Choice Two

This is the other shot that I took of Mia last week. I have to be honest and say the main reason I love it is her pouty face. You wouldn't know that within seconds she was jumping up and down laughing. She is such a drama queen. ;)

I do also like the background colors. :) A little more variety and depth of color.

I'll share the rest of the shots in a little bit. For once I even got a group shot!

Homecoming

This past weekend was Homecoming and Claudia had her dance on Friday night. She had so much fun and just loved her outfit I helped her put together and her hair and make-up that I did for her. Made this old mom feel like she was doing a pretty decent job, after all. ;)

I think she looked quite lovely. And for a change she actually let me take pictures of her!!! (Yes, that does deserve three exclamation points. LOL)

My little girl is growing up. *sniffle*

Portraits

Last week I did a quick mini shoot of a young man to give them to his mom. He was so much fun to work with and really had me laughing. We did a few shots out behind our new house (score!) and we went into town and got a few shots there, too.

The best part for me was that I was able to explore and find some new fun places to shoot (love the archway!) and have learned from the experience and found things that I will definitely do differently next time. :)

Wedding Shots

In September I was asked to shoot a small wedding and I lost my mind and said yes. LOL

Truly, it was such a fun experience and such a lovely ceremony that I felt very lucky to have been a part of it. Everyone was just fantastic, and I was so happy to do that for them. :)

More Newborn pictures

I edited a few more photos yesterday and wanted to share a couple more. I've found editing baby pictures to be a learning process, also.

For this one I was inspired by a pic I'd seen previously. I think I like how it turned out. :)

I also wanted to share this collage I made using some of the pictures I took. I did this just for fun. :)

Night Sky and the Full Moon

Last night was the full moon and the clouds made the sky look really cool last night so I had to snap a quick picture. I didn't have my tripod so it's not very sharp but still wanted to share.

Newborn Photography

Last Friday, I had a chance to try some newborn photography. It wasn't until my babies were much older that I started getting serious with photography so I've never tried to take more than a snapshot of a little baby. Luckily, a girl I went to high school with was kind enough to allow me to come over and take some shots for practice.

He was the sweetest baby, and very alert. I was only able to get a couple of sleepy shots of him, mostly when I was checking my settings and the light. lol He was oh, so calm and good-natured though, and I got a few shots that I am happy with.

I also got some shots that I ended up not liking and no good full body shots. I'm not too disappointed, though because I definitely learned a lot from the experience and feel much more confident than I did at the beginning of the day. And really, learning was what it was all about. :)

I'm still editing and making decisions on the shots that I did get before he got hungry, but thought I'd share some that I've already done.

One of the shots I got while checking my settings.


This was taken when he was starting to get fussy. He had a bright turquoise pacifier in his mouth that shows a bit in the color version. The B&W hides it nicely. :)

"Hi, my name is Chubby!"

This week's theme at Trendy Treehouse is faces. I love faces, especially those of my children so I started going through some of my favorites to find one to share this week and kept returning to this picture of Mia that I snapped one day when she was being her normal silly-cute self. (No prompting there! She's naturally like that! lol)

Every time I look at it I remember being a kid and smooshing my cheeks like that and saying "Hi, my name is Chubby. I'm chubby. My mom is chubby, my dad is chubby, even my goldfish is chubby." Looking online I've found a few different versions of it, so I guess it's still around even though I haven't heard or seen anyone do it in years.

Fenwick in the Evening

I love living close to the beach. Living in southern Delaware means that we are close to Ocean City, MD and Fenwick Island, Bethany and Rehobeth Beach all in Delaware.

On Wednesday, Jason called me from work and asked if we wanted to meet him after work to go to the beach for a couple of hours. He works close to Fenwick, so I got the kids ready, packed our bag and was there when he got off work.

When we got to the beach it was perfect. Barely any crowd, cool sand, warm breeze and even the water was much warmer than when we first went a couple of weeks ago.

Mia still loves the water more than any kid I've ever seen. She immediately heads for the water's edge and stays there playing in the waves until we drag her out to go home.

The tide was high and there was quite an undertow that evening so Jason made Mia stick close and hold his hands.

Daddy dug them a "pool" to splash in.

Anakin doesn't play in the water as much, still choosing to play in the sand and dig for sand crabs.

Mia did come out of the water long enough to lay in the sand and become a mermaid. :)

My favorite shots of the day:

More Editing Fun

The Pioneer Woman is having one of her photo contests this week and this time the theme is bugs and creepy crawlies. They are always fun to enter (one of mine was even featured once!) so I decided to go back through some old shots and find a new one to play with and enter.

I love taking a second look at my shots after some time has passed because I always seem to find shots that I didn't notice before. I never even looked at this butterfly shot twice when I took it, but today it inspired me to play with the edit, upload it and enter it into the contest.

Before and After

This afternoon I was bored and decided to go through some of the pictures I have taken recently and find one to edit. I decided on a pic of Claudia in the pool this weekend. (Yeah for summer weather!)

I decided to share the before and after because I like how it turned out and because I used Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 and not photoshop or lightroom like the majority of photographers and enthusiasts (I got it cheap and it's very easy to use so I've stuck with it. I've used Lightroom and love it but would rather put the $ towards a new lens or other item right now.) :)

I'm still learning and exploring all the changes I can make and what looks good and what doesn't, but I don't think I do too badly.

BEFORE:

AFTER:


I will probably go back and make more adjustments sometime, but for now I am happy with it.

The other picture

Yesterday I said that I had to choose between two pictures for this week's challenge at I Heart Faces. Today I will share my second choice. :)

I took this picture one day when experimenting with manual settings and focusing manually. It's cropped really closely because I was really wanting to get better at photographing brown eyes.

I love the result. I love the silly little smile he's giving. That his smile he uses when he's trying to weasel Mommy out of something. The only thing missing is the slight cock to his head I usually get.

I love how his eyes are smiling, too. I love how long his eyelashes are. I love the barest hint of a dimple on his cheek. I love how his hair is swept slightly to the side. I love my baby boy.

Assateague Island

Yesterday was a beautiful day out, temps in the 70's and sunny skies, so we decided to ride out to Assateague and walk a couple of the trails and see the ponies. It was the first time we've taken Anakin and Mia as the flies and mosquito's can get really bad there and Claudia has horrible reactions to bug bites so we avoid it in the heat of summer. There were still some mosquito's but I think I'm the only one that got bit and it was only once. My elbow really itches, though. lol

We hiked through two of the three half-mile trails. First the forest trail and then the marsh. I think the kids enjoyed the marsh trail the best as it takes you out to a small beachy area that they loved exploring. We went ahead and purchased a year pass ($30 for the year compared to $15 for the week and we can use it at both Assateague and Chincoteague.

The marsh trail

The ponies

They had fun combing the beach and marshy areas finding all sorts of interesting items. :)

And Mia loved playing in the sand.

(More pics later when I have time again!)

Spring!

I'm a bad blogger. Really. I have so many good intentions but I fail far too often. And to be perfectly honest, I'd really rather be outside in the sunlight (despite breaking out in hives within hours of getting sun) than be inside at the computer.

And along with the warm weather, Spring has brought even more chaos. Anakin starts tball tomorrow, and there's the flowerbeds to tend to and the grass to mow, and parks to play in and bikes to ride and walks to take...

So, I've been taking pictures but have gotten behind in uploading them let alone blogging them. I'll do my best to catch up, but well....good intention and all. ;)

This past week my tulips finally bloomed. A couple days before they finally opened I noticed the color just beginning to develop at the tips of the petals. It was beautiful and fascinating to see. I love nature. :)

(On a side note this second picture was featured on I Heart Faces last week! Yay!)

Angling for Sympathy

Last month I was taking pictures of the kids being silly when Anakin decided that I was bugging him and he didn't want me to take his picture anymore. I shrugged and turned the camera on Mia who is always happy to pose for the camera.

Unfortunately, that only seemed to upset Anakin more as he is at the stage where he only wants to please me and he came up to me sobbing that he was sorry and that I could take his picture. Only he couldn't stop crying as he stood there looking up at me so I did the only thing I could do and snapped a picture.

The moment I did, he sobbed out a "thaaaannnnk yooooouuuu!", hugged my knee and ran off to play while wiping the tears away.

Playing Catch-Up!

I have been taking pictures, but not posting them for the past week. Wednesday my husband and I celebrated our three years wedding anniversary. He took a few days off and we've mostly relaxed but have also gotten some things done around the house/yard. Mainly we enjoyed the beautiful weather we've been having!

Here's a quick description of what we've been up to!

On March 12th I made peanut butter cup brownies with a thick layer of icing on top. Mia especially liked them.

On March 13th Mia fell asleep coloring at the kitchen table.

Moments later, Anakin followed suit on the couch, clutching his wrapping paper tube lightsaber.

On March 18th Mia held her daddy's hand while rollerskating down the street.

and Anakin

practiced his Jedi moves.

And today, Jesse became a member of the mob while attending his girlfriend's birthday party.

Bundled Up

Wow! It's been ages since I last participated in an I Heart Faces challenge. I mean to every week and then it seems that life comes along and distracts me from posting. I had a great jump picture of Jesse doing a back flip into the pool. I had the perfect hilarious outtake of Anakin making a face at his sister while she smiled sweetly at the camera oblivious to his shenanigans. I had a picture of Amelia's hand grasping her Daddy's tightly as she waded out into the ocean for the first time.
Did you see any of those?
Yeah, no.
Kids got sick, I got sick, there were dishes to wash and laundry to fold and I was barely finding time to post my project 365 pictures let alone take any. And really, it wasn't being fun anymore because I was too worried about not missing a day and not shooting things that made me happy.
So I took a break and now I'm back with this week's challenge, bundled up. This is actually a picture I took last year of Claudia. I had a ton of pics from the blizzard this year, but I couldn't pick one so I decided to go with an old favorite. I love how relaxed she is (she usually freezes up in front of the camera). I love the way her face is framed with the hood and scarf. I love her freckles and the specks of snow on the scarf and fur on the hood and the bright colors. I love how she looks comfortable and warm even though it was absolutely freezing out.

She was all bundled up. :)