My photo placed 4th this week. I am so excited I can hardly contain myself!

I have been faithfully entering the I ♥ Faces contests every week. There are always so many wonderful photographs. Each week I enter I hope that it will be my week. I can’t tell you how many weeks I have spent hours on my photo, and then been disappointed when I didn’t win. I just kept entering hoping that soon it would be my turn–and this week it was!

Last week I took the kids out in the backyard one evening to snap a few photos with a lens I haven’t used in a while. Everyone else I know who has it just raves about it, so I wanted to play with it a little more. Ian was in his PJs and I just started taking a few photos of him. I got one that I really liked.

I have been so busy lately I hadn’t had a chance to check to see what the I ♥ Faces theme was. I was so happy when I saw that it was “Let’s Hear it For the Boys” I knew which photo I wanted to enter.

Unfortunately, I am having some trouble getting the colors in this photo to show up the same way on my blog as they do on my monitor. I have been having this problem lately with many of my photos. I think I know how to fix it, I just need to do a little reading up on it to figure out how to fix it.

Anyway, I was thrilled to place in the top ten this week! It just gives my confidence such a boost.

Thanks to everyone for their nice comments, too

Be sure to check out I ♡ Faces to see all the amazing photos that were entered in this week’s contest.

Here are a few of my favorite photos from the week. Ian found a cicada on our deck one morning. He picked it up and carried it around. Scott told him about the life cycle of a cicada and Ian was fascinated. I just had to snap a few photos.

Here are a few more from one night on the playground. I was playing around with one of my old lenses and I loved how the photos turned out.

Please visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom to view all the Weekly Winners participants.

Last Friday Ian had a half day of school. Normally he goes to school from 9:00am until 3:00pm. Those kids are called “lunch bunch”. Some of the kids in his class go home at noon everyday, they call those kids “home team”. His assistant teacher, Sara, only teaches in the morning and then she goes home around noon too.

Last week Ian was talking to his teacher Sara and his gears started turning. He realized that he would be going home at noon, and that Sara usually goes home at noon too.

He looked up at her and said “Sara, I’m on Home Team today! I know that you go home early too. I got a new Star Wars Wii game. Since you are going home early and I am going home early, why don’t you come over and play it with me?”

How cute is that? He invited his teacher over for a play date

I posted a while ago about Ian’s bedtime stall tactics.

He has been doing better at going to sleep without a fuss lately. We do the same thing every night. I turn out the lights and tuck him in. Then turn on his music. As I go to leave, he asks me for a drink. I get him a small sip of water and then kiss him and tell him it is time to go to sleep.

He always says “WAIT……I just have to tell you one more thing.!”

Then he waits for a minute while he tries to think up something to say. It is the same every night, he doesn’t really have anything else to say. He is just stalling.

The last few nights as I go to close the door he yells out “You are the best mommy in the whole world……and you are a knock out!”

I’m not really sure where he learned the word knock out, but I think it is sooo cute!

This week’s theme at I ♥ Faces is Silhouette. Unfortunately for me I already entered my favorite silhouette photo in another week’s contest. You are not allowed to enter the same photo twice. Darn! I don’t think this one is a good as the other one but it is from the same photo shoot. It looks very similar to the other one, but it is a different photo, I swear

Be sure to check out I ♡ Faces to see all the amazing photos that were entered in this week’s contest.

I took a few photos of the kids in the backyard one night this week. I didn’t get any good ones of Nora, but here are a few of Emma and Ian.

Please visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom to view all the Weekly Winners participants.

The other morning Ian came in early and climbed into bed with me. I had been having a bad dream that we had lost him in a crowded place. I was so happy to see his sweet little face when I woke up. I scooped him up and cuddled him in bed. I told him that I had a bad dream about him. He looked at me and said “So, you had a nightmare? Remember that nightmare that I had?” Then he proceeded to tell me the story of when he got eaten by a giant spider.

“First, it took a bite of my legs all the way up to my knees.”

“Then it took a bite of me all the way up to my stomach.”

“If the giant spider at me up to my stomach, I would have to be in a wheelchair, sitting on my stomach. Wouldn’t that be funny mom?”

It was such a cute little moment. I just had to write it down so someday when he is all grown up I can remember all his cute little stories.