Ginny Girl.




sometimes she has a funny crooked smile
sometimes her lips get stuck on her gums

then she looks goofy





sometimes she is calm
sometimes she is gentle

then she looks angelic




sometimes she sits very close
sometimes she holds hands

then she looks darling




I love you Ginny girl.

Did you go to the Met Ball last night?
No?
Me either.

But that's okay.  I'm going to show you my favorite dresses.
Thank you Just Jared blog for sharing your pictures with me.

The Met Ball is hosted by Vogue big shot Anna Wintour.  She invites the fabulous to come and wear their most Vogue-worthy threads.

What you see here are my favorites.

Please pick your favorite and at the end of the day.  I will tell you mine.
You can also guess which one I loved best.



This is Leslie Mann.  She is a comic actress.
This dress is by Nina Ricci.

This event is supposed to be Avant Gard.
I think she is right on target.



Sarah Jessica Parker aka SJP.
I like this unusual floral.  It's surprising.
Dress by: Valentino.
I love him.



Renee Zellweger has been off the grid for a while,
but I think she was lovely last night in her Pucci.



Emma Stone in her Lavin dress.
I adore this dress.
I'm not sure it's right for this event.
But.  Perhaps short is the statement.



This is what I expected to see at the Met Ball.  This is Florence somebody.
Her dress is by Alexander McQueen.
Very interesting and pretty and weird.



Gorgeous dress.
Dianna Agron in Carolina Herrera
Carolina Herrera always makes beautiful dresses.



Daniel is with Rose H. and she is wearing Oscar de la Renta.
Another one of my favorite designers.

I love ruffles.





The lady in the white and orange is Tory Burch. She is a designer.
That girl in the middle is Rashida Jones. Her dad is Quincy.
I actually like the bold colors chosen by Tory but don't care for those appliques.
I think Rashida's dress is beautiful.



Why do I think of Steph when I see this dress?  Oh. yes. I remember.
Katherine McPhee in Elle Saab.
Love this color and LOVE this cut.
She looks fabulous.



And big huge props to Kristen Wiig!!!  She is most improved.
This color is wonderful.  Her hair and make up are fantastic.
Dress by Stella McCartney.
Lovelovelove.


So that's what was going on in New York last night.
Another world altogether.
It's a bit over the rainbow, isn't it?

I don't long to be there or dress like that....I am
happy to cheer them on and enjoy to show.


Be it ever so humble.
There's no place like home.

Encourage one another,
Donna

p.s.  Now it's time to go thru my prayer list.
Much healing is needed.  Thank you for joining me in the fun times and the hard times.

Hi everyone!
I hope you had a nice weekend!
Ours was a quiet one.  Except for the thunder.

I just have one cranky thing to say about this weekend.
When did regular old rain become SEVERE WEATHER?

Okay.  I feel better.



*****


I thought you would get a kick out of a little editing trick I did on this picture.




Far from a perfect job. But plenty good.



*****

Katie is playing that drawing game now.
Some people cheat and just write the word.
Boo.




****

Ginny is really such a sweet girl.  She's doing so well for six months.







Oh my.  Look at those crazy eyes!!!



****

The winners of The Amazing Race.



Dave and Rachel Brown.
Madison Wisconsin natives!!!

Rachel works just down the road from us!
So excited.  They were a powerhouse team.

Congratulations Dave and Rachel!!


*****

Looking forward to a little sunshine this week.
pretty please.

My weather has the 'crying sun' showing for today.
That is just weird.
What does it all mean?



Encourage one another,
Donna

Observations:

1.  People are prettier when they think they look pretty.
This must be why fashion phototogs can be overheard cooing and encouraging their models.
'You look fabulous!'
Katie felt so pretty and special in her new top.

2. I bought this top for Katie because I wore tube tops back in the 70's.
We even learned how to make them.  She picked out the white with dark blue/black bow.
I also helped her choose a dress to wear to a wedding in July.  It's got the tube thing going too but it is navy and white checked.  Super cute.

3.  My technical goal in photography is to take a perfectly exposed picture.
This white top kills me.  I hate this white glare thing going on.  Every single picture this white top is freaking out with dumb white glare.
Now.  If I exposed for the white top, Katie's face would be way too dark.
(I love how Katie's face is exposed in this picture.)
I have four or five actions that fix white.  I hate them.  The white turns out grey and weird.
None of them work to my satisfaction.

4.  This is just one of the many reasons why I do not shoot wedding pictures.

5.  I guess I will google it to see if I can find an easy answer.

6.  Cause it really makes me mad.




On a covered porch.




Far back in garage.  This is my best white of the whole shoot.
I make my models sit on balls.

Sometimes they fall off.

*****

We had a best day yesterday.

No school for Katie.
I love that.

We shopped for Tom's shoes.  No luck.  So we went to Hollister because she wanted to buy a shirt with her own money.  I liked the styles this spring and bought her a few things.  She was so grateful.

Then we went to our favorite Thai place for lunch.
(I made her taste a few new things because I am reading Bringing Up Bebe and the author explains that the French encourage tasting. A lot.  Early and often.)

And then we had our nails done.
(Are you suppose to match your toes to your fingernails?  Katie did not.
I only had my toenails done.)

I tipped extravagantly.

I tried to explain to my girl how appreciative I was of her attention to detail and meticulous work but I really don't think she understood me.

Katie's girl painted Katie's fingernails for no charge.

We thanked her with a generous tip too.

What else can you do?  The language gap is hard.

****

Source: realsimple.com via Donna on Pinterest

I really must make this.

Follow my pins on Pinterest.
My boards are fabulous.

MizBooshay on Pinterest

Have a lovely weekend.
And if you know how to shoot white things, tell me.

Love ya!
Donna

Flash Back Friday, Y'all




Doesn't mom look amazing in this shiny silver dress?
She is impossibly thin.
Jimmy and Nancy.  Precious babies.  Beautiful.





This is a favorite picture of mine.  We were going to a Halloween party.
Neither of us are costume people.
Wearing cat ears and glasses was my attempt at being....festive.

However.  I think I should always wear those glasses and cat ears.
I look uncharacteristically cute.

My guess is this picture is eight years old.




August 2007.

Katie sees another child at the pool.
She does not know this child.
But she wants to be friends.

Really. Really wants to be friends.

(My favorite Katie swimsuit EVER!)




I had only had my big camera for a few months...and I took lots and lots and lots of picture trying to learn to shoot on manual.





July 2007

I am still not the best at action shots.  I need more practice.  I guess I can work on that this summer.
The helmets are fitting better now.  Thank heavens.  They all looked like bobble head dolls out there!




Emma was in India in the summer of 2007.




Emma and her friend Emily getting their hands dyed.



This picture was taken moments before the kiss picture on my blog.
It's really hard to take a self portrait with a D80 and 50 mm lens.
But I tried, by golly, I tried.


And if you can find a tread of anything linking these pictures today....
you are a better man than me.


What can I say?
I am thankful for my life.
I am thankful for my camera and everybody else who has a camera and takes a picture and passes it along....
They matter.
Those snaps matter.

Encourage one another,
Donna

Katie pierced her ears last night.
They were pierced years ago.  But they grew together.  We almost had them repierced about two months ago but Katie decided to save her money.

And last night, after she was sent to bed with a hug and a kiss, she went into the bathroom and shoved earrings thru those little closed up holes.

cringe.

She came downstairs and said LOOK!

pretty.

She said it didn't hurt.

much.

She said she disinfected them.

good.



I'm a little frightened by what that girl will do when I am not looking.

shudder.


She is tougher than she looks.


yikes,
Donna



p.s.

I have a new tutorial up at The Pioneer Woman's if you haven't seen it yet.

Is your left side more attractive?

I don't know why...

But I love the KISS CAM!!!

Last night my favorite mum and dad, The Beckhams were caught at a Lakers game!!!





And a few months ago, my favorite hollywood couple was caught on cam.




And my favorite disc jockey of all time...Steve Dahl and his wife Janet.



Hey!  I never said I wasn't easily amused.


Have a great day!

Encourage one another,
Donna

I finally made the coconut cake.

It is super moist and delicious and rich.




The recipe is a secret from Sher's mom Sally.
She was kind enough to share it with me and Sher last month.



Here is the magical-moist-making concoction.

Let me just say, if you want to make a cake like this, just google coconut cake and pick one that has milk+
poured over the cooked cake.

You should come very close.


Then I took pictures of Ginny.




She is a good girl. But she sure likes to eat crap.
That's what she is doing right now.
She is outside eating crap.




Here she is looking young, isn't she?

She is six months old today.

A person at Starbucks asked me what kind of dog I had?  It was because of the dog hairs on my fleece.
She didn't realize that is rude to ask.  But it is.  To me.
I don't even notice the hair because that black fleece always looks crazy linty.
But I was embarrassed.

And then I showed her a picture of Ginny.

You know how you don't notice certain things....
Well.
I guess for me it's dog hair on my black fleece.

I don't look at myself much. period.
I'm not a mirror person.

I know some mirror people.  They check themselves out when they walk past a shop window.
Every time.

That's okay too.

I am sure they never have dog hair on them.

With love,
The Fashion Don't

Unusual signage.




It was, after all, a Catholic Schools track meet.

No prayer was said to start the meet, but Jesus was there in hearts and on hurdles.





Katie got some new running shoes.
For the last month she has been wearing broken down Converse.  She never complained, but numerous times I said she should really get some running shoes.  Well...between Katie and me...it was not remembered until 8:30 on Saturday night.   My husband, the shoe buyer in the family, looked up the mall hours and he and Katie ran to the store to buy shoes.

Katie was happy to have them.
She can be seen from the moon.

She jumped well.
She hurdled and got tangled up on #2.
She ran the 200 and came in third in her heat.

It was an experience.
Next time she can build on this one.

The baseball roster was published last night at 10:00.
Katie is on a team with a friend from softball and drama and there are three coaches.
So happy about that!!

She has new baseball shoes too.

The girl is ready to go. go. go.

I continue in my role as cheerleader.





Encourage one another,
Donna

Hi!  I bet you didn't think you'd be hearing from me today :o)

We went on a car buying expedition today.  Just got home.  Phew.
It's good to be home.  The car was nice as it looked in the picture.
And so....




This picture is from Monday.
Sher brought Emma home for a Dr. appointment and then we took Sher to our favorite places to visit in Madison.






Look what we found!!!




We walked all the way up State St. and went into the Capital.
It's a pretty place.

Thanks for making the trip Sher!
Sorry about that hammock for a bed.  :0/

Happy cold and dreary weekend.....tomorrow should be better...
right!?!?

Track Meet tomorrow.
I may need to bring my mittens...



Encourage one another,
Donna

Does anybody know what time it is?

It's Flash Back Friday time!!!




Here is our cute dad.  He never saw any of his grandchildren...but many of them sure look like him.
This picture must be around 1967.  This is the kitchen in Wheaton before wallpaper.
The drink.  Martini.



Here we are. The seven of us.  We are in order of age.  Of course.
1977.



Cindy, Sue, Donna.
1978.
Minocqua



Jimmy on beach on Martha's Vineyard.
Dec. 12, 1978



Susie visiting me in Wausau.
1980.



Sue was my muse before Katie was my muse.  We were together at college for two years in Columbia Mo. and I had my first fancy camera.



This was my first car.  Sue went with me to buy it.
Her first car was a yellow Capri and then she had a baby blue Firebird.



This is Aunt Betty and cousin Kelly.
March 1977.
Betty was our mom's youngest sister.  I lived with her for two summers.



Beautiful faces.
Beautiful souls.
Forever
a part of me.


I remember you.

Donna