Jamie

Here are a few more of my sister Jamie. I am a bit frustrated about something, though. In Photoshop these pictures look vibrant and full of color. When I view them with Windows Picture Viewer they look dull. Now they look dull here too...I am so frustrated. I wish the stinking pictures would just look the same everywhere I look at them. How am I supposed to know what they are going to look like when I print them out? ARGH! So, Jamie, when you look at these picture them with vibrant colors and more contrast, because I WILL figure this out and that is the way I will print whichever ones you want me to.




More to come, Jamie!

My Little Sis

This is my little sister Jamie. We had a family reunion in Loa, UT this past weekend and we shot some senior pictures of her while we were there. She is so gorgeous! There are so many pictures that turned out. I am a bit bummed about some of them, though, because I am a retard and am still learning how to use my camera right and I focused some of them wrong. I was trying to get a really shallow depth of field and focus right on her eyes, but I did it wrong and it focused on the weeds just to the side of her. ARGH!!! I think I figured out what I did wrong, though. I had the camera on AF-C which is continual auto focus rather than AF-S whish locks on and doesn't change when you resompose the picture. Sorry about that Jamie...there are still TONZ of great ones, though. I'll be posting more soon!

Ragged Mountain Part 2

Here are a few more pictures from our Ragged Mountain trip. Just so you know, many of these were taken by Jackson with a point and shoot camera, and none of them have been edited at all. I don't know why, but I feel the need to say that. I guess because I am trying to become a photographer I feel like every picture I post should be my best. Well...they aren't all going to.

Brynne and Estella
Thomas holding the fish Clarissa caught.


Juliette is so adorable I just can't help taking pictures of her.
Bubba and Ethan decided to take a 'short cut' to the lake we were fishing on. Ethan fell in some sort of water on their way and was wet from head to toe. He saw me pointing my camera at him and gave me a death glare. I couldn't help taking a picture...it will be such a good memory some day.
The water was COLD as you can see from Thomas's expression.

This is the main cabin most of us stayed in.

This is Nicholas in front of the small cabin.
Rafting on the pond just outside our cabin.
Clarissa was queen of the pond. She LOVED rafting around.

Ragged Mountain

We had such a blast at Ragged Mountain last weekend. We went with Jackson's parents, and his siblings with their kids...his brother and wife have 4 kids and his sister and husband have 2 kids. So total we had 9 adults and 9 kids...it was great! Here are a few pictures. More will be coming soon.

Thomas, Ethan, and Newell. They were playing good guys and hunting for bad guys. They decided that Thomas could shoot flames, Ethan could become a gator and chomp the bad guys, and Newell had some sort of magic whistle that could do something ultra special. I'm sure I got that all wrong, but it was something like that. They had a blast together.

Sweet little Juliette. She was trying to dangle her feet in the water, but it was just too far. She ended up just standing in the water.
Going for a hike (walk). Me, Nicholas, Brynne, Grandma Chelle, Juliette, and Amber. It's not the best picture, but I love Nicholas' filthy face. I don't know if we have all ever been as dirty as we got that weekend. It was great. Clarissa caught a fish! This was her first fish to catch. It was a rainbow trout. Because it is private land, we didn't need a fishing license, we just had to pay $3 for each fish we caught and kept. We paid, cooked the fish, and let all the kids taste it.
I love the expressions in this picture. Clarissa is full of admiration of her beautiful fish...her mom is interested, yet disgusted, and Newell looks a bit jealous. It is great.
I can't wait for next year when we get to go again!

SNAP!

Thomas and Nicholas LOVE balloons. I bought a big bag of them and unfortunately the boys found them. That meant lots of balloon blowing for me and also lots of balloons on the floor to keep away from Estella. She found one and was enjoying it so much, I decided to just supervise closely. I love this series of pictures. "Look mom...I have the balloon in my mouth."
"This is pretty stretchy."
"Let's see how far I can stretch it."
SNAP!!!
What a silly girl.

We just got back from a Berry family camping trip (in cabins) to Ragged Mountain. It was a blast. I have TONZ of pictures I will post soon.

Standing

I can't believe Estella is over 8 months old already. Time goes by faster and faster it seems. This week she has decided that she wants to stand. Every time I try to set her down on the floor to sit, she holds her legs stiff, grasps my fingers, and just tries to stay standing. I decided it was time to pull out this toy...it was a favorite of both Thomas and Nicholas. Here are a couple pictures of little Essie Boo "standing" next to it. I love the way she positions her legs and feet...she is so girly!
Her face is all dirty because we had just been outside where she made a meal of a dirty stick...yum!

First Newborn Shoot

I did my first newborn shoot this afternoon. My friend Amanda Jolley had a baby boy 5 days ago...I am having brain lapse...I'm pretty sure his name is Zachary...sorry Amanda if I am wrong. He was very laid back and sweet through it all. I was pretty nervous. I already know about 10 things I will do better next time, but I think a lot of the pictures turned out great. Here are a few to peak at. Thanks Amanda for letting me do this!

4th of July

We had a great 4th of July. We invited a few kids from around the neighborhood to decorate bikes and have a little 'parade.' It was really laid back. I think the kids had a good time. I told Thomas ahead of time what we would be doing and he wanted me to lead the parade holding a flag on a big stick. The things you do for your kids! He made the flag and taped it to a BIG stick and made sure to remind me to head off the parade. I felt a little silly, but it was fun. I jogged ahead with the big kids and the other parents went slow with the little ones.
We got some weird flu-ish bug right around the 4th. We lucked out, though, because Nicholas had a fever all day the 3rd. Thomas had a fever all day the 5th. And Estella had one all day the 6th. It was a blessing they all felt good on the 4th.

I don't have a picture of this, but I want to tell it anyway. For dinner on the 4th we ate at Jackson's bosses house. He made some delicious ribs...soft meat, scrumptious spicy sauce...they were good. Estella was sitting on Jackson's lap and she grabbed a rib bone off his plate. I thought she would take one taste and not like it because the sauce was pretty spicy, but she started in on that thing and wouldn't stop for anything! She worked on that bone for a good hour and a half! She cleaned every morsel of meat, fat, and sauce off it. It was so funny to see her munching on it.

The night of the 4th we spent with Jackson's family lighting off fireworks in his parent's front yard. His dad had taken a trip though Wyoming and he picked up a lot of fun fireworks while he was there. It was a fun day.

Sunday I stayed home from church with Estella when she was sick. There was a little bit of time when she was acting happy, so I took her outside to take some pictures of her adorable-ness. I got one happy face....

And then about 8 sad faces. Is is mean to take a picture of your baby crying?

Madilyn and Mason

These are a few of my favorites from my first 'real' photo shoot. They are such cute kids, it made things really easy. I love shooting portraits! It is all fun...the preparation, the picture taking, and the editing. I love it all. I still have SO MUCH to learn, but I am happy with what I have learned so far. Fun, fun, fun!!!

Jazzy and Edmund

Jackson's little sister, Jazzy is getting married the middle of August to Edmund. Edmund flew here to Grand Junction from Canada to visit this past weekend. It was so fun to meet him and see he and Jazzy together. They are such a beautiful couple. Jazzy seems so happy. I couldn't resist snapping a few pictures at our family dinner at the park. Here's my favorite...

I'm doing my first photo shoot (other than my kids) on Thursday. I am really excited. Last night I was trying to get everything ready and try a few different things to prepare. These are a few pics from that. You have got to love Nicholas's hair! "Please, Mom, give me a haircut!!!"