The Forest

I love the new trick the kids are doing - they are talking!  :-)  They have been saying words for the last several months but now they have full blown conversations with each other.  In the mornings they always come in and snuggle with me - one of my favorite times of the day!  But now while we are snuggling they will sit and talk to each other and laugh like they are telling each other the funniest jokes.  I so wish I knew what they were saying!  And where is that video camera?  :-)

I have even noticed at our play dates they are starting to have conversations with their little friends.  I love that!!  We had a couple of really fun play dates this week.  One at a friends house who had a tent set up for us to play in and a ball pit.  The kids and I had a blast.  The other was a play date in the Forest (a small wooded park in McKinney).  :-) 

Here are some of our pictures from the Forest.  Notice the new friendship that was started - so cute!!!

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This week's "You Capture" theme is purple.  We don't have a lot of purple going on except her cup.  But I wanted to share this with my "You Capture" friends.  Hope you enjoy!





Happy Father's Day!!

My babies have the most amazing Daddy!   I love watching the little traditions they are creating with him.  My little girl has to have cereal with daddy first thing in the morning.  I tried making her "cereal with Momma" one morning and she took the bowl straight to Daddy.  It was really cute!!   My little man sings his song that consists only of the words "Da Da Da Da".  :-)  And they both want to be right by his side whenever he's home. 

This is one of my favorite pictures of my two guys together.  My husband loves DIY stuff and the Handyman Magazines.  And my little guy loves anything his daddy loves.  It's just too sweet!!

Happy Father's Day Kevin!!!

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 "Let's Hear it for the Boys" photo challenge from the I Heart Faces website.

I finished my photography class. :-)

With us moving, I never got the chance to post about the rest of my photography classes.  I have to say I really enjoyed the class and would definitely recommend it.  Here are the topics we talked about the last 3 weeks.

Week 4 - We focused this week on studio lighting.  Our instructor showed us how to set up and use all of the studio equipment.  And I must say there is a lot to it.  I think I will stick to natural lighting for the time being.  Maybe as I get better I will venture out a little into the studio world but for now...bring on the sun!  :-)  (The only disappointing part of this class to me was we didn't get a chance for any hands on photography that day.)

Week 5 - This week we focused on creating movement in our pictures.  The two main techniques we used were panning our cameras in the direction of the action and also manually changing our zoom length while taking pictures.  Here are examples of both that I took during class.



This is one where I panned my camera along with the car as they were driving by.  My goal was to make the car stand still while the background looked like it was moving.




In this picture I changed my zoom from far away to close up while taking this picture.  My goal was to create a focal point in the center of the picture while the surrounding area was blurred.  I thought it was a cool effect.  :-)

 Week 6 - In our final class we finally got to practice using the studio lighting.  I had a blast with this.  We were supposed to have a professional model come to class this day.  But when she never showed up, one of our classmate's grandsons volunteered to fill in.   He wants to become an actor one day and does quite a bit of acting with his school.  He was such a great sport.  Here are some of the pictures I took of him.

This class really has me considering the realm of professional photography.  I think I may be ready to start doing sessions soon.  And I'm very excited about that!!  :-)

And finally speaking of being so busy, here is one last picture.  This was during the week we moved (notice all the boxes in the background).



My in-laws came the week of the move and were a huge help to us!!  And who knew their dog would be such a huge help in the move too.   He was very patient while she led him all around the house.  It kept her busy (and us entertained) for quite a while.  She was very upset when he had to go home.  :-)



Lots of Sprinkler Fun

Now that summer is here it's almost too hot to go outside especially in the afternoons.  Luckily we found the coolest little water toy for the kids.  They both LOVE anything that has water!!  It took a little while to get it all blown up (it's a good thing we're both full of plenty of hot air...hehe).  But once we got it ready, the kids had such a great time.  I know what we'll be doing a lot of this summer!  Here is a look at how much fun they were having.  :-)



I think this is the first time he smiled today.  He wasn't feeling well.  :-(




They both played so hard in the water.  E had so much fun she even gave the star a kiss before we went inside.  :-)



And Momma had fun because I got to practice freezing the water drops.  I had been wanting to get a picture like that.  :-)

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Since the kids are too young for "formal" games.  This is our fun and games for the week for our "You Capture" challenge too.