Tree with Night Moon Photography

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This is some fun I have been having with an app I have on my cell phone. The app is called Photo Editor Pro. It is a free app and I am enjoying experimenting with the various features. 

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This is a picture of a tree with the moon behind it. My 13 year old daughter and I took these pictures one night when we were running up to Walgreens to get something at night. We saw how beautiful the moon looked and we really liked that interesting tree.

The moon set behind the tree seemed like it would make a great picture, so we got our cell phones out and began to snap pictures. I love to do this with my daughter anytime we see a great photo opp. She loves the spontaneity of stopping whatever we are doing to take pictures. I have even pulled the car over to the next safe spot before. because she spotted a rainbow or a lovely sunset.

I hope you enjoy seeing these as much as I enjoyed taking them and editing them.

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It is interesting how the moon came out bright, like a sun shining in the night.

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Here is one edited to be black and white. This is one of my favorites.

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Strawberry Memories and Baby

When my daughter was less than one year old, I bought her three strawberry shortcake dolls. She loved them so much and called them “Oh baby” when she was looking for them. I spent the rest of the summer stopping the car at every yard sale I saw, searching for more. 

She ended up with about 6 of them, by the end of that summer. She always knew how many she had, even though she could not count…well, she did not know the numbers. She would always look for the last one, if she was missing one in her hand. 

I still remember when I handed her two dolls and she was upset and began searching for the third one. I was surprised that she knew how many she should have, because she was just a baby. But she certainly did know. 

Amazing Resemblance Genealogy

This is a picture of my great grandmother on the left. She is my father’s mother’s mother. Her name was Mary Pacholski. 

The picture on the right is my daughter. My father sent me these two pictures together to show me where my daughter gets her beauty from the Polish side of my family.

My other daughter resembles my mother’s side of the family. My younger daughter , pictured above, was so happy to  finally feel like she looked like someone in the family. My father noticed this resemblance just after I had emailed him the picture of my daughter.

Teaching Children to Have Self Esteem

While it is true that life can dish out some unfair circumstances, we do not need to “prepare” our children for this by treating them unjustly.

Children and teenagers are very aware and sensitive about fairness. It is emotionally and psychologically painful to them to be treated in ways that are unjust.

They need to be heard and validated. If we are to teach them to have integrity and to treat other people fairly, we need to do the same with them.

Children and teenagers do not learn by what we say, as much as they learn from what we do. Our actions are far more powerful that our words.

Children learn what they see and what they experience.

They should have a chance to tell their side of things and to talk about their feelings. We cannot teach them that our legal system offers a fair trial and then turn around and punish them without hearing them out.

Let us treat our children that they matter. Their integrity and self esteem matters.

This is the way they can learn to set boundaries with other people.

They can learn how to explain how they feel about things and why they feel that way.

If a situation arrises that the child will experience consequences then they should understand what is happening and why.  Those consequences should be equal to their behavior and not overblowing what actually happened.

Teachers that punish an entire class of students, for the bad behavior of 1 or 2 students, are not teaching the children that they are individuals with individual rights.

Sometimes there are unavoidable consequences for a child due to something their sibling or their classmate did, but consequences should not be inflicted upon innocent bystanders just to exercise control or to make a point.

Children need to grow up in a safe emotional and psychological environment.

Imagine if you were at work and forced to do overtime without pay, all because of a disruptive co-worker who slowed down the progress of the workday.

You would feel angry and mistreated. How would this affect your feelings about the supervisor that made you work extra hours with no pay?

How would this affect your overall morale?

There is an old saying that you may have seen on an office poster….

“Until morale improves…the beatings will continue..”

You cannot punish people into wanting to behave better. Children and teenagers are people and they need to be able to trust their environment.

This will allow them to blossom and learn. A benevolent and just environment will allow children.  To feel valued as individuals.

The ability to express one’s emotions and thoughts is a learned skill. To be able to present your side of a situation in a logical and understandable manner is a critical life skill.

Let us hear our children and teenagers out. Teach them respect of others and respect for themselves.

Let us celebrate the young minds and remember that those minds can tell when they are treated unjustly.

There is a psychological consequence for every negative experience and there are associations wired into the brain im regards to repeated experiences.

If we want the respect of our children, we need to treat them with compassion and empathy, as best as we can. There is no rule that says the adult cannot apologize if you make a mistake.

It shows the child that you respect them when you admit when you are wrong. It teaches them that everyone makes mistakes.

When you forgive your children for their mistakes they will learn to forgive you for yours. This will help to build their self esteem.

Self esteem is critical for survival. If we bring up children to be adults that cannot self-generate self esteem then they will be targets for predators and abusers.

Children and teenagers that learn to express their feelings and expain their side of things will be better equipped to deal with the people they meet as adults.

 

Children Should Have Magical Holidays

Sun High Orchard Activity for the Kids

This weekend is Halloween weekend. I promised my daughter that we would do fun activities on that weekend. I am planning to take her to the Haunted Scare House, but I want to do a daytime activity too.

Sun High Orchard is a family owned farm that is about a 15 minute drive to get to from my house. They have animals that you can feed like sheep, and goats. There are a lot of bunnies….YAY! If you have been following me for a while then you know how I love love love bunnies.

There is a little store there that sells homemade bread, apple butter, and jellies. The store has some antiques as decorations, which will be interesting for my daughter to see. I think the last time I took her she was too young to appreciate the antiques.

There are some photos from the web site HERE

http://www.sunhigh.com/page/page/4862850.htm

With my Own Two Hands – poem for my teenage daughter

Sirens whiz by on the road outside
Someone unknown to me is in trouble
I say a silent prayer.
The six o’clock news shows a video
People are homeless from a hurricane
I offer a silent prayer.
An accident occurs on the road as I drive
A person is in trouble
I call 911 on my cell.
My daughter spills hair dye on the new sweater
Her grandmother gave her for Christmas.
She cries…
I take her to the store and buy her an identical one
Happy to do it because
at least
for now…
She still has problems I can fix
With my own two hands.

Crystal Clear Lake with Cloud Reflections – photography

The water at the park on this day was crystal clear. It was like a mirror. You could see the clouds and the trees in the water like they were real.

The ducks were all out enjoying the sunshine and my daughter found some great opportunities for pictures, using my cell phone camera.

My daughter, the little photographer,  took lots of pictures this day. I will divide them between posts. . I was impressed at how well these came out. I promised her I would post them for you all to see.

My Daughter and I Took These Cloud Photos

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My 12 year old daughter loves to take pictures with my cell phone. Any time she sees anything that looks like it would make a good photo, we stop and take pictures. She has gotten very good at keeping an eye out for beautiful nature.  

Every now and then I have to find a place to pull the car over, especially if it is a rainbow or a sunset that is limited by time. Otherwise if we are almost to where we are going, then we get the pictures when we get to the place and park the car.

These were taken last week from a parking lot of a doctor’s office. We got them when we came out from the appointment before we got into the car to drive home. 

Funny Pizza Story

I thought this was a funny thing and I guess it is good for kids to have parents with a sense of humor. First a short background tale…

When my older daughter (who is now 18) was very small, maybe 2 years old, her father and I learned our lesson about leaving pizza unattended with her around.

One night we ordered pizza from Dominoes and left it in the living room, where we were going to watch a movie, to go and get paper plates and drinks. We had only been out of the room for a few minutes.

When we returned all of the pepperoni, and all of the cheese was gone from the top of that pizza. Even some of the sauce had been licked off of the slices.

So, there we were left  with a big circle of dough for dinner.

We have recounted that story many times over the years and after that only one of us went to get drinks and the other guarded the pizza. LOL

Tonight I was making dinner . I guess I was multi-tasking of sorts because my daughter (the one in discussion) was in and out chatting with me and showing me the new outfit she had bought with her paycheck. She was very proud of it. It  is really cute and perfect for work, since she really did not have any professional looking clothes for working in a clothing store.

Also in and out, I was chatting on email with a friend and checking my other emails. I guess I was not paying attention to everything that was going on around me.

I had made the pizza and it was cooling. Since I have limited electrical cooking facilities, I have to cook one thing at a time. I was making the side dish, while the pizza sat on the table.

Guess what?

I stopped to get something from the table, and there was the pizza……cheese and pepperoni all gone off of several pieces. I stood there and laughed remembering when she was little. Also I had to laugh at myself a little because I was in the room the entire time and had not noticed her eating all the toppings and cheese off of the pizza.

Good thing for kids when their parents have a sense of humor. Even her sister laughed and I made her a BLT insead. Kids will be kids even at 18.