Wednesday, January 23, 2008

A Man of Many Hats

Aidan has a new obsession . . .he loves to try on hats. Which is a surprise to me. He never used to like wearing a hat. His mood and the hat determine how long he will wear it. Aidan will actual bring a hat and hand it to me, indicating he would like help putting it on. And after he has it on he typically gives a silly little, "I'm so proud of myself" grin. Here are a few of the hats and helmets he has enjoyed over the past couple of days.




Friday, January 18, 2008

Can you teach an old dog new tricks?

We'll find out . . . My mom, sister and I are taking photography classes together. It is one night a week for nine weeks. I have always enjoyed taking pictures, I just never had a great deal of knowledge about how a camera worked, picture composition, etc. Now a days it's not too hard to get a decent picture - set your camera to Auto and away you go. But I want to do better than that. So, with one full night (the first class was pretty much just introduction, didn't learn much at all) of lecture behind me, I set out to test what I had learned (which wasn't much past the basics at this point). For our third class, we have to bring in three enlarged pictures of things we shot over the past two weeks. Here are a few of the contenders:
(I'd love to know what you all think)


I wanted to bring in at least one photo of the boys, since they are what I shoot the most. It's very difficult to get a decent picture of them - (while trying to apply what I have learned as opposed to setting the camera to auto and going with it) they are constantly on the move! By the time I would get the focus right, the EV meter set correctly, etc., they were long gone! I liked this photo because it caught Jacob helping wipe Aidan's face in focus while in the background you can see that Nan and Lori are really enjoying watching what was going on.



The next two photos were much easier to play around with - seeing as the flower couldn't get up and walk away. :-) I was really able to play around with aperture, shutter speed and EV values. Now, will I remember what I had set at the time of the picture to make it work - heck no! Most of the time I can't remember were I put my keys . . . I'm just hoping that someday it will become second nature, like driving a car . . . . if I can ever find my keys . . .

Saturday, January 05, 2008

So much to get caught up on!

Wow, after a very full December, I finally have a minute to sit down and update the good ol' blog. We have had a wonderful month, filled with lots of family and friend time; from decorating trees, to Christmas lights, birthday celebrations and finally celebrating Christmas . . .
I made an executive decision not to post pictures from every single event - otherwise this post would go on forever - I think I have well over 200 (I'm not exaggerating) pictures from all of our festivities. I didn't represent each activity because it was so hard to pick just a few, plus I wanted to add a few from the last couple of days, but I think you'll enjoy the ones that made the cut.


Our Little Swedish Elves




Christmas Eve




Christmas Morning

New bikes for both boys!






Lovin' the mini air hockey table with PopPop




Aidan had a blast playing with Josh



Playing this week in the new fun ball thingy . . .no idea what it's called








Our little scavenger . . . you'd think we never feed him






What happens when you don't see little hands getting into the makeup drawer . . .

Aidan decides to try out eyeliner