I love this guy!

He's the best!

Peas

Peas straight from the garden are delightful!


And so are the boys who love to eat them.

Thomas and Nicholas have different approaches to eating the peas.

Thomas carefully and precisely snaps off the stem end, pulls the string, and opens the pod.

Then he scrapes the peas into his mouth using his top teeth. Yum!
Nicholas just bites right in, pod and all.

He does avoid the string if possible...it's a bit tough.
Yum!

Rain fun!

My kids LOVE spring rainstorms! When the thunder rolls and the skys open, they grab the umbrellas and run outside. Notice Estella with her Sunday dress still on and two different shoes. She is so silly!

Nicholas couldn't resist majorly splashing Essie.

Direction of light source

This is a little experiment I did and the results were so drastic, I thought I would share it.

THE most important thing in photography is lighting. Good light...good pictures, bad light...bad pictures, no light...no pictures. One thing you can start to think about is the direction the light is hitting your subject.

Here is my subject. A little clover flower.

Here is the little flower with the light (the sun) hitting it straight on. The sun was directly behind me. Results...pretty boring, flat picture (and a bit out of focus, but that is a different lesson).

Here is the same little flower. This time the sun is hitting the flower from the right side. The sun didn't move...I did :) This gives some dimension to the flower, showing more detail through shadows.

I moved one more time so the light was hitting the flower from behind (the sun was right in front of me). I love the dramatic effect of this light.

When you are taking pictures of your children, flowers, a building, ... anything... think about how the light is hitting your subject. In a nutshell, direct light will generally produce flat, boring pictures. Side light gives good depth. Back lighting is dramatic.

Fire Hose and Pretty Toes

One of my boy's favorite summer toys is this fireman's pack. The past two years, this toy has been labor intensive for me, because you have to fill it up with the hose, put it on them, take it off, fill it up, put it on ... you get the picture. I was so happy when Thomas did all of that all by himself a few days ago!

That was the fire hose...here come the pretty toes.

Lovers

My friend Monica and I did a family photo swap a few weeks ago. (Thanks a million Monica!) I am finally going through them and picking out my favorites. I love this one of Jackson and me. It isn't common to get a picture of just the two of us. This one actually isn't just the two of us, but you can't really tell unless you look close. Any guesses who else forced their way into the picture?

Head Shots

We were all out in our extra room a few days ago. The light was great. The kids were all happy. I thought about setting up a backdrop and trying to get some studio shots of each of the kids...then I came back to reality and remembered that by the time I did that the kids would be pulling each other's hair out...in no mood for pictures. So, I opted for close head shots to practice getting my focus right on. The funny thing is, that my favorite pictures aren't tack sharp. They aren't super blurry, just on the soft side, but I love them.

Nicholas LOVES his blanky. He sucks his pointer finger and smells his blanky. He often brings it to me and offers to let me smell it. Sometimes, it smells okay, but usually...gross!...and it's off to the washing machine.

Thomas was feeling a bit serious.

But I got a smile out of him :)

Happy Birthday Jackson!

It was Jackson's birthday yesterday. He turned 31. Happy birthday! He had to work all day Monday, so we did most of our celebrating on Sunday. I forgot to buy candles (actually I thought I had some in the cupboard, but didn't) so we used a small scented candle. I guess it did the job.

Sunday we also went to visit Grandma Berry. She is 90. I can't imagine living that many years. She is so fun to visit with.

While we were there, Nicholas had to go potty. I took him into her bathroom and got him all settled on the toilet. Her toilet has an additional lifter seat to make it easier for her to get up from it. Well...I didn't realize there was a space between that seat and the actual toilet seat...Nicholas ended up peeing straight through that space all over his pants, underwear, and the floor. I cleaned up the floor, but there was no hope for his pants or underwear...they were soaked. I took him out to the van, just hoping there was some kind of extra clothing there. We found two things...a pink skirt of Estella's, and a blanket. It took some coaxing, and a lot of laughing between us, and he ended up putting on the skirt. It was hilarious.

I should have just left him in the pee pants, becuase he ended up soaking the skirt in the fountain just minutes after we put it on him. I guess it makes for a good memory.