I don't use Twitter as much as I use Facebook, but I've found that all those little updates really amount to something: our family journal.  Now, if only there were a way to capture it all for print.  I went looking...and I've found a couple of options:

Tweetbook - a pretty simple application that basically collects all of your recent (not sure what defines "recent" but it goes back several months) tweets and puts them in PDF format for printing.

Cozi Family Journal - what I really wanted was an application that did the "tweetbook" thing for Facebook.  I haven't found one.  But I did find Cozi - a site that is actually a ton of things, but one feature they offer is a Family Journal.  You can do as much or as little as you want with the Journal; I opted to only use the Facebook application. 

If I find a way to use all of your Facebook updates to create a book, I will let you know.  Hey, if you're a tech genius who's figured this out - will you let me know?

I love giving gifts with a story...whether it be the recipient's story or even my own.  In this case, I wanted to give a token gift to a bride.  Coffee and cookies...not typical, I guess.  But the thought behind it is sweet, I think. 

When James and I first married, we moved from Tennessee to upstate New York just two days later.  No honeymoon (unless you count the half hour staring at water at Niagara Falls).  And when I say "upstate" I'm not talking about Buffalo; I'm talking four hours NORTH of that.  Snowtown, USA.

We rented a very drafty upstairs apartment (with a remove-able wall...don't get me started) and had only two months together before James was to deploy the first time.  We spent our Saturday and Sunday mornings in the breakfast nook over our version of espresso and homemade biscotti.  At the time I was a bit lonely...far from my huge network of friends, co-workers, and alumni in Nashville, and suddenly thrust into military life in the coldest corner of the country.  Those mornings with James were sweet and dear to me.  When he deployed a few weeks later, I would make batches of this biscotti in care packages to him, hopeful they would bring comfort.  I think baking it just helped me pass the time with the only newlywed memories I had at the time.

So when I saw these sweet little espresso cups at Crate and Barrell one day, I knew they'd make a charmed little gift paired with biscotti...I'd pass my little newlywed story on to the happy couple and picture them sipping coffee on Saturday morning.  This gift is for the daughter of a blog friend of mine.  Whether the bride likes coffee or not is beside the point.  I think the story conveys a thought...wishing her many charmed Saturdays as a newlywed...

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A few days before I sent the gift I ran across this little idea in my Green Craft magazine (love that magazine - great, REAL ideas) and thought it was so clever.  Imagine my surprise when I flipped the page and saw that the designer of the project was the bride's mother!

And, yes, that's an office supply tag you see inside my toilet paper pocket.  I've found they make great gift notes.

I'm not a reading expert, but I was fortunate to work with some of the best in the field during my time as an Educational Services manager for a public television station.  I can't say enough about PBS - the institution that spurred intentional parenting when it came to media as an educational resource.  I was lucky to get to attend a number of workshops presented by the likes of Ruby Payne, Jim Trelease, and LeVar Burton - long before I was ever a parent myself.

I don't remember everything I was taught, but a number of key ideas have stuck with me and I try to be mindful of them in setting up my kids for success. 

I, myself, have always been an avid reader.  I was a child that could focus on one activity for a long time even as a toddler.  I liked time to myself, I had an active imagination, and I loved to get lost in my own thoughts.  I read early and often - because I wanted to.  Evyn is much the same way; she has always sat still for a good book or three, and even though she can't read just yet, she loves to go to the bookstore and dig into a stack of books, gazing at the pictures and imagining the stories that go with them.  Ashlyn.  Is a different story.  She likes the idea of a book, and she will often ask me to read to her.  But by the second page she's wiggling out of my lap and off to another room, ready for the next activity.  It is really, really important that children be involved in reading early and often.  So what can a mom with a toddler like Ashlyn do?  Give up until they're older?  NO!

When I was little I remember taking naps after church with my little sister Lora.  I fondly recall the Story of the Little Tree scratched out on our record player, lulling me to sleep.  I loved that story.   

We've repeated the tradition in our house with audiobooks.  I originally started with the kind of audiobooks that Evyn could "read" along to - the kind with the prompts for page-turning.  Those were particularly awesome for the car, and they're not too expensive.  It was a nice option because she wanted so desperately to read but just wasn't there yet.  Then I noticed that she took a long time to wind down at the end of the night and was talking to herself for up to an hour before she fell asleep.  For a while we played the Little Kid's Audio Adventure Bible from ZonderKids - and she loved it.  After a couple of weeks of the series, we decided to freshen up the rotation a bit.  Enter this awesomely-awesome series from Focus on the  Family Radio Theatre - Classic Stories for a Girl's Heart:

The music, acting, and sound effects are incredible - truly closer to radio theatre than a narration of a book.  Which is what makes the series easier for Evyn to comprehend and pay attention to.  She usually listens to them as she falls asleep, but occasionally we will do "quiet time" with these (an alternative to a nap), or she'll color or do her art with the stories in the background.

I had a hard time finding something more brief and animated for Ashlyn, until this week, when I discovered Audible and Audiblekids.com (from Amazon).

For anywhere from .99 cents to $20+ you can download a range of stories, organized by age, genre, or popularity.  I downloaded Mouse Tales, the Cat and the Hat series, and Skippyjon Jones.  Ashlyn listens to them before bed and during bath time with Evyn, and we plan to bring them along on our trip to the beach next week.  Basically, any time the kids are "trapped" is another great opportunity for an audio reading. 

Another "car option" - especially if you want to be able to accommodate short attention spans by way of the dvd player - are the Scholastic dvd sets that you can buy (cheap) at TJ Maxx.  I bought this one for six bucks for our Nashville trip.  Besides the familiar content and visual format, these also feature the words on screen so would-be readers get the benefit of understanding words have meaning.

So here's the bottom line, and it's an important one:  literacy is a series of skills that children must master in stages.  And research proves: the earlier you start, the better. Reading aloud to your kids is one important step, but there are a number of ways to help the process along - and a huge number of resources to get you started. 

I'm probably preaching to the choir here, in which case you also have some favorite resources - I'd love to hear what they are!

PS: I should mention that an obvious first place to look is your library.  If you're lucky you live in a town with a library that keeps books on CD and not just tapes (TAPES!).  I do not.  At least not as of a year ago, which was the last time I looked.  I should probably check back.

So, as a photographer, one of the most important things to me, when taking someone's picture, is to capture the person genuinely, and beautifully.  But it's hard.  Because people are so self-conscious. About their scratches and scars and ears.  And it's just plain difficult to relax sometimes.  I get it.  I'm one of those, too.  I have a disproportionate nose, skinny arms, two eyes that are completely different shapes, and an on-again-off-again double chin (depending on my trimester in pregnancy, or the number of months following).  

You'll remember I went to Nashville a while ago.  I stayed with my best friend's parents - a dear couple I lived with for over two years in college.  I sat down for breakfast with Jim, chit-chatted a bit, and brought out my new camera (oh, yeah, I got a new camera).  He's a bit of a photographer himself so I let him play.

Now, mind you, I'd had little sleep and no shower, and for some reason I'm going through some adult acne phase.  So the pictures were terrible, right?  Yes.  And no.

Well, yes, because I basically look terrible and greasy grody.  But in the end, no.  When Jim flipped through the pictures his eyes lit up and he was absolutely tickled.  "Ah, these are cute!" (Jim, a bigshot VP at a Fortune 10 Company almost squealed).  And I can see why.

For one, I was careful to take my own advice and relax as he snapped away.  And for another, I was careful to not pick myself apart.  These pictures are me.  Really me.  There are zits here.  And a straying bra strap.  And hair that needs serious help.  But  these are genuine expressions and it shines through.  And Jim, who loves me and has known me since I was seventeen, looked at these pictures and saw the beautiful me he knows.  No, he didn't say all that.  But I recognized a familiar mix of pride and delight as he scrolled through the images he'd taken.

I am all-too familiar with people picking apart a beautiful photo of themselves because there is some phantom acne, or squishy part, or one ear is more red than the other.  In some cases, folks start the picking apart ritual before they've even been photographed. 

Do yourself and the photographer a favor: stop it.  You look great. 

And when you do get a chance to shower, and put on a decent shirt, and then choose to RELAX and get over whatever injustice you think you've been physically dealt, you get some really great photos:

[Photos set up and edited by me, but taken by my dear friend Melissa Wells, who did a great job]

I am not photogenic, and I was careful to not edit any of the photos in this post too much.  Only slight contrast was added for color.  And if you pick them apart you can see wrinkles and veins and stray hair.  Whatever.  Who cares?  I didn't. 

You shouldn't either.