# 370 - Super Sexy!

A few weeks ago, on the drive home from Heather's wedding (our oldest daughter), my husband was a sly devil and took a photo of me snoozing. He immediately posted it on Facebook. He liked it. I had no idea it existed until my sister called and told me she loved the picture of me asleep on the way home while wearing our mother's red hat.

What?

The hat had been put on an honor chair at my daughter's wedding for her grandmother and since I had it in my lap on the way home, I decided to wear it to help block the sun from my eyes. The shape of the hat worked perfectly to block out harsh rays of sun so I could relax and catch some much needed zzzz's.

Between my orthopedic neck pillow, the pillow in my lap, my cell phone hanging from the collar of my shirt, and the red hat with my hair splayed everywhere, I thought this shot was Super Sexy and had to be passed on to my blog buddies for a peek. I think the orthopedic pillow cinched the "S" in sexy...Don't you think?

I guess I should be thankful there wasn't an open gaping mouth or drool involved. It could be worse!

# 213 - Four Chickens & a Little Niece

Having our niece, Shaye, visiting for an overnight stay brought us such excitement. She's 5 years old and a source of never-ending energy that I wish I could plug into.

She is so happy about getting to see the chickens. Of course, she has been sad about Miss Speckles being gone, but she seems to be resilient and moving forward with having a great time with the four chickens we have left in the backyard.

In fact, one of the chickens begins to squawk loudly inside the coop and Shaye runs in the house to yell with excitement, "She's laying an egg! She's laying an egg!"

I am thrilled that Shaye has enough chicken-savvy to know when a hen is in the middle of laying an egg. Shaye also knows the hen needs privacy to do her job, so Shaye goes into the backyard and swings until the chicken emerges from the coop. Then, Shaye runs over to the coop, gets the warm, fresh egg and runs inside, "I have a new egg!"

Will this ever get old? No, I think not. I still feel the same thrill every time I search for eggs and find one.

Shaye knows the drill...a fresh egg gets a quick rinsing before it's laid out to dry. Then, it goes into the carton in the fridge.

To her, an egg is a symbol of fun and food with hope for more of the same to continue.

Then, Shaye becomes my Photography Buddy for the day. I hand her the camera and she goes back outside to see what her 5-year old perspective can capture on digital.

Shaye loves the chickens. They've met their match with inquisitive energy in this little girl.

Shaye loves to sit on the bench in the backyard and to swing while sweetly singing songs from the movie "Annie." Of course, Howdy sticks by her side like glue. He's very protective of Shaye. So, she snapped this picture of her guard-dog buddy.

Shaye also took a pretty good picture of the chicken coop that we moved to this location for marketing the house. The coop remains mostly on the patio stones so the grass won't be destroyed. I sure hope that potential buyers will not be scared by chickens. During our showings, the chickens will be kept inside the chicken tractor so the buyers can walk around the backyard freely.

Then, I was amazed to see our niece turn the camera back to herself so that she could take a few self-portraits. These pictures have to be the sweetest ever because she smiled for the camera exactly in the manner she wished because she was also the photographer.

Back inside the house, we were trying to thaw out because the temperature outside had been dropping and the winds had been biting our skin, Shaye decided that she wanted scrambled eggs as a snack. She did everything...she picked out the two eggs she wanted to eat, she cracked them PERFECTLY into the bowl, added salt and pepper, then scrambled the eggs with a fork.

I helped her put the eggs into a skillet; she stirred, then ate an entire bowl of eggs. However, as she was stirring her eggs, I noticed the booty-zone had gotten pretty scruffy from being outside for so long. I told her that this was the true-mark of a kid having a great time!

Uh, I hope your mom doesn't kill me for letting you get this dirty. Then again, I think my Sissy knows that our house is a place where the outdoors is a big part of our lives. Maybe that's why she sends the already-stained clothes for Shaye to wear for play-time. She's a smart mommy.

I think we all live in our "play clothes" around here.

#71 - A Chicken and a Four-Year Old

This week I've been watching my niece during the day while my sister works at her job as a school counselor. Since little Shaye is about to have her 5th birthday this month, she's also able to start Kindergarten. But, school doesn't start for a couple more weeks, so I get to spend extra special time with her until she starts her first day at school.

But I first have to say, since my youngest is home from her fun trip that included swimming with dolphins, she was finally able to check the chicken coop for eggs and my twenty-year old darling found one brown gem.

Stefie is holding a golf ball in one hand, saying" I can't
be fooled about that, I read about it on the blog already."
THEN, she spied a REAL chicken egg in a nest.

Stefie has the egg!

Shaye runs out to greet her cousin, "You found an egg?"

Shaye is always thrilled to help find an egg in the
chicken coop. I don't think she'll ever feel the same
about buying eggs at the grocery store. Not nearly as much fun.

In the early morning hours, I did some gardening and had finished by 7:30am --- I'm trying to avoid the horrendous Texas heat. Then, Shaye arrived for a day of fun. Together, we headed to the backyard to take care of morning chicken duties.

Of course, I always have my camera ready and I am prepared to take some opportune shots. However, you really don't have to do anything special to get unique shots when you have a four year old running around. A four year old lives in a perpetual photogenic moment.

Shaye has no fear of chickens. This is wonderful. Of course, our chickens are a friendly, docile breed and she's helped raise them since they were chicks. She came up to me and in her precious little voice, she asked, "Aunt Lana, may I pick up one of the chickens?"

I said, "Sure, just be careful with their wings."

She decided to pick up Miss Speckles, which wasn't difficult because this chicken is very approachable and friendly.

After Shaye picked up Miss Speckles, she walked around the backyard with her, but just not in the manner I expected.

After this moment of me hardly being able to hold the camera steady, Shaye put the chicken down and asked, "May I have the camera and take pictures by all by myself?"

I looked down at my beloved camera, took a good long look at all the menacing concrete scattered throughout the backyard and I relented, "Yep, here it is, just keep the strap on your wrist."

She took the camera and with a short lesson she proceeded to spend another hour in the backyard taking over 160 pictures. She became my Photographer-Buddy.

Needless to say, later in the day, as I transferred her photos to the computer, I sat in awe as I scanned each photo...I was quite impressed while going through her pictures. To be frank, I actually had a few tears in my eyes because the photos she took gave me an inside view into the way her little mind operates. I felt honored and touched by her perspective of the world and by the things that she found worthy of a photograph.

She had very few throw-away photos. It made selecting photos for the below slide-show a difficult task. To make the ordeal more fascinating to me, I weighed the fact that her daddy is actually a highly skilled photographer...not a hobby photographer like myself; her daddy works with the space program at NASA and is a published photographer in all kinds of media. He is awesome, to say the least. I think she inherited her daddy's ability or she is possibly taking detailed collegiate notes on his photography skills when he's not looking.

Here are some of her shots...

Shaye Shot. My water sprinkler.

Shaye Shot. Howdy trying to not move in the Texas heat.



Shaye Shot. She could not resist
capturing her shadow. Isn't this the beautiful
side of a four-year old? I REALLY don't like my shadow,
especially since she's 30 pounds heavier than the real me.



Shaye Shot. Howdy and Miss Speckles having
a little, friendly chat.

Shaye Shot. Close up of our hay.

Shaye Shot. Miss Speckles in the coop.
What a great four-year old perspective!
And, this is the BEST picture ever of Miss Speckles!

Shaye Shot. A close up of Miss Speckles.
Shaye is an in-your-face kind of photographer. Awesome.

Shaye Shot. Such an adorable expression!

I think Shaye may have to be my Photography-Buddy much more often. She has an eye for looking into the beady eye of a chicken and bringing out their best side.

Cluck. Cluck.