I am a genius!!

Okay so for the last couple of weeks I have had no sound on the internet. It has made me insane. Not having any sound also made all of the blogs very slow. So I did just give up a little. I am glad to be back and have my music back. I have been a little busy with family visiting from the Netherlands for the last two weeks. I have also been taking a lot of pictures and working still at Steiner Homes. Life just gets busier and busier.

So here are the things that I am wishing to accomplish this summer.

1. Teach my pre-k child how to read.

2. Teach my second grader the multiplication tables

3. Get Jaden not to have his pacifier

4. Teach Carly not to blank stare me when I ask her a question.

5. Teach Daniel that if your wife buys a new outfit the best thing is to compliment her on it and then not say "but you really should do something with your hair."

6. Learn how to shoot in the manual mode on my camera.

They are lofty goals but why not shoot for the stars. I also am very grateful for a lot of things lately--Here goes!

1. I am grateful that Daniel never asks me to pack his suitcase before all of his trips.

2. I am grateful that my mom lives so close.

3. I am grateful that I have so many wonderful friends who know that I still love them even though I do not call all the time.

4. I am grateful for my wonderful friend Kim who opened up a whole new world of creativity for me, and even though she is a superstar has never made me feel less than she is. Thank you Kimbolina.

It has been a lot of fun lately. I have taken lots of pictures of my kids, others kids and others teenagers. So here are some of my faves.

I also am going to try to update more. So until next time...

I love long weekends.

I love long four day weekends. I love them partially because they end and the kids continue their routines in school. I am nervous about summer because I love a good routine and that goes out the window. My mom took the kids for three days and that us always wonderful for me and let me say I think the kids need a break from me sometimes too.

For the first time since I started taking pictures of the kids I took pictures of people I had never met. It was a scary, exciting, nerve racking experience for me. Of course the family was wonderful, but I lost a little of my confidence I thought the pictures turned out really good but just a little nervous about them. So I grabbed my favorite guinea pig family to recover some of my mojo. I have to say that I love some of these pictures so much that I might frame them and hang them in my own home. This is my favorite.

I have to say the Kitners are so much fun to take pictures of. They did anything I asked. Even when I asked Kyle to sit there while Barb crawled up to him like a cat. Barb goes "I don't know what you mean, you show me." You should have seen the look on his face when he thought I was going to crawl up onto his lap. Priceless. This one of Gracie is just one of my favorites too.

I am just having so much fun creating things. I am excited to get up in the morning and try something new. I wish I would have done this a lot earlier in life. No regrets though.

The day finally came!!!

This day will go down in Dekock history. I cannot tell you how many times I have taken my children to participate in sport teams. Each and every time praying that my children won't bring the whole team down with them. One time I was almost embarrassed enough to leave. You name we have tried it. Volleyball, soccer, basketball anything and everything. But today, today we were triumphant.

CARSON CAN ACTUALLY PLAY BASEBALL!!! I deserve to be able to say without a shred of humility that he was the best on the team. The man behind me said "wow." About my kid. I had to go around the corner and whisper in the phone to Daniel "he whips everyone's butts babe!" First time in the history of our marriage I have been proud of a Dekock in a sporting event. So I had to take his picture and put it up. Don't worry my other kids don't read my blog and by the time they want to when they are grown and reading through my journals, they will have already had the therapy needed to deal with this.

Anyway this day ranks up there. Just thought I would share.

Things are good!!

Didn't even know that frogs lived at the beach. When Noah (a family friend) found this one swimming through the water we did not believe him. But here he is and I am sure that this solidifies that the beach is the coolest place to be.

This weekend I had time to myself while Daniel took Carly and Soren to Germany and my mom had the boys. So I decided to paint a couple of rooms. Well my paint choice was not the best and it is the color of FLESH. I am hanabal and have wrapped the whole room in skin. I paid a lot of money for that paint so we are keeping that color.

Jaden's new quotes for the day are:

1. You are such a whiner

2. Carly, you are such a jerk

3. I can't pee in the bushes it is too dangerous.

I have decided that spring is the best time to take pictures and if I don't share them here where else do I have to share them. So you will all just have to grin and bare it.

See that was not so painful. Well it is late and I am off to bed.

This week

Flowers are killing me!!

This week is all about flowers. I have tried to take pictures of flowers and it has not turned out well. I take much better pictures of people so in all my flower pictures are little pieces of people. I just can't get into it. I think they are lovely and some of them will be gone soon but I just can't seem to capture them well.

I have also tried different textures on my pictures and some of them I like and some of them I do not like so much. I love this one of Soren though he looks so pretty. He loves it when I say that.

Today Carson said "Dad is going to turn 100 and then go live with Jesus and I will really miss him. I said hopefully you will have a family of your own so it won't be so bad and he said he wanted to live with me forever." Then five minutes later he said he wanted to live with grandma if our house burned down. What a fickle child. The things that come out of his mouth. Lately the only way we can get him to do anything is to tell him it is the way of the Jedi.

Well I finally got my mantle the way that I wanted it. With a little help from one of Kim's designs I really like it.