May The Force Be With You

Next week, Anakin will turn five years old. I don't know when it happened but all of a sudden he seems so grown. He's doing great at school and loves it so much. He is absorbing everything like a little sponge and making friends and growing more and more confident every day.

So, since it's almost his birthday and since I haven't posted a scrapbooking page in a while (haven't created one in a while, either) I thought I'd share this one.

Kit is Out of this World by Pineapple Plantation Designs © by Shauna Burke-Smith

Painting with Lightsabers

The other night my husband promised Anakin that they could have lightsaber battles in the dark, so once the sun went down all the kids trooped outside to have a little fun. Anakin and Jason both have force fx lightsabers that glow like the real thing so I knew it could be a fun photo experiment so I grabbed my camera and tripod and followed out after them.

The results were interesting and it really has made me want to explore light painting in more depth.

See more of the set here.

Autumn Beauty

This week, the theme over at I Heart Faces is Autumn Beauty. This was a difficult challenge for me as most of my beautiful autumn pictures are of the foilage, not faces. I wanted to go out and shoot some new pictures last week but we were hit with the remnants of Ida and it rained steadily for four days straight.

Luckily, I had done birthday portraits of my very own Autumn beauty, Amelia so I've decided to enter one of my favorites of her.

Fall Berries

Yesterday we went through a short hike through some trails near us. It was a gorgeous sunny day and we all wanted some fresh air before the cold starts setting in.

I took my camera as I always do, hoping to get some shots of the kids but they were too full of silly wiggles and not willing at all to glance my way for even a pity shot.

Instead I turned my camera toward nature and got this shot of some berries.

ETA: I was so excited to see this picture featured on the I Heart Faces blog! Second time one of my photos were featured! Woohoo!

Find it and more great inspiration here and at the I Heart Faces Network!

Angie and Amy's Pick

My balloon shot for this week's challenge was chosen as one of Angie and Amy's picks on I Heart Faces! There were some really beautiful shots and I love all the winners. Lots of fun this week!

Contagious

Today, as soon as I put the littles into the bathtub, the phone rang. It was the school nurse calling that Claudia was running a fever and I needed to come get her. I rushed through the bath, threw clothes at the kids and hoped they would stick and rushed them out the door.

When we got to the school, I signed her out in the office and one of the office assistants went to get her. Of course, in this time of plague, I mean, piggy, ahem...H1N1 they had her in a separate room by herself and when she came out she was wearing a face mask.

Bad Mommy that I am I laughed and oinked at her and took her home to put her to bed. Lovely child that she is, she let me photograph her with her mask before changing into comfy clothes and crawling into bed.

I'm not sure what this says about me as a mom, but I find myself really drawn to this picture. Poor kid, I hope she feels better soon.

Balloons

Back when I Heart Faces had it's blue theme I bought some blue balloons and took Mia to the park to see what we would get. I had a few pictures that I began to play with but was low on inspiration so I just picked one and never looked back.
Since this week's theme is balloons I decided to take a second look at those pictures.
I found myself drawn to this picture. I love the way she is framed by the bridge supports with the balloons floating behind her and how she is trying to hold her hair out of her face because it was such a windy day.

I decided to play with it and I added some textures and cropped it a little tighter than it was originally.

Halloween

Last night was Halloween and as is my habit, the costumes were done at the last minute. This year I have a good excuse though as my sewing machine was giving me fits all week. But we got it together in the end and the kids were happy, so that is all that matters.

After we got the kids dressed we had to rush to MIL's house as we were already running late so I didn't get any pics until we were there and it was almost dark, so I just shot of a few before we headed out.

This year Claudia was a fortune teller.

Anakin was a "mighty" knight and was so excited I couldn't get him to stand still for anything. LOL

Amelia was Little Red Riding Hood.


And last but not least, Jesse was Sweeney Todd.