Hello! I'm Joanna, author of this photo journal. My husband, Mark, and I are professional photographers in Asheville, North Carolina. The name of our company, Tuesday's Frog, is based on an almost-wordless children's book about mischievous frogs that go flying on lily pads one night. We love this book because the illustrations are truly the heart of the story. Speaking of mischievous, Cole & Harper are our children, and frequent, though not always willing, photography subjects. Here you'll find not only the stories of our everyday lives, but of those we've photographed in our capacity as professional photographers as well. Please feel free to browse the links above, check out the archives at the bottom of the journal for more photo stories, or subscribe and receive email updates of all our antics. Enjoy!
March 2, 2009
a very rainy Friday (and Saturday, and Sunday)
The lure of the puddle...
...really, who can resist?
Even Cole got in on the fun (but not in the puddles, because he didn't want to get wet -- but someone just might have splashed him anyway.)
(It's just too bad she was too sick to enjoy the puddles & boots the rest of the weekend...but I'm sure there are more rainy-day-opportunities to come.)
The kids barely had any school last week what with the holiday on Monday and snow days Tuesday & Wednesday and a late start on Thursday. We were allllll happy to resume our routine on Friday! : )
Yesterday we were able to play outside for a bit since the weather was so nice. And yes, one does need 4 different chunks of chalk in order to write the letter "H" in an array of colors.
Last Saturday we headed across the mountain to the Christmas Tree farm. Yes, I realize this is early, but we're busy the next two weekends. It was rather chilly (20) but clear and sunny, and as the first people at the farm we pretty much had our pick of trees! Look there - that's snow up on that mountain!
Anyway, the reason I'm posting this on Thanskgiving is because they said at the farm that the weekend after Thanksgiving (and the weekend after that) are their busiest of the year. So go early to get a good tree! If you happen to live in NC, check out the 2008 Choose & Cut Christmas Tree Farm Guide here. And, if you happen to miss out on the farm experience, or don't want to trek across the mountains for one, visit the Asheville Farmer's Market for a great selection of already-cut trees and help support our local farmers.
This one is much more pragmatic about the snow. It's cold. My feet are wet. I'm ready to go inside, Mommy. Can't you just see it all in this look?
It snowed more yesterday afternoon while the kids were napping. There was still snow on the ground this morning, so we even went out and bought a sled...now that we have a little hill in the side yard that's perfect for it...
So basically, we moved in right before Christmas, and promptly decorated the house for the holidays in addition to installing appliances and setting up furniture. Probably not the greatest time in the world to move, but it was what it was. Here's the view from our front porch on one of our first nights...
The second photo was taken in our living room on Christmas Eve after Santa had been by to visit.
Here's a glimpse at our lovely new dining room table made by my brother-in-law, Paul. As you can tell, we don't have quite enough matching chairs yet for the table, but we'll work on that later.
Here's the crowd that was at our house for dinner on Christmas Day - Mark's parents, my parents, my brother Mark, my sister Kristina and her husband (and table maker) Paul, and Paul's mom, Margaret. Oh yes, and two uncooperative children... At this point we'd just finished pulling apart our crackers, which is a tradition that Paul and his mom (who are from South Africa) shared with us. Each cracker tube has a prize in the middle of it, which Cole quite enjoyed.
So then, the day AFTER Christmas, the work began. We took all the furniture down from the 3 bedrooms which make up the top level of the house and pulled up the carpets in each. The carpet wasn't bad, necessarily, but the previous owners had a cat and we have allergies and it just wasn't a good mix. This is what each of the rooms looked like when we moved in:
Then Mark and his dad put in unfinished hardwoods which were sanded and painted white. Yes, painted white. While they were doing this my mom, brother, and I painted the walls in each of the 3 rooms, and my Dad did other odd jobs, like put up the new mailbox, hang curtain rods, fetch tools, paint rollers, paint, etc.
So here's what Cole's room looks like now:
As well as "princess" Harper's:
I'd show you our room, too, but alas, the platform bed we ordered did not come with hardware so it's still a work in progress. But I will tell you that the whole room design was based on a swatch of fabric I found a few weeks ago...and thankfully, Mark just let me do whatever I wanted. heh!
So anyway, that's it for now, but I do have to say a big THANK YOU to all of our wonderful helpers! They thought they were just being invited for Christmas and it turned into a whole lot more work. Thank you, everyone!
Harper and I returned yesterday from our trip to Minnesota (and it was warm there! Like unseasonably warm!) I'll share more of a recap later (when I've caught up on my sleep), but I thought I'd start with these 2 photos. One of my favorite things about rural Minnesota is the unobstructed views of the horizon, so here's a sunrise photo taken at my parents' farm, and a sunset photo taken overlooking Clear Lake.
Anyhoo, I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend! I helped Mom decorate the house for Christmas, which will have to give me my Christmas "fix" for a few more weeks until after we move BECAUSE WE SOLD OUR HOUSE! Sorry Brandy, I should have given you more warning... So whohooo for that, and safe travels, and good times with family, and the celebration of Advent which is almost upon us...
Oh my word, it's snowing! I believe I said that outloud when I happened to look out our front door this morning. Good thing we just bought new hats for winter!
