Well, it’s been a rough road that last month. Lots of ups and downs and something close to an aversion towards blogging. Nothing personal, just too little energy and too much in my head. 

No.1 turned 3

I managed to have two photo sessions. One is already on my blog here. For that session I had the opportunity to try a wonderful lens: 24mm f/1.4G ED AF-S. As I got used to it “Oh” ‘s  and “Ah” ‘s were coming out of me all the time. I was simply in heaven.

My second session was with a pregnant, beautiful mamma and her family. I didn’t have much time to post them on the blog, though.  Will do it shortly.

I have two newborn sessions in front of me so starting tomorrow I am getting back to the hats making mode. 

Last Saturday we came back from Orange County where we had gone for husband’s business trip. We did some sightseeing but mostly just from our car.

We visited my husband friend and his pets

There was a lot of coffee involved

Not as much as I thought of crocheting:

And two nights in hotels. I was very surprised how good our kids dealt with that. 

Before we had left the house we planned the trip so I could see the “Hollywood” sign. I was very excited about that but it actually didn’t happen, and I am not heart broken.

We drove by the place where we suppose to stand in order to see the sign:

but when we got there, there were cars on cars parked on cars. Cars to the left and cars to the right. In addition the kids just fell asleep after a quite long time of screaming. I did not feel like I want to spend my time looking for a parking and then climbing up the hill to see some big letters – and just for that waking up the kids. It felt so good to ride in silence. They wake up pretty soon anyway. Go figure.

At least we stopped to see the “Walk of Fame”. I really enjoyed that. 

I got lucky to find my favorite star within a few minutes from where we get out of the car. 

Then a few more:

And just as we were packing everybody to the car the husband spotted this place:

On the way back we saw a sand storm, or a beginning of one.

Oh… and we finally left our young doggy where she belongs – with a trainer.

and we picked up our Old Lady who during the last year has gotten so old, and blind, an deaf and oh… so disoriented. We got very close to actually not having her, but my crocodile tears had changed it. Not that I did it in purpose, but I just couldn’t stand the vision of not having her back. Simple. 

She still is the very loving and patient dog I remember. She always has been. 

No.1 has already taken good care of the Old Lady.  After a few times of trying to ride the dog we finally told her that the dog is sick (which is not far from the truth at all), so she shouldn’t be doing it anymore. It worked. Now she is very carrying and loving towards the dog. She brings her blankets and pillows. 

We are all happy to have her back. I can’t describe how happy I am. She is back where she belongs! 

warm hugs,  

No.2

is

ONE

YEAR

OLD

This young lady origins from the grumpy kind (my blood).

Very recently she has learned to climb on mom’s bread machine.

She walks like a pro, but sometimes she still prefers to get on four – mostly when she has to keep up with her Big Sis.

She loves to blink at mom and dad. 

She wears sunglasses like a real star. 

And not like her sister, she eats almost anything

She makes a great bunny

and she loves to be her Big Sister’s partner-in-crime – or it’s the other way around… (probably).

This week’s theme for Photo Art Friday is “shadows and/or light”. I’ve missed last few weeks 🙁
I dug out this picture from my archives:

and this one is from few days ago:

I finally finished my shawl, something I wanted to make for a long, long time, but always thought it is too complicated to make. 

And I must share with you those few shots of baby spiders we saw the last weekend. What an awfully great experience 😉 

This is my last post for the 365 Self Portrait Project. 

It was great. It was good. I had ups and I had downs. 

Since I started it I wrote a few essays about this project for:

World Moms Blog: “(Self)Portrait of a Mother(hood)“, and for BonBon Break.

First post for BonBon Break: “Portraits of a Mother” earned me position of Top 5 posts of 2012 which I am really proud of. 

The second one: “ 365 Self-Portrait Project: a Life – changing Resolution“ is a great summary of what this project means to me and how it changed me, at some point. 

I do want to say: THANK YOU to all of you who have been coming back each Friday and leaving me all the great and encouraging comments!!! If not for you I am not sure if I would have finished it. 

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! 

Those last pictures I wanted to be more creative, better, more meaningful… at least to present my thoughts more clearly, but then, as many times before, life happened and I was in a rush or it got too dark, or simply I was not in a mood. 

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Simply Us. 

We were trying to take some romantic photographs for my Valentine’s Day ad for the business, and this is the best shot we ended up with. 

I’ll tell you something: It is darn hard to get romantic with two small kids around. This picture was taken while both our kids were screaming they heads off just because they had to stay on the floor ABANDONED (how dare we!!!) for about 10 minutes.  

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Simply me. 

This project was a bit like getting naked in front of many people. Showing my personal life, day by day, writing about ups and downs, being in my pajamas and without make-up, etc… even though, I have managed to keep most of the drama and all the details of my private life behind the curtains 🙂

So, naked, but not really 🙂

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2012 was a leap year so it was 366 days, that’s why I decided to take one more picture.

I mean, two last pictures:

both pictures have latest Bonnie’s texture “Brown Rice Paper” in them. 

The very last picture had one more layer added to it and it’s this picture:

For all of you who want to: feel free to download it. For the full resolution picture you need to click on it (it must open in a separate window), then click on it again and drag it onto your desktop.  

Once again, thank you all for being here with me and for me! 

Hope to see you around!!! 

Those are my last days of this project. There is only few days left, and I am feeling a little nostalgic about it. It was a tremendous challenge sometimes. Now it is nothing but a pleasure to be able to look back at all those pictures and remember day by day what  I was up to.

It’s been a journey! Really!

There is a few more pictures to be taken and it is not the last post from this series, so I won’t get all nostalgic here… not yet!

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Last Friday it was raining and inspired by some of the pictures my friend took in the rain, I decided to go out and try something with the rain, too. I just got wet, and ended up with an arm’s length  head shot. 🙁

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The next day, on Saturday we left for Christmas. It was raining and I had plenty of opportunities to do some “rain shooting”, although it had to be from the outside of a moving car.

The trip did not go the way we had planned it and at some point we had to stay at a hotel.

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The next day, before getting back on the road we had to run some errands … and while doing it those pictures were taken.

and we hit the road again

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Merry after Christmas, my friends. I hope they were full of joy and happiness.

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Gifts, gifts, and more gifts… not a big fan of this part but, oh well… at least kids were happy!

Later the same day life had gotten very bitter, and while each year I think that my Christmas can not get any worse… the next year it actually gets worse, and worse, and I right now I don’t want to think about the next year.

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Back on the road. This time following the u-hauling husband. 360 miles home with not very happy kids on board.

and while driving I took some pictures of the amazing landscapes are we were passing through.

It wasn’t the first time we were driving those roads but never before I had seen snow there, so I was pretty excited about it. We stopped just to let No.1 to touch the snow but she didn’t want to have anything to do with it. She was pretty scared… I have no idea why.

She said “she is scary” 😉

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When we got back home, this is what was waiting in our mail box. 

Post card from one of my clients. I couldn’t be any happier. It took my mind away from all that stuff that was going on in my head, and it made me smile. 

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Just a quick snap. Nothing special. After we came back from our trip it was nothing but feeling overwhelmed with the amount of work that has to be done around our place. I wasn’t really feeling like being extra creative with the self-portraits.

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Then I got an eye infection, or whatever that was. Very painful and uncomfortable. It disappeared as quickly as it appeared, though. 

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Last Sunday I had a family photo session after witch we went for a lunch.  

And this is a sneak peek of this session. What a great day we had! 

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Shower

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The First day of the 2013 we spent on a beach. 

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Not in a mood for pictures 😉

First of all I spent all day in my pajamas.

Second of all, the day before I had this big plan for the next day. You know the one in witch I rule the world; I clean the whole house, go grocery shopping, maybe go for a walk with kids, etc. 

Then I got up, looked at the piles of laundry here, boxes there, and I knew I need a coffee first. So I had my coffee and feeling a little bit better I vacuumed. And that’s how I ruled the world yesterday.

 The last few pictures I am going to post next week. I want take my time to sum it up although I should say, I already did it with a post on BonBon Break “365 Self Portrait Project – A life changing Resolution“. It was published today. So far I can’t think of a better summary, sure, I should have said “thank you” more but this part will be here, on my blog. 

This essay is my second piece written for BonBon Break. The first one “Portraits of a Mother” was chosen to top 5 posts in 2012. What a great way to start the New Year and to finish this project.

In addition, if I can say I helped at least one woman to change her approach from “running away from the camera” to “willingly staying where she supposed to be” (and I know I have!) I will call this project a success of my life! 

Warm hugs!

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Entry for Bonnie’s theme this week: Cobblestone Road texture.

Some of you may remember than two weeks ago I had a friend visiting us for a few days. When she was here we had spent one whole day in the kitchen, cooking and baking. After her visit I was left with all the cabbage rolls in delicious tomato sauce, Polish cheesecake, salads, and several cups of this delicious dessert (made with strawberries instead of raspberries). No wonder my clothes are getting smaller on me.        

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On Saturday we went to a pumpkin farm. There were animals to pet, ponies to ride on…

… and one cute (not) piggy 😉

as for the self-portrait, here it is. Please don’t ask questions. I just feel so dumb sometimes!

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One of those days without any idea for self-portrait. To make it more interesting I played with it a little adding one of Kim’s Klassen textures called “nested”

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Shower time. 

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Being a bit playful. 

The picture of the keyhole is not mine, I took it from here.

The face behind it is mine, though. 

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Halloween, of course. 

No. 1 was a kitty cat and No. 2 a flower.

No. 1 was wearing her costume since early morning.

After dinner we went trick-or-treating and NO.1 just LOVED IT. 

Her first door opened a woman who I though will scare the heck out of No.1, but after the few pieces of candy she got from the lady all was good. Something clicked in her tiny brain and, man, it was hard to stop her.

Door to door, she was running, yelling: “I want my candy!“. 

With her sister they’ve gather a pretty impressive amount of candies. 

Despite that No.2 slept for the most of the time:

I was able to take two pictures of her fully awake and  making new friends:

We were out for at least an hour until my leg was ready to go home:

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Today we’d spent all morning talking with my family in Poland. No.1 had a blast goofing off with her older cousins. Now she is at the age that she can talk back a little, and she understands what is said to her. She was answering questions (with my help) and was playing with my niece in making animal sounds… oh… she was loving it!

Have a wonderful day, my friends. 

The husband was gone for 3 days so I was extra busy with the kids and the puppy, and with enjoying our time together. The weather has been so pretty I couldn’t stay indoor. Oh… how I love this time of the year.

We walked a lot. With the dog and without her.

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On Friday we exercised a little. The house seemed empty without my husband so there was a lot of music playing and almost no TV. Actually we were goofing off for the most of the time but I was able to captured a few moments in which I looked like I was really exercising 😉

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On Sunday I spent a few hours playing with self-portraits.

I had an idea and I wanted to make a use out of it.

I love reflection. I always have.

Since I got into photography I always try to play with capturing reflections. Using mirrors. Tiny mirrors. Small mirrors. Big mirrors. Everything works.

This is a series I kept from when I was in college playing with an old film camera which I got from my brother. Oh, how I loved this camera. I wish I had it with me here in US. It is somewhere in my parents house back in Poland.

So this last Sunday I wanted to play with reflections again. I took out my tripod and after a few shots of this sort:

I had to stop because there was somebody trying to knock my tripod over. So, not intentionally but very spontaneously I had stared taking pictures of that somebody from high above. 

She was in heaven. Finally I was paying attention to her and this is what she was working towards that entire time. She is always happy when we pay attention to her AND ONLY HER.

Then I thought it would be great to just come down on the floor and take some shots of both of us. We both had so much fun. No. 1 was just looking at me like I was crazy or something. She didn’t want to play with us. She was doing her own stuff.

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3 days the husband was gone. During those days we had walked a lot. I would pack everybody up, put them on leashes and we would walk. Sometimes we would go to the park and play. Other times we would just walk around the neighbourhood.

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On Monday I was totally out of ideas.

At some point I took the camera and the tripod outside. I set it up, pushed the button and walked around while the camera was taking pictures. This was the best shot from the series. I wasn’t even trying to do something else. I thought: “That will do. There is no reason to lose sleep over a picture”.

At least I took some good pictures of No. 1

Both my kids love the tripod. There is something magnetic about this tool.

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On Tuesday I woke up to an EMPTY COFFEE JAR!!!!!!!

I don’t know how that happened but it did happen and I had to fix it. I packed both kids and we went for a long walk to the nearest coffee shop. After I had my coffee the world finally got some colors. My mood totally improved and we took our time while walking back.

I was positively surprised how good No. 1 had behaved and how good she had walked with me. She got tired and bored a few times but a short break took her mind off of it and she was ready to walk again.

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On Wednesday I spent most of the day writing an essay for Bonbon Break. Next month they gonna publish my post in which I talk about this 365 Project. I am really excited about it. 

So while I was trying to focus and come up with something interesting my Little Darlin did not want to sleep nor doing anything else beside sitting on my lap.

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Few days ago while taking the puppy for a quick pee I had spotted this place. Immediately I thought about taking a self-portrait there.

This morning I woke up before everybody. Before I took the dog outside I hesitate for a while but finally I grabbed the bag with the tripod and my camera and I headed to this place. 

The street next to it was pretty busy at this time of the day. Everybody was driving to work, the offices across the street. I stood there for a while thinking. I was pretty intimidated by all that traffic. I didn’t expect that while I was planning to take those pictures. I was about to walk away when I changed my mind. I’m happy I did.

I love the colors of the threes and leaves. I love everything about this place and how wonderful scenery it creates, because of that I couldn’t pick a favorite shot. I like them all.

In a few minutes I was done with taking self-portraits and it felt pretty good to realized that I finally faced my demons. Up till this morning, in order to take self-portrait in a public places, I would hide my camera in a way in which it was hard to tell if it was turned ON. ha! I can say, I master this art 😉

Anyway, this is our growing Miss No.3

She has gotten so big. Hasn’t she.

Hope everything is well with you all and that you all enjoy this beautiful Fall weather!

Second of all, this post has A LOT of pictures, not only self-portraits but of the things and places that we’ve seen, done, and gone to. Without them this post wouldn’t be complete.

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Friday:

New Hair Cut or Not… Thinking.
I am kinda tired of my I-Don’t-Know-What-To-Do-With hair cut. For years I had had short hair. Whenever they grew longer I would feel like there is nothing more boring than long hair and I would cut it again. When I met my husband he said he wish I would keep my hair long, and I did. Then I got really mad and frustrated with having to deal with my hair EVERYWHERE and I cut them. Since then they have grown again and again I’m in a spot where I hate it. I hate how they fall out, I hate to have them all over my clothes, in our food, and all over my kids. I hate to wear pony tail ALL THE TIME, too.

And I think: Cut it?

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On Saturday we hit the road. 7 hours long road trip. When we finally got to our destination I stayed at the hotel room with NO. 2 while the husband took No.1 and went to chat with his parents.

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Sunday was crazy. HOT AS HELL.

At some point me and the husband kind of split again. I’d stayed at the hotel room, feeding No.2 and taking a nap with her,

while my other half went outside to spent some time with his parents, taking No.1 with him.

Later that day, just before putting everybody to bed I took this picture.

We were teaching No.2 how to play “High Five” 😉

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On Monday we hit the road again. This time it took as 12 hours to get back home. It was the most tiring trip I had ever experienced. 

If a few years ago somebody told me I am going to hate road trips, I would laugh loud and long. I would say: “you freaking kidding me. I love road trip. I will never grow tired of road trips. NEVER! 

If a year ago somebody told me I’ll be the most happy person on the earth seeing Denny’s sign, I would say: “You’re freaking crazy!!!”.

You may ask: why I don’t like road trips anymore?

So here is your answer: 
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F3ZyfyJkHA]

and while you watch this movie imagine that you’re stuck in this car for about 9 hours… and you’re car sick, and you’ve got a headache so big that you can barely see what in front of you…

Somewhere in the middle of our trip we picked up Kid NO.3:

She is 11 weeks old.

She is NOT potty trained.

She is afraid of us.

She couldn’t walk on leash.

She is all what I DO NOT NEED at this point of our life.

but husband had waited for this puppy for over a year…

She is already a best buddy with No.1

No/1  is the main reason No.3 (her name is Magnolia/Maggie) has learned to walk on leash in a period of 2 days.

She sleeps in crate.

She is not potty trained, and every single morning we wake up to a smell of poop and pee.

So until she is fully trained, her place is in there.

The training is going pretty good, though.

During the day she doesn’t poop or pee in the house. Yeay!

and here are her mother and her brother:

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This was taken after one of those mornings when my husband goes outside in order to clean up the crate and I go to the bathroom to wash the poop and pee off of No.3. 

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Play time.

No. 2 LOVES to play  “flying baby”. This is one of those moments when no matter how mad, sad, frustrated she is, when I pick her up and do the “flying baby” a big smile appears on her face, immediately.

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Today we’ve had a several potty breaks. Doggy hasn’t had a single accident inside the apartment what makes me really happy!

and while we were playing I took a few shots of my little ones:

I wish you all super relaxing weekend, my friends!

I hope for more than 4 hours of sleep during those few upcoming nights…

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Afternoon at the park. Short break to snack on some apples…

…and back to having fun…

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I made myself a headband. In one hour. Not bad, huh? Considering the fact that I didn’t use sewing machine for that and I’m not really good at sewing (with sewing machine or without) anyway… .

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Some of you already know that I used be an Au Pair. That’s how I came to US.

On Sunday we’d visited Oakland and my host family. Those two little cuties on the right were 3 months old when I came to work with them.

Today they are 5, I’ve two kids on my own… and it seems like I’ve been changing diapers forever. lol.

Time flies like crazy.

Our daughter had so much fun playing and stealing other kids balloons:

Driving back home we had stopped to take a picture of this wonderful view to which I used to wake up for almost two years:

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This week Bonnie’s theme is “gift(s)”.

So this is my virtual gift. Chocolate peanut butter cookies. From my kitchen, to yours 🙂

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… and that’s how I’d looked for almost entire day on Tuesday. I could have changed but it doesn’t make sense. After 20 minutes I look the same. Our No. 2 is a Little Spitter :/

This week has been extremely busy for my husband and he hadn’t have the chance to help me with those two little stinkers. At the same time I do not dare to go and take a shower leaving them without my supervision. One time, I hadn’t been paying attention for a few minutes and this is what had happened when I wasn’t watching: 

By the time I saw it, No. 1 already had used almost the entire box of wipes for perfectly clean No. 2 (I had changed her few minutes before that).

She is such a crazy kid.

Today, for example, I woke up to her new song she has created.

It goes like that:

“I’m pooping.

I’m pooping.

I’m pooping.

I’m pooping.”

A few months back she was singing a song which will stay in my memory forever: “”Water, water, drink it.” x 10.

Gosh… she is so creative 😉

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Spinach corn bread…

Y.U.M.M.Y !!!

with some chard chips and beans (do not pay attention to the ketchup). SO DELICIOUS!

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Please, do not be fooled by this little Miss HAPPY FACE Only When Mom’s Camera is ON. She already fooled my friend who calls her “The Zen Baby”. She always looks so content and happy whenever she sees the camera pointing at her.

This kid is going to drive me insane pretty soon. She does not like to be left alone. She needs to be close to me almost all the time. And close means in her reach. If I get further than that she screams. The only time she is ok being by herself is when we are outside in the swimming pool area. She watches me and No. 1 swimming, eating her hands or feet, or perfecting her rolling over skills.

That’s why I’ve spent almost every single day this week at the pool. It gives me some time off from her. She is happy and I am happy and No.1 is in heaven. It’s a win win situation for everybody.

So, that having said, this is how I had to do the dishes today…

Hope you all are having a great week.

Our No.1 is in the “terrible two” stage and she looks just like that:

ALL THE TIME.

Day and Night.

No. 2, even though she looks very happy and content here:

isn’t any better, actually.

Mornings are the best for us.  She is mostly happy but when we get to about 12pm the fun part begins. The only way to make her happy is to put boob in her mouth. It works every single time. It means she is tied to me for the rest of the day, till about 11pm when she finally falls asleep for more than 30 minutes. And when she finally  goes to bed I lay in mine, and instead of sleeping, I just lay there… thinking…

Speaking about thinking; this project is getting harder and harder each week. I do want to keep it in this “family journal” theme but I’m running out of ideas. With each passing day in order to keep it interesting with not only feet, hands and from arm’s length face shots, I need to think more about what I’m going to do, and sometimes feet, hands and from arm’s length face shots are what I end up with 😉

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Don’t judge one by ones patio 😉

It’s a mess and I struggle to find an extra energy to make it look nice.

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I got a little creative here.

At first I had some troubles with the right focus but finally when I placed myself in the right spot it was nothing but relaxing fun 🙂

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I desperately need a change.

I crave it like a dry plant water… .

I should star with a new hair cut, I guess.

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One of those “arm’s length” shots.

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My morning shot of energy. Physical, as well as mental energy. Too bad I can’t drink more than one cup.

Who would like to breastfeed for me, so I could drink more than 2… hm… 3… hmm… 3 1/2 cups of my dear ambrosia… ?!!!

Anybody?!!! Pleeeaaaaaseeee!

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trying to create something totally different I ended up with this .gif . Not really what I had in my mind but it’ll do for now.

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That’s exactly how I feel!- Like I am going crazy!

btw, who knows a good way to get rid of dark circles under eyes… ?

Oh… wait… I know one. It is called “sleep”.

Hope you guys are feeling more sane than I am.

The ride from Reno to Virginia City was really awful as it always is for me on the very curvy roads. I wasn’t ready for such a hot weather, I hadn’t been drinking enough water and when we got to the city I was shaking, whatever I would say I’d heard echo in my head, I felt like I’m going to throw up… . I felt miserable. The whole being-in-a-middle-of-a-dessert thing… ugh… I am totally not used to it. I don’t count those few trips to in-laws where for the most of the time we are indoors anyway 🙂

As soon as we got there my husband got me a cold, iced (not very tasty) milkshake which made me feel much better. We had sat in the old retro saloon re-made into a small casino-like place until I regain my energy. 

Then we went for a walk looking for some place to have late lunch-early dinner. As soon as we got there I knew I want to stay there for the night. This place was really nice and unique, I wanted to see more. So while kids and I had been finishing our lunch/dinner the husband went for a hotel seeking trip. He came back with a good news. After we had eaten we all left to the hotel where we got some rest, posted a few pictures from the trip on facebook, got a bandage for our daughter’s blister and we’d left for another walk.

This time the weather was MUCH COOLER and there was MUCH LESS people on the streets.

click “play” to watch the slideshow

Both places, Reno and Virginia City were great, but Virginia City was my favorite. It’s such a great thing to be able to see the real, old and historical wild west and be able to walk those old streets and visit the old buildings. The words “old building” have such a different feeling to it when I think about old buildings in Poland, or Europe in general. Some buildings are almost 1000 years old like this church  dated back to 1079!!! The difference is huge between the European and American history and I’m always excited and happy when I am able to compare it with my own eyes and body 🙂

Our trip would’ve been even better if we hadn’t had such a rough time going back home. We were all really tired of being on the road a lot, not sleeping well, walking with blisters or being trapped in the car seats. The drive back home was just too much. What normally would’ve taken 4  hours this time took almost 8! 

Luckily we got home just in time for Next Food Network Star!!!

Related articles

• Visiting Nevada – Day One: Reno (momphotographer.wordpress.com)

I have never been to Reno or Las Vegas but from what my husband had told me about those two places I kind of knew what to expect and I didn’t expect a lot.

First of all I had expected that most of our time we will spend in the hotel room dealing with cranky babies, but we didn’t. We’d stayed at Circus Circus. As we had figured it out later it wasn’t the best choice but at least there was plenty to do just inside and we didn’t have to drag the kids to different places looking for interesting things to do. Every hour or so there was a short show for kids. The first one we went to see was so loud I had thought our No. 2 will go deaf, so we left pretty quick.

We met in-laws for early dinner as they were on their own road trip (not for pleasure, though) passing through Nevada. We walked around the main street, took some pictures and enjoyed the refreshing evening breeze. It was a great day and our kids were awesome. They couldn’t behave any better considering the 5 hours in the car and scorching heat we had to deal with on the way up there and when we finally got there.

Short story and plenty of photos from that day in the slideshow below. Enjoy! 🙂

Tomorrow I’ll try to post second slideshow and a few words about the second day of our trip which was AWESOME!!! If we could I wouldn’t mind staying there forever, opening a small caffe restaurant for tourists, buying some horses and just enjoying my life… not sure if I would be able to survive the weather, though. 

Back in the days my husband and I used to eat at iHop a lot. Almost every Saturday or Sunday we would go there for a breakfast and I would have a huge stack of pancakes, always a different flavor or whatever new they were having that time. 

One day while I was pregnant with our No. 2, as usual, we went to our local iHop for breakfast and we haven’t been there since. I have no idea if they have changed something or because of my pregnancy I was more sensitive but I hated the food there that day. On that day my love affair to their pancakes has vanished. For good!

Instead I’ve started making my own pancakes. For a while I had struggle finding a good, fluffy and flavorful batter.

Finally I found this recipe for buttermilk pancakes and I’ve used the batter for all kinds of pancakes since. It has never failed.

Ingredients:

dry ingredients:

1 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour,

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder,

1 tsp. baking soda,

1 tsp. cinnamon,

4 tsp. turbinado sugar,

1/4 tsp. salt,

1/4 cup flax-seed meal,

wet ingredients:

1 1/2 cup buttermilk (homemade works great)

2 1/2 Tbsp. butter, melted, cooled,

2 eggs,

garnish/filling

1/3 cup fresh blueberries

1/4 cup marzipan paste (homemade or store-bought)

Directions:

Mix dry ingredients and wet in two separate bowls. Then mix everything together and let it sit for about 10 minutes.

Pour about 1/4 cup of batter for each pancake on hot skillet. Immediately top each pancake with a few blueberries and small pieces of marzipan paste. Fry until the top is bubbly. Flip over and fry for additional minute or until nice and brown. 

My husband eats them with maple syrup.

My daughter with strawberry jam or not… 😉

For me, with all the flavors going on just inside those pancakes, plain are all what I need.

The marzipan is such a nice addition. It just pops out when you eat those pancakes. Of course you need to like marzipan in order to enjoy them like I do. My husband being not the biggest fan of marzipan likes it hidden like that although he prefers banana-blueberry pancakes.