THE BLOG
CAPTURE THE MOMENT
CAPTURE THE MOMENT
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Read Across America Week is on of my favorite weeks at school. I just love Dr. Seuss books and all the fun activities they do at school to incorporate things from the books. Every year I try and do something fun for the kids to help make the week even more special and memorable. This year I was having a hard time coming up with something. It again is getting harder for me to do stuff for the boys that does not end up looking super cutesy. I mean come on I can't dress them like Thing 1 and Thing 2 like I did one year or send one of them to school with a giant red bow tie...yep I did! To be fair my son picked the big red bow tie. This year I thought we would do something from The Lorax book. I am a sucker for lots of colors and thought what fun it would be to try and replicate the Truffula Trees. I had seen things done with cotton candy but knew that would not stay nice and fluffy by the time we got them to school. I decided on this. Aren't the so yummy and colorful looking? 
These were super easy and fun to make. I by no means measure when I cook. Some of you who have cooked with me know I only own a few random measuring cups and spoons. Ingredients ( all measurements are approximate) 3Tbsp of real butter 4 cups of big marshmallows 4 cups of Trix cereal Melt butter and marshmallows until smooth. Put cereal in a plastic non stick bowl. Add mixture to cereal and stir. Once cool enough to handle, form into balls and push onto cake pop sticks. Instant yummy treat! We even made some without sticks. As luck would have it Baby Girl received a hand me down Lorax skirt this past summer from AddisonGrace Designs. Love, Love, LOVE the colors!!! Just wished I would have remembered where I put it before I had to go through 3 totes of clothes this morning to find it. Of course it was in the last tote. Even though she was not feeling well this morning she indulged for 2 minutes....yes 2 minutes to get a picture of her. Took me longer to find the tape to put up the backdrop. Such a stinker she is. 
Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your week.
If you like this post please share it! Hi Everyone! Super excited to have Mama Sprinkles as a guest on the blog tonight. I absolutely love all of her creative ideas and her passion for a capturing her family in everyday life. Check out her blog Mama Sprinkles and say Hi! An Olympian I never have or never will wear an Olympic Medal around my neck. My most athletic days, along with the dreams that someday I could make it even to the Olympic trials, are long gone. I can no longer run a sub-30 second 200 on the track, or push the six minute barrier in the mile. Heck, these days, I'm proud to even finish running a mile! Although I'm almost certain my feet will never even step foot in Sochi, Russia, I have more in common with this year's Olympians than you may think. And chances are, you do, too. Life with kids is like the Olympics. You need unbelievable stamina to make it from dawn to dusk each day. Mental toughness is a huge advantage and will get you far. Those little ones will try to compete with you day in and day out, and you need to be on top of your game at all times to not get beat! The work is exhausting, and no amount of early preparation can prepare you for the real thing. Despite the challenges, parenting is worth all the blood, sweat and tears! Earning that elusive Gold Medal cannot be much better than tiny arms lovingly wrapped around my neck. While my little family and I nibble on these 45 lovely, little Olympic cupcakes with Sochi filling our TV screen, I will have the pride of an Olympian knowing that today, I earned a medal for a parenting job well done.  Thanks for stopping by! If you love this post please share it with your friends!
The mission of this blog post is to show off the adorable Miss "C" at 6 months. I actually photographed her when she first entered the world. Check out the pictures here: Baby C's Birth Story Can you believe how big this little lady has gotten since then? I had to blink a few times to make sure I was seeing things clearly! It's amazing how fast they grow! I was so excited to be able to use the Irish tiara Mom brought. It is an heirloom piece and loved that we were able to capture it. Also captured was a certain little lady who loves to be held by her Momma and not so much the camera. We'll work on her ;) 
 I recently saw a shirt that said Eat...Sleep...Minecraft. I thought hey that describes my boys. Here I thought they were the only obsessed ones! My boys ages 5 and 7 are both OBSESSED with the video game Minecraft. They have it downloaded on just about any device that they can get their little sticky hands on. We have to enforce game playing time limits or they would play it 24 hours straight. When my older son is not playing he is reading or watching tutorials on it. I will be honest, I don't quite get the fascination of the game but I do like the creativity the game offers. In years past I have always made my little men something super cutesy and matchy matchy to wear for Valentine's Day. This year I knew that was not going to be an option for a few reasons.  February 14, 2013
This year in a weekly trip to Wal-Mart I noticed a green shirt for $3.00. Yes $3.00!!! So I grabbed it. Hey you never know when your creative juices will strike. A few days later the idea hit. That shirt would be perfect to display the Minecraft Creeper. So I started pondering how I could make something come to life. Then in another trip to Wal-Mart I discovered a similar but still green shirt in which I could use to make my younger son one also. Being careful to make them similar but different the Minecraft Creeper inspired shirts were born!  You will need: T-Shirt image (I used the Minecraft font and printed in Word), freezer paper, fabric paint, Exacto Knife, and something to write with painting sponge   Lay freezer paper shiny side down and trace image. You must use FREEZER paper!  Use your Exacto knife and cut out the negative space of the image. Use a self healing mat or magazine under the paper when cutting.  Iron shiny side down for a few seconds. Make sure to hit the edges of your image good. You don't want any lifting.  Grab your fabric paint and carefully paint the negative space. I like to go with the edges instead of against them to help prevent paint from creeping (haha) under the paper. Make sure to put a piece of newspaper or something inside the shirt so the paint does not go through to the backside.  Give it a few light coats. Waiting about 20 minutes between coats.  Here's a lovely picture of me (captured by my 7 year old) working on some additional Valentine's wording he wanted added to his. Note...Drinking energy drink while using and Exacto knife can be dangerous!   I hope this has inspired you to create something for the little ones in your life.
Let me know what you think in the comments below. If you like this post please share it! This is a Curry household favorite. I love making them this time of year because I can make a ton of them at once and set them on the porch to freeze. Gotta love Wisconsin winter! My kids are always ravenous monsters when they get home from school and want to snack. However we eat dinner most nights at 4:30pm so I like to give them a snack that will tide them over but won't ruin their dinner. Yogurt dots do just that. They are inexpensive and can be fairly nutritious, depending what you use to make them. I always have the camera handy so I thought today I would share with you how I do it. Whip up a batch for the kiddos. Let me know what they think!  I like to use Greek yogurt. Normally I use vanilla but decided to use strawberry today instead. Put down wax paper or something of the sorts on a cookie sheet. Put the yogurt in a plastic bag, cut the tip and dot! EASY PEASEY LEMON SQUEEZY  Freeze til very firm, about 45 minutes.  Take spatula and scrape off!  YUMMO! You have to eat them kind of quick as they will melt (always reminds me of "Dipping Dots") but that's usually not a problem. My kids gobble them right up. Thanks for stopping by today! If you enjoyed this post please share it with your friends.
 Well the Instagram #7daysofkids is in full swing. Now that I got you movtivated to use those camera phones I thought I would share you with you my personal tips to awesome pictures with your phone. If you want to get in on the challenge find out how HERE! Check your background Sometimes we’re snapping the picture so fast we don’t even notice the sink full of dishes or the random person photo bombing the background. Less is more! 
My 7yr old captured this picture of us....the photo bomb does not bother me so much since it's my brother in law trying to entertain my little one :)
Turn off your flash! I know there are moments where no matter what the lighting looks like you HAVE to get that shot. But in the moments where you can be a little more conscious of the light, look around for it! 
Photo courtesy of my talented hubby Michael Curry
Clean your camera lens I know this sounds pretty basic,but you’d be surprised. Just use a cotton swab and cleaner designed for electronics. Hold your phone still Shoot with your two hands on the camera and pull your arms tight up against your body locking your elbows right above your waist for better stability. Try a different angles Get down low, shoot from above, move to the side of your subject. Get creative. 
Tap to focus Tap the screen to focus on what you want and get creative! 
Zoom NEVER (well as little as possible) Instead of using zoom, use your feet! Zooming only degrades the quality of the photo. Use apps to edit My favorite part of taking photos, for work or play, is the creativity. Lucky for you there are many iPhone and Android apps that bring the fun right to your phone! My favorite of course is Instagram 
I hope enjoyed these tips! If you are inspired please share this post with your friends!
 If you have spent any time with me whether in person or just through social media, by now you realize I am obsessed with 3 things. My kids, photography and caffeine. Not always in that order ;) I love nothing more than spending the day with my camera phone in hand, my kids running around happy and a nice cold Mt. Dew Amp on the counter. I sometimes feel like the paparazzi trying to capture every little thing they do. I am often approached with comments like this. "You are so lucky you have a "nice" camera to be able to take all those pictures of your kids". "You must never get anything done in your house if you are always taking pictures" and my personal favorite "Your kids must get sick of you taking their picture all the time" So let me clear up a few things. If you have asked me any of the questions above, attended one of my workshops or belong to my private Facebook group for workshop attendees you have heard this before but I am going to answer them all again. You do not need a "nice" camera (whatever that is really) to take awesome pictures of your kids. You need to know how to use the camera you have. I am in love with my camera phone. When my phone suddenly stopped working this summer and I was without it for a week, I darn near lost my mind. I grabbed for that phone a 100 times and missed a 100 photo opportunities. Many of our smart phones have settings and capabilities that our "nice" cameras have - you just need to learn it, use it and PRACTICE! Did I mention PRACTICE! Yes I could have walked around all day with my big dSLR camera strapped around my neck during that week,but lets face it, it's hard to do the dishes and change diapers like that. I love that I can tuck my phone in my back pocket and whip it out like a cowgirl in a shoot out. Secondly, I do get stuff done. Not near as much as I would like but it's all relative. Snapping a photo of something my kids are doing takes 2 seconds and I move on to what I was doing. Last but not least, my kids love having their picture taken. Whether it's from me or someone else. They do behave a little better for the formal pictures for other photographers but then again I would rather capture their everyday moments anyways. My kids, including my youngest, love to sit and go through their photos. They love that they can remember stuff through the photos as well."Mom remember when my tooth fell out at Taco Bell and I swallowed it"? (child holding my phone up to my face with that photo laughing hysterically) I don't feel they nor I will ever regret how many photos I took of them. Don't get me wrong, I love a beautiful portrait blown up life size on canvas on my wall (can't wait to show you guys the ones I just ordered...so giddy) but lets face it most of us can barely swing 1 professional photo session in our budget each year. I get that, but why are we missing the everyday moments? Our current technology makes it so easy to capture the moments. I am not super great at long term commitments. I start off strong and then life takes over and I forget. Sometimes I need the word CHALLENGE to up my level of commitment. So here is the challenge. It's ONLY 7 DAYS you can do this, I promise!!! Take a picture each day for 7 days of something that reminds us our kids were here (fur babies count too!) It can be your grandkids, nieces, nephews, the neighbors kids, anybody you want. Follow me on Instagram at MoniqueCurryPhoto and post your photos with the hashtag #7daysofkids. Challenge will run from February 9th until February 15th. You can post multiple pictures per day. The sky is the limit, but you must use the hashtag #7daysofkids. What's in it for you? I will tell you, 7 days of priceless memories captured. So grab your smartphone, ipod, ipad whatever you own and get to snapping! Do you know an Instagram lover? Click the Facebook Like at the bottom of the post and share the love! and because no post is complete with out a few pictures. Our first cookie decorating experience in the Curry house was interesting to say the least ;) I absolutely love lifestyle sessions and I love this family. I have had the honor of photographing them many times. I am always get so excited when I know I will be seeing them. The W family welcomed their 3rd boy in October. Today I will be spending some time with them once again to capture some of his first moments as a 3 month old. Here are some moments from little "S" when he was just 5 days old. We have some very proud big brothers!   Now I bet that title has you thinking! Two years and two days ago I entered my routine ultrasound appointment with much anxiety hoping and praying that everything would be alright. My husband and I also decided we would find out the gender as this was our 3rd baby. So lots of excitement waiting to hear that news also. After being blessed with 2 boys our family and friends were thinking PINK! I of course thought a girl might be nice and different but always envisioned myself with a whole team of boys. We were elated that everything was routine and the tech very casually slipped into the conversation we were having a "female". Female? What's a female I thought? Yeah I know, lots of emotions were clouding the brain. Took a few months to set it in. I was very excited and very nervous in the months leading up to her birth (June 22nd 2012). After all, I know boys! I would set out to the store to buy a little outfit and come back with 3 for each of the boys and no PINK! Not to worry I made up for that in the end ;) So this time each year I reflect back to the excitement, disbelief, nervousness and whole bunch of other emotions I felt and how funny that was. From the day she was born she has fit perfectly into our family. In a house that consisted of all boys (even our 3 pets) the PINK was a welcome addition. Do you have a gender reveal story? Did you share it in a fun way? Comment below! Little Owl outfit was a gift from the very talented, Michelle over at AddisonGrace Designs Do you want to see how we revealed the gender to the world? With all the constant Facebook changes it's getting harder and harder for you to see what's going on at MCP. Want to keep up with what's happening? Enter your email address below and have it delivered to your inbox. Not to worry you won't be bombarded with emails or junk. You can also subscribe via RSS reader if you prefer. Just the latest happenings! |
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