Madison starts the 1st grade today!

Happy Monday Everyone!

After a few days of rest I awoke missing my little niecelette soooo much. Kay was right ~ She told me, "Just wait! Give it a few days, and when you've caught your breath you're going to feel a big void that she'll leave behind. You'll see..." 

Well, "Hello Void." 

~ FLOWER POWER ~

I love this picture of Maddie. Of course, I say that about every picture of her, just about, but this one in particular cracks me up. To anyone else it's simply a little girl smelling a flower. To me, it's much more than that. It's a candid memory. I ran a vintage action on it and tweaked around a bit to make it look like a shot straight from 1977, the year her Mommy was born. Her little halter dress was perfect for this 70's flower child look. I can picture her VW peace & love bug parked on the curb  :o)

I figure that one of the reasons I love, and always have loved photography so much is because....basically....I'm greedy. I love my life and I love the people I choose to have in it so much that I want to keep them and/or the "moments" we share together forever. And ever. And ever. Photography allows me to do that. I can go back in time 23 years (since I moved out on my own) and spend hours sifting through and looking at images I snapped, on every camera imaginable, and those moments come back to me just as if they'd happened yesterday. The sounds. The scents. The mood. The tastes....yes, I love food photography and in my next life I'm going to be a photographer for some fabulous gourmet cooking magazine. Consider yourself warned.

Greed. Sometimes it's a good thing.

So in the image, Maddie and I were waiting for Uncle Johnny to come get us to take us to the airport and we were outside with Kay. Maddie had SO much energy, she was all pumped up about getting to fly on an airplane. She zoomed here and there and everywhere and I snapped away and she "pretended to be my supermodel." The kid was on fire!

"Look Aunt Brenda!!!! I'm on the flower wall! Look! I'm smelling the roses, haha! Watch me run! I'm skipping, watch! I can twirl! Hey, how do I get up that tree? (At that point Kay and I both screamed NO!!!) Look Aunt Brenda! I'm swinging on the lamp post! Wheeeeee!!!"

Lord, that child wore me out, but I tell ya. I miss her so much I'm having withdrawls. What makes me laugh about that first photo is that I know that she has a mouth FULL (and I mean stuffed!) with pink bubble yum that Kay had given her (supposedly for the flight, ha!) and every time she looked at us she looked like a chipmunk because to talk she had to shove the whole lump into one side of her cheek.

Kay and I laughed at her the whole time so when I look at that image, the whole scene unfolds and all I see is those puffy cheeks. And I can smell the sweetness of the 5 pounds of sugar in her bubble yum!

"Hey there, little Chipmunk, show me how old you are!"

You'll only be 6 once so enjoy it to the fullest, Sweetheart.

Do you see what such a tiny picture can do? It's only a little 4x6 piece of paper, really.....but no! It's LIFE. Pictures to me equal life. They are one and the same. And being able to keep those moments forever.

I'm a very greedy lady and I make no apologies   :o)~

8-23-10 Ready to meet her teacher!

So big news: Madison starts the 1st grade today!! What a big girl. I want to wish her the best of all days. I feel like I just posted her end of the kindergarten year field day picture, geeze this summer flew by. Have fun today Maddie!! You sure look super cute today  :o)