“CLOSE YOUR EYES – AND DON’T PEEK,” Kevin said, sitting me on a kitchen chair and running out the front door to his car. I sat and tried to not peek, but it was hard. He came back in, pulled up a chair across from me and handed me two wrapped packages.

“This is because I knew you wanted one,” he told me as I peeled back the paper. It was a 16 gig memory card capable of holding over six thousand photos. He motioned to the other package sitting on my lap before I could respond, “and this is some literature for some light reading.” It could have been a number of things – a pocket book, address holder, notepad, or a bathroom quiz reader.

I didn’t quite understand what I was seeing when I read, “Canon EOS Rebel T1i” on the front.

It took me a minute to realize the gift that was in my hands was a manual to not just any camera, but to my new camera.

I know this is a crummy photo taken with my measly 1 megapixel camera phone, but I was more busy playing with the real camera to bother taking a photo of it.

He completely spoils me. In the bag along with the camera were two lenses, two batteries, and a cleaning kit. He also had photoshop installed on his computer (would have put it on mine but Mac’s like to be complicated with things).

I completely, absolutely love and adore him. I’m not sure how I got so lucky. He’s far too good to me.

Okay okay, wanna see what this puppy can do?

Please keep in mind that

a) the majority of these are SOOC (straight out of camera) and

b) that I have no idea how to use a camera like this.

Granted, it has the point and shoot feature, but it also has the ability to control things like shutter speeds, apertures or “f-stops”, lighting, focal point, depth of field, and all those other funky words that I’ve dredged up from the memories of my old high school photography class days.

I know the words, but applying them is a whole different story.

But I will learn.

Where were we again? Oh yes. You wanted to see things like this:

And pictures of hot boys.

Action shots.

High jumps.

Macro photos.

Floppy dog ears.

Side smiles.

Extreme closeups.

Tasty grass.

And the cutest happy face.

Blog photography around here just got a lot more interesting.

THIS LITTLE GIRL TURNS TWENTY-ONE TODAY.

Unfortunately, a photo of me with cake all over my face now wouldn’t be as cute. But I promise I did have cake – and balloons, and cards well-wishes and presents, and good golly the day hasn’t even started.

I love you people.

THE AUBREYMO.COM BLOG TURNS ONE TODAY!!! This means a select few of you on the internet have stuck around for 365 days of whining, rants, blabs and roughly 3,562 pet photos. A select few of you have even read all 152 posts.

You deserve a medal.

But instead I’ll give you this, a “best of” list for AubreyMo. Let’s start right out at the very start:

1) The Beginning

How I Wrangled The Christmas Spirit – The awesome first blog post, where I talked about how a Christmas tree fell off my car. Let’s just say this year I’m glad I went with a fake tree. Isn’t it enough that the lights already shocked me?

2) The Top Rated

Finding the Truth – We’ll talk about this one later.

How to Write an Apology Letter… – This is a post my dear friend Kamie wrote on my blog a while back. I need to post on her site as well…if I can ever think of something awesome to write.

Winds of Change – Um. Me. Running in a field like a freak with my dog. No different than any other day I guess.

3) Posts where I mention creeps, and I’m not talking about me.

Finding the Truth – By far the most popular one, this is where some punk kid ran up and asked if I knew where to find the truth. It also includes the Pants of Awesomeness. I guess I can finally post a photo of them now.

You Wanna Go? – This thug is serious about his money. Don’t mess.

Mid-Hall Melodies – The time at college a guy with a guitar chased me down the hall and sang me a song about getting stoned. You know those memories you’ll never forget? I’m sure some day I’ll be 80 and reminiscing on this one.

4) Embarrassing posts (in which I may or may not include the word ‘Twilight’)

Vanity Vain – My hair starts out bad and I document making it worse. Yes, there were Cruella De Vil references.

Twilight, You Are My Life Now – Twilight…

Becoming Bella – I look like Bella, and apparently I pissed off someone who doesn’t. I could delete the comments but knowing that I hurt their immature feelings makes me laugh. NO, YOU GROW UP COMMENTER.

As I said before, I know exactly who they are.

New Moon Official Trailer – This concludes the Twilight obsession. Remind me to tell you about the time Kevin went to see New Moon with us. It was a hoot.

Ms. Chipmunk Cheeks – Remember this photo?

It’s right after I got out of oral surgery and was fat faced for a week. It has to be the most embarrassing photo I’ve ever posted of me, other than this:

or this:

But the photo with the most views isn’t even of me, so we’re good.

This concludes the flashback of my life. Let’s just forget the whole thing happened, shall we?

IT’S KEVIN’S BIRTHDAY TODAY!

Wanna know something else that’s interesting?

It’s my half birthday today as well. Yep, we’re exactly six months apart. I couldn’t find someone more similar to me if I tried.

Happy Birthday Kevin, I really hope you liked the helicopter ride (pics coming later). You are amazing and I have so much fun when I’m with you!!

THIS LITTLE JUMPING BEAN TURNS TWO TODAY.

That means she’ll have a whole new set of big girl clothes, a whole new set of words, and a whole new set of adorableness.

It also means she’s one more year away from the baby days, which makes me sad. I remember when she was so little that we’d have to give her gas drops to make her happy. Not that she needed them, it was just the only thing that tasted good to her and would calm her down if she was fussy.

I remember babysitting her and texting Ash photos of every face she made just so she wouldn’t miss it. I remember when Ashley told me her first sentence, “I wanna cookie!”.

I kind of miss that stage, but I won’t lie. This stage?

It pretty much rocks too. Happy birthday to the cuttest little munchkin ever!