I guess its been awhile...

So, looking back over my blog I realized that it has been awhile since my last post, so I figured I ought to update things.

Carly has started walking and since she is still wobbly and big brothers don't help with balance, she always has bruises on her cheek bones, forehead, or a fat lip, it just depends on what part of her head hit the wall, laundry basket, or any other piece of furniture.

Jakob is really enjoying school and has started being more vocal. He asks "what's that?" whenever he hears a new sound. It is really exciting to hear him talking more and trying to make words and repeating words that he hears. He is 3 1/2, so we are grateful to be getting better communication with him, it allows for less frustration for everyone. :) Now I suppose we will have to wage the war on the potty training front since we are understanding each other better. I'm not looking forward to it, but what parent really is, however, the plus side is not having to change his diaper anymore.

All right, I've been distracted now for a few hours, so I'll have to finish this later!

Pumpkin Picking

We went pumpkin picking earlier this month with my older sister & her family & with my youngest sister. It was lots of fun, the kids really enjoyed running through the muddy fields looking for the "Great Pumpkin".

Most of us - my brother-in-law & I were taking pictures. Here are some more great pics I caught on this beautiful October day...




F & M


E


B


Curly C & Curly C


D


Miss C


Best Buds


Me & My Kids

Jakob's First Day of Preschool

Some of you know, but some of you don't, that Jakob was accepted into the preschool program at the school to continue his speech therapy. Well, he started school last week, and while he and I cried the first day he now loves it and especially loves riding the bus.


Oh, I must mention how excited he was to get his new back pack! We went to Wal-Mart and he got to choose and picked a very cool Marvel Heroes back pack. He put it on in the store and didn't take it off for two days, getting him to take it off to pay for it was like pulling teeth!



I *thought* it would be easier if I drove him the first day, as opposed to putting him on the bus, but boy was I wrong! As we were headed to his classroom I saw his bus and showed it to him and introduced him to the bus driver and he got on the bus and didn't want to get off! So, while he is screaming, I carried him off the bus and one of the classroom aides picked him up and left me feeling a bit in shock because I hadn't had a chance to even say "good-bye". So I quickly yelled "Bye Jakob, have a good day at school!" and blew him some kisses, and he disappeared into his classroom crying hysterically. Another teachers aide said to me, "Don't worry we have your phone number, we'll call you if he doesn't calm down."

Everything turned out just fine. His teacher wrote home that he quickly calmed down playing with the water table and I have had no trouble getting him to school since.


I do love that when we were ready to head out the door on the first day that Jakob wanted to wear his Daddy's hat. I think that it gives him a sense of comfort.

Oh, they just grow up so fast!

Carly Turns 1!!!

Well, Carly turned 1 year old a few weeks ago, at the end of August, but it wasn't until today that I realized I had not posted any pictures of her milestone birthday. So, please forgive my lateness...I suppose the fortunate thing is that she is too little to know. :)

She loved all of her presents...but not as much as Jakob did. He packed around the singing bear she got for a couple days, he has a hard time sharing, even when it is Carly's toy to begin with.

Silhouettes

My photo group did "silhouettes" tonight and it was tons of fun!

Here are my favorites... sorry I couldn't resist sneaking in one with a model!
None of these are edited, because I really dread editing, so here is how they came out. Thanks to everyone for all your help!

Ode to Carly

So, I noticed today that my little girl hasn't had a lot of pictures posted lately, so in honor of her upcoming 1st birthday, here is my little ode to Carly. All of these pics have been taken within that past couple weeks.

Head Lamp

Jakob had fun wearing his Daddy's headlamp the other day and decided to go out and ride his trike...
...unfortunately, it didn't help him see where he was going...
He thinks he's so funny!

Family Reunion

Well, the kids and I traveled to Black Beach Resort in Republic, WA. with my Dad for our family reunion. While I took nearly 400 pictures on the trip here are a few highlights...



Carly and her Great-Grandma















Jakob with his face painted...which he was very reluctant to do, but once he saw the other kids he let his Auntie give him some war paint too.









Carly LOVED eating on this trip...and she didn't have to do much to get somebody to give her something. Here she is enjoying spaghetti and watermelon, but later she got her Grandpa to give her a rice krispy treat! I knew my uncle had given her a couple small bites of his, but it wasn't until the next morning that I found out that my Dad had gotten her a whole other rice krispy treat and fed it to her. Sometimes I think I've got to watch those grandparents more than I have to watch my own kids! :)






Everybody loved playing in the water and riding on the boat.






























And we all LOVED spending time with our cousins!

Jakob's Birthday!

We celebrated Jakob's 3rd birthday yesterday and it was lots of fun!

We celebrated by having his best friend and favorite cousin over to play...
Then Jakob enjoyed talking to everyone who called him to wish him a "Happy Birthday"...
...especially while sitting in his new lawn chair from his Aunt Mandee

Then after dinner we took Jakob outside to see what Mom & Dad got for him...
A NEW TRIKE!!!
...well, "new" to us, Mommy found a great deal on Craig's List

Jakob even tried a few tricks all on his own! His Daddy and I have no idea where he saw anyone do this or why he even thought to do it, but he did and the faces he made just made us both crack up!Look! No Hands!
Yeah, I know that he is pushing himself with his feet but, hey, he'd only been riding a bike for 15 minutes!

Look at those mad skills!
Our boy's got talent!

Jakob enjoyed opening his other presents too...

a shape puzzle from his G & G Day
and there's nothin' better than money in a card!

and of course we finished with cake and candles...













it was a great birthday and lots of fun! Daddy was also really happy that Mommy has a digital camera because Mommy managed to take 300 pictures in one day! Yeah, I know that is a little excessive but I just wanted to catch every moment!

Shutter Speed Assignment

For this assignment I went out to Twin Falls State Park and took a few pictures of the river, when it was very high from all the melting snow due to our heat wave. Now, I don't have a tripod and didn't have anything to balance my camera on, so my "slow" shutter speed picture is not extremely slow. Also, I didn't know if anyone else would find this helpful, but I did, in my manual I read that to help reduce camera shake that you should not select a shutter speed that is slower than the length of your lens when you take the inverse of your lens length. SO, if you are shooting with a 300mm lens, then your shutter speed should not be any slower than 1/300 of a second. So, my lens came with my camera and is a 18-55mm lens, so the slowest shutter speed I used was 1/60.

Here is my first picture with the water in focus:

shutter speed 1/4000, f5.6, Exp. 0.0, 55 mm

Here is my picture with the water blurred:

shutter speed 1/60, f 22, exp. 0.0, 55 mm

What I find interesting is that even though both my exposure readings were 0.0, that the first picture is obviously darker than the second, and I would say that both of these need the exposure adjusted. But my eye needs more training to recognize whether the picture is over or under exposed, and I need to practice adjusting my exposure too.

All in all a very interesting assignment because as I was taking the pictures I thought they all looked the same until I got home and looked at them side by side.

My Pretty Pink Hat

So, Mom found this hat a little while ago and thought it was SO CUTE that she HAD to put it on me today so she could take some pictures. It was fun for a little while, like two minutes...but then I was done... hey, I am ONLY 8 months old!

Depth of Field (DOF) Practice

f5.6, ISO 800, 55mm, shutter speed 1/60

f5.6, ISO 800, 55mm, shutter speed 1/500

f 4.5, ISO 800, 32mm, shutter speed 1/60

none of these picture have been doctored, my focus was her face then her front foot, I left my WB on Auto, matrix-metering, shot in P-mode on my camera

I like the last picture the best because the shutter was slow enough that both her face and foot are well lit, also I like that her face is a little blurry but not indistinguishable. It looks more on purpose to me.

Bare with me, I got a new camera for Mother's Day (early) and am still reading the manual, but I couldn't help just playing around with it and probably took at least 60 shots of Miss C that night playing around!