"... and he only holds the key to his own secret." [Not Quite] First Day of School Pictures 2013/2014

"It is not for you to choose what he shall know, what he shall do. 

It is chosen and foreordained, and he only holds the key to his own secret."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Education," Lectures and Biographical Sketches

Though we will not start homeschool until the first week of September, I managed to get SC bathed in the morning (rather than the evening) and her hair fixed, and the weather wasn't too hot, so we took some time to take a few commemorative photos for the start of her kindergarten year.  So, here are our [Not Quite] First Day of School Pictures for 2013/2014.

Have you taken your yearly "back to school" photos yet?  Let me know how it went below, and then check out some other 2013/2014 pictures at the 5th Annual "Not Back to School" Blog Hop:

Top Ten Tuesday: "To take a photograph..."

"To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s ... mortality, vulnerability, mutability."

-Susan Sontag, On Photography

When SC was first born, I made a point to take pictures all the time, However, between finishing school, teaching for a year, and then going back to school to work on my masters degree, I got out of touch with the camera.  Her first year, I made a "yearbook" of sorts, and I love looking back at all the pictures and reminding myself what it was like when she was so tiny and helpless.  I have created a book for her second year, but we have not printed it yet.  However, that is where I stopped.  One of my goals this year is to create a book for each of year three (which will be fairly empty - that is the year I was teaching) and year four, and try to keep up to date on creating year five as we go along.  

So, I decided to focus my top ten this week on photographs, and specifically, ten photos I took this morning in less than ten minutes.  I should warn you, I took over fifty photographs in the ten-munute photo shoot we had in front of our house.  SC does not sit still or pose in any way, so I am hugely thankful we bought a legitimate camera when she was born, that keeps up with the speed that I "snap" pictures as she moves about.  Also, today is "Teddy Bear Picnic" day at SC's Mother's Day Out program, so our pictures feature a teddy bear (that used to be mine when I was SC's age!) and a flower that SC picked from the front of our neighbor's house.  The purple spots on her face are not bruising, but a failed attempted at removing the marker-drawn "freckles" she graced herself with last night.  

2. 3. 

4. 5. 

6. 7. 

8. 9. 

10. 

Any comments, advice or opinions are welcomed.  Don't forget to check out other "Top Ten Tuesday" posts here.