I happened to glance outside this afternoon during the rainstorm and noticed the sun shining bright and I just knew what I’d find if I ventured outside.

And I was rewarded with not just one but two rainbows for my viewing pleasure. What a beautiful day in spite of the cold.

Intention 1: Make a hot breakfast for my girls and sweet husband (not a bad goal for once a year!) and express my love to them.

Reality: Ryan made the waffles while I watched the girls rip into their gifts.

Intention 2: Treat my family to my favorite breakfast, a V-day tradition dating back to my childhood, strawberry waffles.

Reality: Natalie and I were the only ones who enjoyed them. Bailey only wanted strawberry waffles if she could have whipped cream AND strawberries AND butter AND syrup (sugar overload, anyone?) and Macie was all excited about her waffles with whipped cream until I put strawberries on top. And Ryan just doesn’t have the strawberry waffle love that I have.

Intention 3: Record the before and after moments for posterity and my blog.

Reality:Afters are good at least, right? Right?

At least my girls know we love them and can enjoy their new things on their day off school today. The hubster and I had our hot Valentine’s Day date on Saturday, so we’ll stay in tonight and cuddle our cute girls. I’m dying to make some of these for hubby today–we’ll see if my skills can get me there! (only open the link if you have a sense of humor about Valentine’s Day cookies, please!) Off to do some baking–what do YOU have planned for love day?

I spent the first week of 2011 on a ship in the Caribbean with my hubby and all the adults in his immediate family. It was a fantastic opportunity to miss my children–every mommy of little ones needs those once in a while! I’m finally getting a chance to dig through my hundreds of photos and thought I’d share a few here.

I had three major pastimes while on the cruise–eating, relaxing, and shopping–which made for a very chill and calm Jan when we got home. I’d have to say my favorite experience was sailing a retired America’s Cup racing yacht on the Phillipsburg harbor in St. Maarten, though shopping in St. Thomas and lounging on the beautiful white sand beach in the Bahamas were lovely, as well.  I hear we missed a week of cold at home–what a lovely treat in the middle of winter!

Mom, dad, three girls, and a boy. Minus the boy part, this family fits beautifully with my family–our four-year-olds are in preschool together, BFFs from day 1. Our grade school girls arrange to meet under the slide at recess and argue over who will be the boss of the various games and activities. And our toddler girls are into e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. (theirs more than ours, thank heavens!) Baby brother just looks on, bemused by all these girls and egged on by their love. Aren’t they beautiful?

We spent a lovely weekend together at the beach–while Visalia was mired in fog, we had sunshine and heavenly weather–who goes to the beach in January??? We do, and it was fantastic! Love these adorable kids and their parents, what a treat it was.

To finish off this post, I want to share a before, in between, and after version of one of the family images from this shoot. Every photographer uses some form of image-editing software to polish up their images–or at least they should! Modern digital cameras provide such different results than film that it is extremely common for custom photographers to spend some time in a digital darkroom editing images to have pleasing coloring, a balance of light and dark, and attractive cropping. Click on the image below to see the before (straight-out-of-camera), in-between (Lightroom edits only), and after (final images from Photoshop) versions larger and more clearly. If you have questions on my processing, I’d be happy to answer them in the comments section.

Thanks for a fantastic session, my family’s twin! We love you guys.