A barrell of fun!

I was supposed to have a shoot last night, but it was rained out. But the storm moved out quick, and I really wanted to take some pictures so I dragged Jace out into our muddy backyard to test out this old wine barrel. He was more than willing- he's always begging to go outside after it rains so he was shocked that I actually let him! Tim got this wine barrel from an building that he has been working on- it used to be some sort of restaurant. What a great husband, huh! Shows how well he knows me and my taste! I actually saw it in his car before he said anything about what it was and the first thing I thought was "WOW! I would love to use that for pictures!" So anyways, it has been sitting in our front yard for months acting as a decoration until last night! Doesn't it make a great prop? I just LOVE these- I know I said in my last post that those were my favs of Jace yet, but I think these are now! Gotta love that nose picking one too- what is it with kids picking their noses? It seems like every shoot I do I get a few of those in their! It must be natural- a perfect little finger pocket!

I really needed this yesterday though- I have had some tough toddlers lately and I needed to take some pics just for fun to remind myself that I really do love this! I used to think that taking pictures of my own kids was harder, but not anymore. Perhaps it is just because Jace has finally outgrown the difficult toddler phase, but he is so much easier to take pictures of! Five minutes outside and I got over 20 shots that I loved. I wish I could be this efficient with my clients! Oh well.

So hope you enjoy these! And if you want to see the rest of them, check them out on my flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/91723324@N00/

Thanks for looking!

No more monkeys...

Jumping on the bed!

These pictures are almost two months old and I FINALLY got around to editing them. So glad I did though because they are some of my favorites to date of my kiddos. When Tim's parents came out, we stayed at a Holiday Inn (I think) in Newport News. Well, you know how they have the wall-to-wall window covered with drapes (right above the annoying air conditioner!)? Well, open up those babies in the morning and you get AMAZING lighting! Seriously, I am considering contacting our local Holiday Inn to see if I can use their rooms for sessions! (Kidding, but I seriously think it is a good idea!) I just love the look of these- Makes me wish I had white sheets and more windows! These beds were horribley uncomfortable and worn out, so I told Jace he could jump as high as he wanted!

And the pictures of Ethan started out fully clothed, but slowly item after item came off until he was buck naked- who can resist a squishy baby bum? Glad he didn't pee on the sheets! Love his classic wide-eye expression too! Funny kid!

Hope you enjoy these!

Standing in line...

Don't you just hate standing in line to use the outhouse?

While we were in Utah, I took (with the help of a handy-dandy tripod) my family's pics at the Benson Grist Mill in Tooele County. I LOVE this place! I saw this old outhouse there and couldn't resist doing a shot like this!

Check out Dad holding his nose, Andy checking the watch and Zach(on the end)- well, you can guess what he is doing! Cracks me up! I love this shot- it shows how crazy and funny my family is! Makes me miss being home and sitting around the kitchen table talking about things that shouldn't be talked about at a kitchen table! Mom, you should blow this one up HUGE and hang it above the living room couch for all the home teachers to see! Or maybe dad would like to put it in his waiting room at his office? Bwhahahaha!

For you photoshop folks- The sepia treatment on this was pretty complicated- I wanted it to look very grainy and vintage. I had to convert to b&w (used gradient map, + levels to bring up midtones), then added a brown color filter. Then I tried to add grain (which I had never done before) and realized that the grain looked colored (like noise) so I had to then convert it to Grayscale mode (which undid my sepia color), then add the grain again (Filter-texture-grain), then convert back to RGB mode, then readd the color filter. Whew! It was fun though- I love learning new things in photoshop! I think it still needs some more grain, but I didn't want to redo all of that! I'll remember that for my next outhouse shot!

Lots more family picks to come- just thought this one deserved its own post! Hope you enjoyed it and were not offended!

Obsessions

Those of you that know Jace well will find these pictures very fitting. It seems that whenever Jace finds something he really likes, he becomes obsessed with it. It started with his discovery of Buzz Lightyear. He didn't just like Buzz, he WAS Buzz- all day long every day. He only played with his Buzz toys, he always wanted to watch Toy Story and we had to write ANDY on the bottom of all his shoes. Although he still likes Buzz and Toy Story, he has grown out of the obsession, thank goodness! But then he discovered flashlights. About a year ago, Tim got Jace a little LED key chain light. Jace carried that thing everywhere- he even held onto it while he slept. He would lock himself in our dark bathroom and closets for 30-40 minutes at a time and just sit in there with his flashlight. And whenever he saw Tim's flashlights, his eyes would get very wide as if to say "MUST... HAVE...FLASHLIGHT"- you could not even talk to him- he literally could not listen. When we are at mutual on Thursday nights he is always asking people if they have flashlights on their keys and several people have given him their little lights.

Then he discovered the lights on watches- again, he became obsessed. When Tim's parents were out here last month, Jace managed to collect a watch from each of them and thought he was the coolest person in the world for having four watches on that ALL had lights on them. He would walk around glancing at his arm every 5 seconds to make sure they were all still there, looking so proud of himself. It was hilarious! He would show us how those lights worked over and over again. Such a funny kid!

I know that lots of kids go through stages like this, but I can't help but wonder if gets some of this obsessiveness from me. To this day, when I get an idea or something in my head, I cannot get it out- I will obsess about it for hours or even days. I think a lot of people in my family are this way actually. I think there are some good things about this trait- it helps motivate me to get stuff done, but I know it gives me lots of unnecessary stress. Isn't it scary sometimes how much our kids are like us? Yikes!

Well, I don't know what else to write so I will leave it at that! Hope you enjoyed these!

Nature

While Tim's parents were visiting last month, we did lots of site-seeing around here. These are just some nature shots I took.

We drove up the Blue Ridge Parkway and it was so beautiful! It had just rained and the clouds were starting to break up. They were so close to the ground and moving so fast through the valleys below- you could almost reach out and touch them! The next few are from Crabtree Falls. I wish I would've had my tripod with me so the foreground was nice and crisp, but I still love this effect- looks like a calendar shot, huh! The leaf is just my pathetic attempt to get a closeup of a water droplet- hard to do with a 5omm lens, but I still liked it. And the last two are from the world famous, 5-star Lake Monticello beach (don't look too closely at the water- not only is it dirty, but I had to photoshop out a lady doing the back stroke and some buoys!) It was such a beautiful day- it seems like we rarely have sunny days with blue skies and puffy clouds like this. Reminds me of the sky in Utah. Had to throw some sun flare in there too. I should probably stop doing these shots so much- I am sure it can't be too good for my lens.

That is it for now- I have lots more coming, so hopefully I will get to them this weekend!

Solids

It has been far too long since I updated my blog (okay, blogs), but I just wanted to add this one real quick so you all know we are still alive. Ethan turns 6 months in two more days and so it is time to start solids. This was from our first attempt this morning and I LOVE his expression- "what on earth are you shoving in my mouth?" He kept making this face every time we put a bite in, but I think he started to get the hang of it toward the end. I love starting solid foods- call me crazy but I actually think it is fun to feed them even when they just spit it right back out or gag on it. But I don't look forward to the day that he starts throwing his food on the walls, which I am sure will come sooner than I think! Hope you are all well! I have no shoots this week, so hopefully I will get caught up on all the photos I have to add on here and my other blog! So check back soon! Love you all!

Mandy