Manual Mode

Ok, finally getting it. Here are a few from this week in manual, and one of my darling hubby from a couple weeks ago when I was playing with my reflector. Can you tell I had it on the gold side??

One of Julia looks over exposed, but it's coming together slowly.

Visit With Santa and the Ninja Elves

On a spur of the moment we hijacked the kids after karate (their first "leadership" class - they started to learn how to use numchuks, they're thrilled!) and took them to the mall. We ate at Pizzaria Uno (and saw Jenny H.!) and then went to see Santa.

We talked about how this wasn't the REAL Santa, but since we think this might be the last year of true believers, we wanted one more crack at it. This is the first picture of Julia with Santa where she isn't crying. Hmmmmm....

The kids were thrilled and thanked us over and over. This is one of those things I still remember as a kid, so hopefully they will too.

The theme at our mall is "Fred Claus" so we got one with Santa, and one with the "ninja elves" as Devin called them. I tried to call them the E.I.B. (Elves in Black) but they didn't get it.

Snowbound

We've had a couple days of being snowbound this week, which I actually kind of enjoy, but today our kids are snowbound in another town! They are at my mother in law's house and we're wondering when and how we'll get them (or not...:) )

I had another photo assignment this week and got some snow pix in the mix. The red house is our neighbors house in the middle of last Thursday's storm. Taken on full manual!!


Here is one of Julia taken on Aperature priority.

Perfect Kiss

I don't think I've ever seen a perfectly formed Hershey's Kiss right out of the wrapper in my life. And now I've seen 2 in one week! I had to take a picture. But, the best part is that I'm now on FULL MANUAL with my camera. That means I'm adjusting the aperature, shutter speed and ISO all myself. This was one of my goals for the class, so I'm thrilled.

To give you a perspective, I took this in my basement, no flash, no natural light and it kind of looks ok. A small victory. And, once I took this picture, I ate it, so that was even better!!

Homework After An Ice Storm

Here are a couple additions to the homework list for the week. Finally got a reflector - hoorah!! We had a little ice storm this week that made outdoor photographs a bit of a challenge, but we got through it. Finally got Devin to look natural in a few - yeah!!! Then he got a haircut (so long overdue) and without realizing I'd said "OK" he ate a blue Push Pop - thus the blue lips.

Julia's eye is recovering nicely. I suspect there may be a hint of a scar there, but I think it will be fairly unnoticable.

Got a call at 3:05 on Friday afternoon from school. (Never a good sign.) The "vice principle" was calling (again, not looking too good here) but said he was in the nurse's office (oh crap). He had Devin with him (think think think, did he seem like he was coughing, getting a fever?? OH GOD, NOT THE LICE THAT ARE GOING AROUND SCHOOL?????) and he'd gotten his finger pinched in his desk (oh thank God that was it). He was a trooper. Got a pretty good black and blue but he's fine today. His teacher (LOVE this man) called today to see how he was doing.

Decorated the tree tonight and added our humble decorations to the gorgeous ones my Aunt put up for us as a surprise this week (will post them soon). Sneaky Auntie!!!!

LOVE Billy Joel!!

http://yeli.us/Flash/Fire.html

Friend of mine sent me this link. Loved this song in college. When I went to my 2nd or 3rd Billy Joel concert when he was about to sing this song he asked the audience for help with the words, "Because when I screw it up, it's a train wreck..."

So, enjoy.

More Cute Midnight Conversations with Julia

So, our latest installment in "midnight in the bathroom with Julia" found me in there and I heard a little person approach the door. She came in (we're pretty loose on bathroom door rules here) and was half asleep, as usual. I finished up and said, "I'm hurrying, honey, your turn."

She just kind of smiled with her eyes closed and waited. When she got on the seat she opens her eyes and says, "Thanks for making the seat warm for me, Mommy."

I don't know why I find these bathroom moments so precious, but she just kills me. Brings me back to when they were babies and you'd get them out of their cribs and they'd smell so good and look half asleep.

I get some of my best compliments from her at night in the potty. Think that will still work in high school???

Karate Kids

The kids did such an amazing job yesterday at their yellow belt test. Master Dickman asks lots of questions through the test and Devin put his hand up this time! We were so proud of him for giving it a shot.

Julia, typically always puts her hand up (something I hope never goes away) and demonstrated both her push ups (very good for a 6 year old) and her "Five Combination". We were bursting with pride, as always! Julia tends to get called on a lot b/c she's almost always the "littlest" one in the room. Gotta love her spunk! Top pic is her doing her best "ki-yah".

So, after all that hard work, they are both now yellow belts! Yeah!!

Good One of Dev

I did get some good ones of Devin this week, so here's one for the blog...

Cool Black and White

Took this picture of Julia earlier in the week and was playing with it today. I love black and whites.

Poor Julia!

Poor Julia has been sick all week (we are on week 2 of this horrible cough/cold thing) and tonight she took a spill at Mima and Stipa's. She managed to fall on the corner of the ring pull corner of their coffee table and it hit her just in the outer crease of her eye. Could have been a LOT worse.

Neil and I were very concerned b/c we couldn't tell how deep it was and thought she might need stitches or glue. But fortunately her dr. said she could butterfly tape it and it should be fine - not deep enough to warrant stitches.

She was VERY brave while it got cleaned out and patched up. She really didn't want me to take the picture, can you tell by her expression??

She's resting comfortably tonight and Dr. W said she'd be fine for her karate graduation on Saturday. What a little trooper!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We were 50% sick (Julia and I) and had a quiet day at my Mom and Dad's in town. The rest of the weekend was spent drinking lots of juice, resting and giving Julia 'round the clock breathing treatments. Fortunately we both feel better today.

Julia had to label all the parts of a picture of a wild turkey as her homework tonight so I had to find a picture of a real one to go off of. Here is the photo we used. No, I didn't take it myself (I wish), credit goes to John Ford from the National Wild Turkey Federation photo gallery downloads.

Gobble gobble!

Catchlights

I was finally able to get a set of shots with consistent catchlights. Not crazy about the school in the backround (so I cropped it out), but I was so excited about these shots of Miss G. Aren't her eyes the most gorgeous color??

Starting To Take Shape

I'm pleased to report that I caught some "good eyes" today. Here's one of Julia. Not wild about the hair bow, but oh well. I got a few of our friend Miss G that I'm digging too. Could this be progress??

Neil's Yellow Belt

Many, many years ago in a town far, far away a strapping young man named Neil worked his way up in the karate ranks to a status of green belt.

Here, we find our man Neil, not quite as young, a little closer to home and still very strapping -taking karate again. The kicks are lower, the splits not as far down and the muscles definitely don't recover as quickly but here he is doing it nonetheless.

As anyone who has taken karate will tell you, the white belt stands for courage, because it takes courage to go into that dojo for the first time. I would tell you that it takes even more the second time around.

Neil successfully graduated to his yellow belt Friday night. Yeah Neil!! I told him he looks like a fried egg now.

Who's YOUR Candidate???

Ok, one of the coolest websites I've seen and totally used (twice) is this one. Answer a few questions with your own opinions and see which presidential candidate shares most of your views. I apparently like all the dark horses since all of my top choices were people I'd never heard of before. Didn't make THAT decision any easier!

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/page?id=3623346

Week 2 - Feeling Dumber Than A Post

So, I'm starting to think this class is really a big pysch experiment where they strip down your self confidence and then reconstruct you from the ground up. Those of you who know me know that I hate not knowing what I'm doing, NOT a happy place for me. And, here I am.

On the upside, I feel fairly confident that I won't need to use the "green box" setting on my camera for too much longer. I am going to need to start brushing up on my photoshop skills though, because I can't seem to get exposure down with white balance and ISO all at the same time. I know, patience Daniel-San.

Here are a few from today. In an odd turn of events Julia wanted almost no part of this today and Devin was an almost willing participant. The blessing came in the form of some of our friends, adorable sisters Miss E and Miss C. Oh, and a guest shot from Zoey the Dog.

Birthday Party At NBC 30

Here are a few pix from Devin's kid party at our local NBC affiliate WVIT Channel 30. Our host was daytime anchor, Brad Drazen. We got there a little early and between commercial breaks they brought us right into the actual studio. We stood behind the programmed-motion camera (very cool) and got to watch the whole thing. I'm still reeling that all those kids were able to stay as quiet as they did. We got to check out the control booth in action too. The few of us adults that were there thought it was VERY cool.

After the live broadcast Brad talked with us, answered our questions and let the kids sit behind the anchor desk. We saw the teleprompters in action, the cameras, the green screen and the news room. In addition to the live broadcast we watched them tape 3 "Topicals". Those are the brief little snippets you get during commercial time that tells you what's coming up on the nightly news.

Devin got a remote control tarantula from one of his friends. It's pretty realistic and he's been scaring the cats and his mother all afternoon with it. Yuck! I have to say, it's a pretty great boy gift, so keep that in mind as the holidays come up.

After the tour we came back to the house for pizza and cake and lots of outdoor play. All in all a very "newsworthy" day!

Some Finalists For Homework

Here were a few of the ones I considered but didn't use for homework. Julia (and Lamby) were my models.

Model Search

So, I've been snapping away this week with the camera and wish I had more to show for it, but the sun is away and I've not captured any other homework worthy shots. But, I did get a couple cute ones of the cats. Since they get very little face time these days, I thought I throw them up on the blog. I give you Oreo and Max, my fuzzy babies...

Photography Class Week 1

I'm fresh from my first attempt at getting my homework done. On Deb's recommendation I'm taking the Foundations online photography course that she is just wrapping up. My first week's assignment isn't due until Sunday, but I was anxious to play today. Here are some first attempts. I've done nothing to edit them for lighting or color (which is killing me, BTW) as I'm trying to submit pix that are as close to out of my camera as possible. Here's the first batch. What do you think?

Halloween with the Hargarters

We had a hauntingly good time tonight. Our friends the Hargarters were here from Germany so we all got together for Trick or Treating. It was so great to see them, because although I had seen Manj this summer I hadn't seen Jurgen, Kiran or Rupali in ages. It was so cute to see kids who weren't as accustomed to the whole trick or treat thing getting into it. It was so nice to have what seemed like very normal, casual hang out time with Manj and Jurgen too (even though it took them a long plane ride to get here for it).

We're hoping that Neil planted enough seeds into Jurgen's head about moving to the states, so hopefully we'll get to do this again some year??

I did manage to get a few pix of Devin in his mask. Rupali was a little more camera shy tonight than Kiran (who was very willing to pose). I was impressed by how grown up he seems now. We were in the kitchen getting water and having a whole conversation about Devin's mask and the spikes on his weapon. Totally hysterical. We're going to miss our new/old friends!!

Monster Makeup Session

So, when you buy your kid the expensive Halloween costume with the full mask and they swear they're going to wear it? Lies, all lies. So, you rely on plan B, face paint. Devin has serious smell aversions and the latex smell of his werewolf mask wasn't going to work for him. So, I pulled out the face paint and we went with it. Not too bad for plan B. Here are the before and after shots.

Halloween Parade

Here are my little ghouls at school today. Devin is a werewolf (you'll see mask/full make-up later) and Julia is Supergirl. Last picture is Devin with his good buddy Daniel. Happy Halloween everyone!!