all the things listed above. Now, as gross as it is, I let number 7 slide. Eating someone else's ice off the ground kept him busy enough to not do the other things on the list for about 12 minutes. I think one of these days I need to hire a videographer to follow me around. Someday I might think the whole thing is pretty funny. I don't think I'll try the Mall thing again solo. The problem is that Mikey really needs to get out of the house sometimes. He gets really antsy and bored here. But he's just next to impossible to take anywhere so I'm not quite sure what the answer is. I need to take him to a really big field that's several miles in ever direction and just let him run.

It's a good thing he's cute.

For You

I have to be honest, most of the school work that Jackson brings home ends up filed away in the trash can. I know that probably makes me a horrible mother and I'm okay with that. He brings home 5-10 papers every school day and I just don't know what else to do with them. But occasionally he makes something worth saving.



Look how lovely. In the first picture the man is saying "for you" and handing the other man something. It better not be a honeycrisp apple he's handing him. We don't share those with our friends. I'll have to ask Jackson about that. In the second picture the man is punching the other guy's lights out. I suppose those are tears. I'm really glad its tears and not blood.

The message here is "Give to others instead of punching them in the face." If only things were that simple.

Honeycrisp, The best apples on the planet

Honeycrisp apples are back in season. Maybe they have been for a little while but I just noticed. I noticed at H.E.B. last week after I had already checked out and was leaving the store. I considered, for a moment, grabbing them and getting back in line even though Mikey's head was spinning around. Instead I just grabbed a few and ran out of the store without paying. They're that good. I promise. They're worth risking jail time for. Actually, I got my first Honeycrisp apples this season yesterday at Kroger.

Debbie first told me about these apples a year or so ago. The way she was talking about them, it sounded like they were Eden's forbidden fruit or something. I was thinking, "Come on, they're just apples. How good can they possibly be?" Unbelievably good. That's how good.

If you would like to read about genetic fingerprinting and parentage of the Honeycrisp Apples, you can read that here.

And now I'm going to go have a nice breakfast of honeycrisp apple, strawberries, caramel rice cakes, and coffee. Yum.

Made of devil

Jackson has made a pretty good friend at school. They seem to have equal interest in video games and Star Wars. This kid told Jackson that he has a Wii and a Play Station 2 and that his mommy lets him play whenever he wants to. Jackson says that this kid's mommy always says "yes." Well, good for her. That should work out nicely for her.

Anyway, these two have been trying to get together to play video games after school and that hasn't materialized for obvious reasons. Like I don't know this kid's parents and they don't know us. Anyway, today Jackson told us that this kid told him that he actually doesn't have a video game system. Since all Jackson wants to talk about is video games, I guess this kid felt like he had to lie to find some common ground with Jackson. That's kind of sad. But the kicker is that not only did this kid say he had this stuff but doesn't, he also said today that "video games are made of devil." Not of the Devil. But made of devil. So, devil is now an adjective? So, I'm not exactly sure where this leaves their friendship. It seems that this would be a deal breaker for Jackson. Jackson was quick to tell him that video games are not made of devil. You know this kid didn't make this up on his own. This is probably something one of his parents said, which further confirms that Jackson will not be going to their house. As much as Jackson talks about video games, you might think it is all he does when he's at home. He actually only gets to play on Mon, Wed, and Sat for 30 minutes. Occasionally, if friends come over or if he goes to a friend's house he is able to play on a non "video game day."

So, devil has apparently made its way into our home via video games. That stinks.

Toddler

Mikey has now moved from the crib to a toddler bed. I know Phillip thought I was nuts for even thinking about trying to transition him out of his crib yet. I kind of thought I was nuts too but much to our surprise, it's working out great. We just gate him in his room and tell him to go to sleep. After about 30 seconds or so of crying at the gate and then another 15-20 minutes of goofing off in his room, he gets in his bed and goes to sleep. Not too bad. This kid has always slept and ate really well.

Mikey now signs "I love you" when he feels like it. Like everything that he does, he must be in the mood and it must be on his terms. He has mood swings like you would not believe. One minute he can be throwing a huge fit and 10 seconds later he can be laughing and playing. Phillip mentioned that he had a really moody co-worker one time who took some herb to help stabilize his mood. Now I forgot what it was. Maybe I need to get some of whatever it is for Mikey and myself. We're both quite moody.

Just in case you didn't know this by now, Mikey is one of those so called "strong-willed children." My friend, Erin gave me three books to maybe help me have a little insight into how to handle him. I told Jackson that these books might help me learn how to be a better mommy to Mikey. I also tried to explain to Jackson what it means to be strong-willed. Jackson has asked me several times if I have figured anything out yet. All I have figured out so far is that the people who wrote these books are describing Mikey to a T. Yesterday Jackson called Mikey "Strong-willed Mikey." So the challenge will be to form his will without breaking his spirit or something like that. Honestly, sometimes I would settle for breaking his spirit if I could. I hope whatever teachers he's going to have in his life are going to ready for him. It's so funny that I thought Jackson was so obedient because of my wonderful parenting skills. That's just his nature. You could say that Mikey's nature is quite different.

Phillip and I are amazed at the extremes that are in Mikey. He is one of the most beautiful children we have ever seen. And that is balanced out with being one of the most challenging children we have ever encountered. As a photographer, I love having this beautiful little "subject" always around for me to photograph. But taking a good picture of Mikey is like taking a good picture of Big Foot.

Out takes

After photographing those beautiful little girls on Thursday morning I decided to try to get a few shots of my boys together. I thought it would be so nice to have some cute shots of the boys together in their geeky little clothes. What was I thinking?! We were there for about five minutes before Mikey threw himself backwards onto the gravel kicking and screaming. I took 18 pictures before we called it quits. With the girls we had a wonderful, relaxed 2 hour shoot. I took over 200 pictures and had a hard time narrowing it down. With my boys, 5 minutes, 18 not-to-pretty-good pictures. Here are the out takes. I only got out takes. The one of Jackson is cute but it's not really sharp enough and he's being cheesy. If I ever try this again I'll make sure they don't wear white socks.

Pants on fire

Jackson has been lying lately. And it's not even about anything important. He's just been lying about stupid little insignificant stuff. It's like he's testing the waters or something to see if he can get away with fooling me. So far, I've caught him many times.... probably every time. It helps that he's really bad at it. I can't believe my offspring is so bad at this art but I'm glad he is. I wish I could post a picture of his "lying face" so you all could recognize it if you see it. He won't make eye contact first of all, and he kind of shrugs his shoulders a little and twists his head all weird and opens his mouth funny. All of these things are subtle but they're there.

He told my mom some long drawn out story the other night about the four of us and Phillip's parents and brother flying to New York City. He totally had her going until he told her that the bottom of the plane opened up where lots of cars were being stored for people to drive away in. He even told her that we visited the Statue of Liberty and described to her what she looks like. Just now he lied to me about how many kit kats he ate yesterday. I put two in his lunch box and he told me that he just ate one. He won't be getting any kit kats in his lunch today because of it. I just want to say, "Come on, dude! If you're going to lie, make it worth it!!" Right now I'm working on catching him every time. I want him to be totally convinced that I can tell when he's lying. And I plan on taking away video game time or something else every time I catch him at it. I told him that God knows when he's lying and that I know when he's lying and that it really hurts our feelings. This wouldn't bother some kids but Jackson takes the feelings hurting business pretty seriously. I really want him to stop this before it becomes a habit.

So keep your eye out for the look I described. And call him on it. Remind him that he's really bad at lying and he should just give it up and move on to something he's better at.