I had such fun going through my 2011 client photos for a forthcoming year-end wrap-up post that I decided to go ahead and do a top 11 of 2011 of my personal family photos. These aren’t necessarily my Best Work (I mean, look, there are three Instagrams taken with my iPod included!), but I love them so very much.

1.  Mr. Blue Eyes.  This has too much blue in it…on purpose! I love those blue eyes of his.  I suspect I was practicing using a new lens I’d gotten for Christmas (35mm).

2. This was a rainy day in early Spring. It had been a long winter and we wanted out of the house! We didn’t care if it meant getting rained on; it was so nice to be outside again.  And, yes, there was puddle-jumping.

3. Oh I’m laughing just looking at this photo! This was at the end of a day we spent at a sort of a fair with the local moms’ group. The boys waited (not so) patiently in line for these balloon art creations (one had an alien, one had a ray gun) and were so overjoyed by them, they actually cooperated for a photo.  You will not be surprised to hear that the balloons did not last too long — maybe an hour? — before they popped.

4.  This was on Easter morning.  You might have guessed this was not the one we shared with the grandparents; this was the one I agreed to take if they would smile nicely for the camera for the grandparents’ photo.  But it’s them; it’s so very them!

5. The pool had just opened for the summer and they were ready to go swimming! For some reason, they were also willing to pose for me (and by pose, I mean not jump around like wildmen, making it an extra focusing challenge), and I took them up on it.  They put themselves into the inner tube, by the way, completely on their own.

6. Just before they started first grade, we went to the childrens’ museum for the afternoon.  They paused for a moment to allow me to get a photo before rushing off to swarm the shaved ice street cart (hence the semi-cooperative smile on one of the boys).

7. This was from our visit to the USS North Carolina (decommissioned Navy battleship as seen in this earlier post). They had to examine everything on-board, and usually that included touching everything, too–even when the sign said NO TOUCHING. Boys.

8.  The first of the Instagram bunch, this was taken when this boy was home sick with a little stomach bug.  He brought his Lambie with him to the bus stop to wait for his brother to get home from school.

9. We bought a house in Raleigh in the fall and this was taken on our new home’s front steps.  We are all crazy in love with our new home.  Just not the acorns.

10.  Another Instagram capture. Along with a new home comes the need to constantly “run” to Lowe’s to get this, that, or the other thing.  The boys usually found ways to amuse themselves while their father and I debated paint finishes or the merits of different door knob styles; on this particular day, they spent a significant amount of time switching these lights on and off, on and off, on and off.

11. They made faces when they opened the assortment of Mad Libs books we gave them for Christmas, but I knew they’d come around to the tons of fun you can find in the total silliness of doing Mad Libs with a friend (or your brother). And, after all the Legos had been assembled and video games been mastered, they grudgingly gave Mad Libs a whirl…and guess what? Mama was right.  But I didn’t gloat. Too much.

This post is part of the Top 11 of 2011 Link-Up.  Check out the others!