Cows, giggles, green pastures, and dirt road wisdom.

This morning I guess I really needed to clear my head and connect with some country.  This came in the form of Boony cruisin' with a couple of really awesome ladies in the dodge truck.  We sat in the truck blasting country music, laughing, giggling, and bouncing around the truck on some Oklahoma back country dirt roads.  We saw some beautiful fields and barns, we talked to some cows, and even had a couple of scares.   We were getting a cold front coming in so there were some clouds on the horizon that maybe it all the better.  One thing you can say about Oklahoma, it has beautiful farmland and beautiful big skies.  Both of which make for breathtaking photographs.   

It was a quiet morning at least until the three of us came bouncing through.  My two cruisin' buddies needed the head clearing moment just as much as I did.  We stopped and talked to the cows.  Watched a few sneaking their breakfast on the other side of the fence.  You know because the  grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.  As it turns out the grass isn't always greener on the other side.  Sometimes we just think it is.  One thing I have learned in my forty years is, no matter how green someone's life appears, everybody has brown spots now and then.  See these cows are leaning out eating the short grass that is turning quicker even though they have thicker fuller grass in their pasture.  I think it is just how they sit it.  You know that is just the point.  We are all just so busy trying to have the better greener pasture that we are missing what is right in front of us.   We need to just stop and look around.  If you look at your own pasture you might find it is greener, more peaceful, and happier than those Joneses we always seem to be trying to keep up with.  And you never know they might just be look from their pasture at us and think it is greener because we have a more simple life.  

So  here is what I am thinking.  We need to all slow down take a drive out in the country on a dirt road.  Maybe just seeing the simple beauty of the barns, silos, pastures, cows, and big sky then count our blessings.  We have our husbands, our kids, our family, we have a place to live, food to eat, electricity to keep it not to hot or cold, we have a way to get around. These are all blessings.  We need to keep that in mind a little bit everyday.  We need to be thankful for these blessing and not worry as much about our neighbors blessings.


So maybe  looking at my pictures that I took will help you realize what I realized this morning.  I also realized nothing beats a couple of good friends in a truck boony cruisin' on some red dirt roads.  An other thing to remember is always keep a camera with you.  You never beautiful sites you might see on a beautiful October Oklahoma morning.  Not to mention some awesome country music can cure any thing that ails you.

One more piece of dirt road wisdom, don't forget what you have been through because it made you who you are today.  It also made you stronger.  So while the future is a little fuzzy right now it will be crystal clear and in the rear view mirror soon.  

Peace, Love, and Dirt road happiness.

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After the storm

After the storm, there is something beautiful.  The other day we were having an outdoor party for one of the kids.  There was rain and some storms.  Which is irritating. Driving to one of the kids to get clothes to stay the night we saw some amazing sights.

These were not editted except to add the watermark.  

I loved the flags with the sunset in the background.  Oklahoma has some beautiful sunsets not quite as good as Texas but still good.

Luckily the Handy Hubby was driving because I took tons of shots.

I just thought I would share with my friends, the beauty after the storm.  There is always light after the dark, and beauty after the storm.

Unspoken traditions that make Mom giggle.

Photo by Alyssa Hawkins Photography

Little Miss has always done photoshoots and she has always had a blast doing them.  She loves the camera and the camera loves her. When she was a little Little Miss I would trade sewing skills for photography work.  I could do pictures with no problem I had a film camera not a digital.  I knew for toddler age I would shoot about 3 rolls of film to get 4 pictures that were decent.  Toddlers are so fun and busy.   But for this particular shoot my friend and awesome photographer Alyssa Hawkins in Simms, TX was taking pictures of Little Miss.  I had made Cricket and Grasshopper costumes for her daughters for halloween.   So she was doing a fall mini session at a horse auction barn.  Love it.  So I made Little Miss some overalls with farm accents.  Best part I made them so Little Miss could still easily potty train.  I loved those little overalls.   Alyssa took some amazing photos of Little Miss.  But she also started an unspoken  tradition  embedded deep within Little Miss's mind.  At fall photo shoots, I get to eat the apple props.  

Fast forward to last week and mom doing the fall photoshoot .  Little Miss immediately grabs an apple out of the basket of prop apples and started eating it.  Funny it is even the same type of apple.  Years later and nothing has changed. My little girl still stealing apples off of the photoshoot set and eating them.  I wonder if 5 years down the road we will be doing middle school fall pictures and she steals an apple prop and eats it?  

You know it is the little things in life that make you smile and giggle.  This was one of those times.  It actually too 3 days and standing in the kitchen if front of the basket of apples for me to  remember why I loved the apple thing in Little Miss's pictures.  This is all Little Miss, her idea.  It makes my heart smile to think about this.

Handy Hubby, Lemonade stands, and knock kneed flamingos

Well we had an eventful weekend and following week.  Last weekend Handy Hubby finished the Lemonade stand/photo prop.  Little Miss loved it.  She instantly ran in the house and grabbed her picture of Lemonade and plastic cups.  She  sat on the curb in her lemonade stand selling and giving away lemonade.  Truth be told she gave away most of it.  Unsuspecting customers got sugar free lemonade.  But she had a blast.    Her friends had a blast.  They brought out paper and crayons and made signs.  Who could pass up buying lemonade from these kids.  Daddy was just as happy and proud of his craftsmanship.  He even made a bench that perfectly stores inside the stand.  Although the bench had more cussing and fussing to make it than the stand.  There was one screw that was being insanely stubborn.  I think that particular screw was made in October.  Everybody knows, us Scorpios are the most stubborn people. That is right I am a Scorpio and I am extra extremely stubborn.  I was the one that got that screw in, but I was more stubborn than that screw.  We were so glad we made him happy to make her happy.  I think he was also happy for me to stop nagging him to make the stand.  But all said and done I will get all my money out of that prop I can.  

Now this wasn't all fun and games.  When taking the picture of Little Miss in her Lemonade booth, I shifted my weight on my knees oddly.  Something popped and I started standing there like a knock kneed flamingo.  My left knee Hyper extended backwards and inside toward my right knee all at the same time.  No worries, my knees have done this forever.  I keep a brace and crutches handy because of this problem, not to mention 2 knee cap fractures in 2 years.  My neighbors giggled when they figured out what I had done.  "Looked at a tool and thought about using it didn't you."  This is all an inside joke.  You see 2 years ago, I broke my knee cap in half, completely into 2 pieces while trying to rip pallets apart.   My other friends just call me Grace.  So needless to say I am riding the couch for a few days.  But then again I am pretty used to this considering I am as accident prone as I am stubborn, although I think somehow those two things might actually be connected.  

So Tuesday brace, crutches, and all went out to shoot test shots for the Fall Mini sessions I am going to be doing in a few weeks.  Little Miss wasn't quite in the mood to do pictures but Daddy bribed her.  If she did pictures, we would go to Sodalicious afterward.  Sodalicious is our favorite drink spot.  They also have the bestest snickerdoodle cookies ever.  So if you live in our neck of the woods go visit them and tell them HouKreative Photography sent you.   Anyways, Little Miss finally started behaving and posing for pictures.  Handy Hubby and Spazz the middle child set up the stand which for this shoot is going to be a fall pumpkin stand.  They help me haul the decorations out and decorate.  We found this awesome old tree to set up under, it had the most amazing bark patterning.

So if you are in our neck of the woods or know somebody in our neck of the woods.  Send a flyer.  We still have a few sessions open. Then afterwards you can stop by Sodalicious and have a drink and a snickerdoodle.  

Antique Pillowcase dress shoot

This last weekend, I spent the day with Little Miss doing photo shoots.  She absolutely loves doing shoots.  She begs to do them, and when we are through and heading home she gets sideways with me.  These are some of the pictures from our second set of pictures.  Daddy showed us this little piece of photography heaven in the downtown area of our little corner of the world.   As a utility worker, he knows were all the really beautiful or funky spots are to shoot in town.  Daddy worked as our photography assistant on this day.  

In these pictures, Little Miss rocked a pillowcase dress made from an actual pillowcase.  I got it at an antique store.  It was a single pillowcase and didn't have a match so I didn't feel so bad about making a dress out of it.  This particular pillowcase was hand embroidered and had a beautiful hand tatted lace edge. I made her wings too.  I was inspired by Wife Made

.

Little Miss came up with this pose all by herself.  I don't have to pose her much.  She generally comes up with her own poses and if I shoot she will give me gold.  The camera really loves her.

 This is one of my favorites of this shoot.  Her running through the grass with the side of a torn down building in the back ground is beautiful to me.  The quilt top she is running with is one I made from scraps from outfits I have made for her and her brothers.  So this picture has many memories in it.  I will be printing and framing this one.  I will be hanging it in our living room.

I love the simplicity of this shot and the compliment of the blue painted brick with her dress.

At this point she was starting to get tired and flustered

 at her older brother.  He was on the other side of the 

street riding his skateboard.  The noise the board made

 made her mad.  Her blood glucose was also dropping so 

mood swings were starting to abound.  In between shots, Little Miss would yell at her brother.  "Stop making that noise."  And "You are so annoying."  Momma had enough and called it good.