Life imitates art...or tries to

All my life I have tried to make my life imitate the art I enjoy. Like during my summers on the ND farm when I read Anne of Green Gables and hung tree branches in my room (thank you, Grandma Kennedy and Aunt Betty for looking the other way and not saying a word!) I read the Little House books and determined to run barefoot all summer like Laura Ingalls.

Once I read a book--I can't recall the title--whose main character, Ivy, sort of lived in the woods near her house and hid treasures in boxes within the trees. There were woods on one side of the elementary school where we lived. So guess what I did? Yep. I wonder who ever found all those cookie tins full of weird stuff?

I was inspired to start journaling when I read the Diary of Anne Frank. I still (sorta) keep a diary. And I admit, for a very long time I was awaiting that cataclysmic event that would make my diaries worth reading after my death. In truth, I think I ought to burn them. Do I really want my daughters reading about the 8th grade me who gave each day a letter grade and listed the boys I liked--each day--in order of first to last??

I still do this. Like how I get inspired by other blogs. When I found The Pioneer Woman's blog I tried briefly to call Alan "Jazzman" since I thought it was cool that she called her husband "Marlboro Man." Through the Pioneer Woman, I started following a blog called "Quiet Life," by a Wisconsin photographer. She is sweet and simple and her youngest daughter is her most frequent photographic subject.

So I thought it would be wonderful to start photographing my girls as if they were my "models." (Keep in mind that I know precious little about photography and have a dinky little camera.)

So here's how MY life imitates "Quiet Life's" art:

Why imitate anything when I have THIS?!?