day 59/365 goof-ball

It's bath time and someone's acting like a goof-ball. All I said was "smile" and this is what I got!

day 58/365 love at the park

day58, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

This is the love I get for taking Cassidy to the park. Actually, this is the love I get for taking her picture at the park. But at least in this picture, I have eyes. All of the other pictures I took from our day at the park were of the back and sides of Cassidy's head.  She actually was thrilled at the park today.  She crossed the monkey bars for the first time!  She went the entire way without letting to!!  She was so happy.  Too bad I didn't catch that expression.  Oh well.  Happy day 58 everyone!

day 57/365 my skater

day57, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

Cassidy has been taking ice skating lessons for a little over a year. She loves it! And she works hard at it. I am so proud of her progress. Her favorite thing about ice skating? Definitely the dress! She got this sparkly number from her grandma for Christmas. I hope she sticks to ice skating. I think it helps her to focus and concentrate and listen.  And the pretty little dresses...that's her motivation.

day 56/365 look at me

day56, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

Cassidy found this itty-bitty baby book I made when she was a baby so I could carry around pictures of her in my purse when I had to travel for work. She thought the pictures were funny. When I look at these pictures, I think WOW, I wish I was a member of ClickinMoms back when she was born!!!

day 55/365 girls' day

day55, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

My husband went skiing today and is gone until Sunday. So, when the cats away...it's GIRLS' DAY! Last night before my husband left, Cassidy was skipping around the house singing, "girls' day, girls' day, girls' day..." and my husband was like, "ummmm, I'm still here!" We'll he's gone now, and the girls' are going to play! Woohoo!

day 54/365 day at the doctor

In a follow up to "day at the dentist," today we have "day at the doctor." I'm a firm believer in clustering all of your doctor visits within a few days (not really, it just turned out that way). Day at the doctor was more dramatic that day at the dentist. So, Cassidy had her 5 year check up. All is well...she's healthy. 90% height/95% weight. Blood pressure, pulse etc. all good. But her eyes were 20/30 and 20/40! I have bad eyes (but got lasix!) So the doctor said I could take her to the eye doctor if I want or wait a year...she's borderline. What the heck does that mean? So do I take her to the eye doctor? What if she can't read the boards at school? What if it affects her learning? (And all the other "what ifs" that went through my head). So, I think I'm going to take her...

Second problem -- that chin wound she suffered about 10 days ago and got "glued" shut (instead of stitches)? Well, it's still OPEN! Still OPEN! So, I now have had to call a plastic surgeon to stitch it up so she does get a keloid scar. UGH. So we have an appointment on Friday.

As a side note, I realize that boob jobs are a high paying business for plastic surgeons, but why do I have to see them all over their website? Especially when I am bring my 5 year old to get stitches on her chin? I don't want to see that and neither does she.

Again...sitting in a very chill fashion at the doctor's office...this is PRE-shots!

This picture is POST-shots. She is trying to force a smile through her tears. (You probably can't tell because I took this picture with my iPhone, but she's got tears in her eyes.) She cried when she got her two shots. After her shots, I wanted her to put her sweater on and she said through tears, "but my arm is BLEEEEEEDDDDING from my shot..." Really? It's not bleeding, drama queen, and you have a band aid on it.  She got over it when I had to "catch" her urine sample in a cup....She thought that was the most hilarious thing ever! I disagree.

day 53/365 day at the dentist

day53, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

Cassidy had a dental appointment this morning. And in her relatively short life (relative to mine, for example), no dental appointment is complete without the ever-trustworthy sidekick, Bear-Bear. He's attended every single dental appointment. He even had his x-rays taken! (I was probably charged something for that...) And surprise, Bear-Bear has no cavities.

Today, we learned that Cassidy has four wiggly teeth - her bottom two front teeth and her top two front teeth. Interestingly, the top two are NOT wiggly because of the permanent teeth pushing down on them, yet. Rather, they are wiggly because of some kind of "trauma" to the teeth. Huh? Really? I had no idea she had had trauma to her teeth at some point in her relatively short life. The dentist said it was unrelated her to recent chin fall issue; it was something that had to have happened a while ago. Really?

In other news from the dentist, mom is doing a really good job with brushing Cassidy's teeth!

day 52/365 the zoo

day52, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

We went to the local zoo and found this elephant. Cassidy assured me it was a girl elephant because of the flowers on her head, "why would a boy wear flowers on his head?" she stated. Good point. This was her first time riding an elephant. When her ride was over, I asked her how it was and she said, "SCRATCHY"...ahem, really?  That can't be good.

day 51/365 her blinks

day51, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

Cassidy calls her eyes her "blinks." As in when she tired, she says, "my blinks are tired." Where do they learn these things? I've never called my eyes my blinks. But it's cute and original. Right now, her blinks ARE tired...and she is sleeping soundly! Whew!

day 50/365 D.A.Y. 50 People!

Day50, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

There is still no joy today...maybe later. The weather today is so odd. It waivers between total sunshine and total rain. I bet there's a rainbow somewhere out there. For now, I finally took a picture of Cassidy where she is looking at the camera! Woot woot! She almost NEVER looks at the camera. She must have thought there was some treat waiting for her after I snapped (literally).

Happy day 50 everyone. Only 315 more days to go on this journey!

day 49/365 no joy today

day49, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

I'm taking a short break from the Joy of Love pictures. Mostly because we don't really go out much so I didn't have any pictures to take while out. We stayed in tonight (like most nights), and some good friends came over, drank wine, and played Mah Jong. We're new to the Mah Jong circuit. But my friend has been playing all her life. I like it. It takes your mind off things for the moment.

On my mind? We've been sort of trying to sell our house (no listing, just through one realtor who has potential buyers, so not really trying hard).  We want to buy another house that's bigger and has more "value" (or so says my husband) because it's really low right now and in a really nice neighborhood. We were close to getting an offer today, but the guy *responsibly* went to his financial planner who told him he didn't have the cash to do it without selling a bunch of things that he really wouldn't be able to sell at the last minute, like his house. He had planned to not sell his current house -- who does that? Tries to buy a house without selling their present house??? Anyways, we didn't get an offer and now the house we want will probably get snatched up quickly because it's price was reduced a lot today. Oh well, here's to timing.

day 48/365 together (self-timer + self-portrait = blurry)

day48, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

This is my first try with the self-timer on my camera. Blurry blurry blurry...when you do self-timer, do you have to do manual focus? I did and, obviously, I didn't do a good job focusing. But, you get the gist. Me and Cassidy playing "princess"...she's much better at it than I am.  Joy of Love day 17 is all about togetherness, even if it's blurry.

day 47/365 together

day 47, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

Together and kiss...covering Joy of Love days 15 and 16 in one shot (since I only had a chocolate kiss for day 15). This is my self-portrait from my iPhone. I couldn't figure out how to use the timer on my camera...I'll save that for another day.

On another note, I don't know if you can see the huge band-aid on Cassidy's chin. She fell last Friday and scraped it up and needed glue to close it. Awesome...By the way, today is picture day at school. Yeah, a school picture with a huge band-aid. Like I said...awesome.

day 46/365 my kiss

day 46, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

It's not what you think...So I had to travel today for work. I left the house at 4:45 a.m. and got home at 9:30 p.m. And when I left my love was sleeping. And when I got home, she was also sleeping.  So I couldn't get my kiss picture. I had to settle for the next best thing to a real kiss...chocolate! Joy of love, day 15, kiss...I think. I lost the prompt. It disappeared out of my email and I can't find it anywhere on my computer or my email. So, I think it was kiss.

day 45/365 bling

day45, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

Happy Valentine's Day. I hope everyone had a great day! Joy of Love, day 14, is all about jewelry, wedding bands, to be exact. But since I already blogged my wedding bands, I thought I'd dig into Cassidy's jewelry box. For her birthday, my SIL gave her pretty, sparkly jewelry with pink and white "diamonds." It is just about Cassidy's most precious possession, I think (besides her bear). She feels like a princess when she wears her jewels. And she stores it in a jewelry box with this weird looking ballerina with blotchy eyes. It's like her eyes burned out from watching over the bright jewels. Hah! Well, Happy V-day, and happy day 45 in our year-long journey.

day 44/365 routines - that's how she rolls

day44, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

It's fitting that the Joy of Love prompt for today is routines and that it falls on a Sunday. One of our Sunday routines is to do laundry and fold clothes. I H.A.T.E. folding clothes (it's just going to get unfolded, right?). Well, fortunately, Cassidy L.O.V.E.S. to fold clothes. But when she folds, she rolls so everything ends up looking like a burrito. I think it comes from her Montessori school where they're always rolling the mats and putting them away. Hey, whatever works.

day 43/365 the soul

day43, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

The eyes are the window to the soul, or so they say. Yuki's eyes are so dark against her white fur...who knows what's behind them, if anything. Sometimes I wonder.

day 42/365 dreams

My girl dreams about getting married. She talks about it all the time. She even has her groom picked out. Joy of Love day 11 is all about dreams. What does your loved one dream about doing?

day 41/365 space

Joy of Love day 10 is space - where they are comfortable. The most comfortable place that my love loves is her bed. And (having had to sleep there quite a bit more than I would have liked) I can honestly say it IS comfortable. I love that she loves her bed. And that she would rather sleep in her bed than my bed!!! Woot woot for that!

day 40/365 passions and hobbies

Today's joy of love was a tough one for me (although when all is said and done, it seems pretty obvious). I took so many different pictures today. This morning, I took some of Cassidy watching her ipod. After school, we went to the park but it was so dark, my pictures were blurry because I couldn't see what I was focusing on. Then I took some more of Cassidy watching her ipod before bed (I know...too much watching the ipod!). Then I took some of my cat. And I was happy with none of the pictures I took. They were all blurry and not very exciting. Then it dawned on me...what about MY passion and hobby? So, I took a blurry picture of me taking a picture of me. Happy day 40/365. Thanks for looking and commenting!!

day 39/365 Joy of Love day 8

day39, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

It's day 8 of Joy of Love -- GOSH, I wonder how much longer I can keep this up?-- Today's Joy is what they have said, done, promised, given. So, of course, I chose to photograph my rings. I waited until the last minute to do it, so I didn't have much light and had to use my speedlite, which was a mistake given the reflection. So, it's not the best picture. But I think it represents what the Joy of Love is about!

day 38/365 lucky girl

Day 38, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

Joy of love, day 7, is all about generations. I'm cheating a little (ok, a lot) on this post because I didn't take these pictures today. I took them on our vacation. But I thought they'd be perfect for this generations post because the pictures are Cassidy with her grandparents. I am so lucky that my parents live really close by and are so involved in Cassidy's life. She's so lucky to know them.

day 37/365 who THEY love

Day37, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

Today's post is all about bear-bear. Bear-bear is Cassidy's well-loved, most favorite friend. Cassidy LOVES LOVES LOVES her bear-bear. And even though she's 5, she has slept WITHOUT him, like twice since we got him. TWICE! The most recent time was two nights ago, our last night of vacation. Cassidy packed him up in her back pack and slept without him. She was proud to not sleep with bear-bear and talked about "putting him on the shelf" when we got home. But once night time rolled around at home, she wanted her bear-bear...her real, true love.

In other news, I finally get to process photos at home on my computer! (I've been using my iPad the last couple weeks and the results are not great, I know). Today, I used Erin Cobb's clean color processing for PSE. I've only gone about 1/2 way through the video, but so far, I think I like it.

Thanks for your comments! And for your encouragement!!! Happy day 37.

day 36/365 love to hate

Joy of Love day 5---Love to hate. So many things to chose from for today's assignment!!! I actually took a couple pictures. One was my husband sitting on the couch with a remote in hand, but my picture came out blurry. The other choice...my husband with ear phones on listening to his iPod. Why do I love to hate this? Because once the ear phones go on, and they go on often, I become a single parent. He ignores everything, and is oblivious to all of his surroundings! Yes, I hate the ear phones!

A bonus vacation post from the Zoo to You!

We went to the zoo today and saw lots of cool animals. So thought I'd do a non-project 365 post. Yeah!

day 35/365 Joy day 4

day 35/365, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

Today is Joy of Love, day 4, what they wear. These pictures speak to what Cassidy loves to wear--my shoes (even if they are ugly Danskos--usually they involve some type of high heels, but since we're on vacation, we have my ugly, yet comfortable, shoes). She also wears dresses...and by that I mean ONLY dresses.

Joy day 4 also happens to be vacation day 6/7...ugh. Thanks for looking!!!

day 34/365 my how you've grown

Joy of love's day 3 assignment is to compare a photo from the past with one from the present and show in the present photo how the person in the past photo has grown...or something like that. I think our "then" photo was taken when Cassidy was about 1-1/2 or 2. Same profile, same bear. But oh, how you've grown!!

day 33/365 how they look

day 33/365, originally uploaded by Darolyn Hamada.

This morning, I caught Cassidy putting "diamonds" on her face...a couple on the cheeks, one on the nose, a couple on her ears for "earrings." So I snapped away...and captured her "how they look" picture for Joy of Love. Her quintessential picture--bottom right with the squished nose and tongue stuck out.

day 32/365 joy of breakfast

Like many of you, I started Joy of Love today, which is Willette's free mini class! Today's assignment, what they do. When Cassidy ate breakfast this morning, I snapped some shots of what she does...goofing off while eating breakfast! Ahhhh, the joy of love!!!