Valentine's Day...

I'm not gonna lie. Ever since having kids (esp. Kylie), I LOVE Valentine's Day . Jason and I have never really celebrated, outside our tradition of a good glass of wine and delivered pizza. This year, as we munched down on pizza, I looked around at our table of 5 and smiled. I can still remember when it was just the two of us. Our life is so much deeper now, somehow more meaningful and definitely more fulfilling. Valentine's Day is about love, and my heart was so overflowing with it yesterday, that I woke up this morning still grinning ear to ear...heck, why not make today Love Day # dos?

Kylie has always been a big fan of Valentine's Day. This year we made her valentine's for her class and she wrote out all her kids valentine's cards herself (and she really enjoyed doing it!) They had breakfast with Dad at her school in the morning that Jason went to, and then had a Vday party in her class. At the end of the day we exchanged gifts. Kylie had made Beck a container of goodies (picked out from our pantry) and a homemade envelope filled with change (b/c he's always trying to play with her money). She was more excited to give this to him than she was to open her own gifts. Sometimes her compassion and care for others is overwhelming in such a good way! Kylie also picked out a little bear with a heart sweater that she gave to me. I ADORE it and HER!

Ky dressed for school on Valentine's day.

Her Valentine box she decorated full of goodies from her class.

Kylie writing down the names of all her classmates...

She really enjoys any sort of art project.

These we ordered from Oriental Trading Company. They turned out really cute, but what I thought was sticker foam, turned out not to be, and all the little pieces needed glued on. It was too much for Ky to do all of them on her own, so I ended up helping a bit more than I had wanted to.

I didn't get a single shot of Beck that I liked all day. But to my defense, both he and Strat have been a little under the weather. In fact, they're both on antibiotics now to hopefully kick these crummies they've had for the last two weeks or so.

I forgot I had been playing with the white balance settings on my camera before snapping this shot. Oddly enough, it turned out to be my favorite. This boy is definitely the KING of MY heart!

Decisions...

Life is funny. You wake up one morning and realize that you've completely lost control. You go from thinking you're on top of things, making the right decisions, heading in the right directions, and then BAM....the next day you're overtaken by this sudden rush of fear, regret, and feelings of inadequacies.

Whats funny is that nothing has changed. Your schedule is the same this week as last week, and so forth. Your children who woke up this morning are the same ones you kissed goodnight yesterday evening. Your house and husband haven't thrown any drastic curve balls your way (at least not yet) and your mind? well, that's another thing entirely.

Is this a normal feeling? Or a parent feeling? A woman thing? Or am I just crazy?

An old friend (and ex friend, thankfully) once told me that he believed I was going to be an amazing mother, but that I'd spend way too much time doubting myself and wondering if I was making the right decisions.

This particular past mistake of a friend is long gone, but his words echo in my head EVERY TIME I have one of these moments.

I think of how one views parenting before actually becoming a parent. It seems so simple. You do what is right. And that statement is still true. The kicker is...it isn't always easy to tell what is right.

And there are off days. Today is one of those days. I wouldn't win any parenting awards over here. There isn't a lot of learning going on, and one would question an abundance of love either (esp. if you saw me pinning beck down just so i could brush his teeth this morning)...yeah, not my finest moment for sure)...the list could go on, but you get the point....

makes me wonder. how did i loose control? or did i ever really have it to begin with?

Photography Class Part III...

A bit late in my class follow up blog this week. J's been traveling and I spent most of the day yesterday flying solo with Beck while we drove around town from dentist to dentist after he cracked half his front tooth off on our wood floors yesterday morning. Such is life with kiddos!

Anyways, this past Saturday we spent a good deal of time critiquing photos each of the 30 of us brought in. Although it was wonderful to see others work, and more wonderful to hear others critiques of the works (its amazing what people notice that you don't) the class was a little short on new knowledge. We discussed depth of field which was already addressed in our previous aperture class as well as ISO which is pretty much common sense once you know what it actually is (it controls how sensitive your sensor is to light). If you're shooting indoors/low light, start around 800 ISO which will allow you more wiggle room to play with aperture and shutter speed even with the restricted light. However, keep in mind that the higher the iso the more noise, or grain, will be in your shot. I've come to realize that much of the time I like a little grain. When shooting outdoors or in good natural light, start at an ISO of 100, or 200 (pretty much as low as your camera will go). We were suppose to address white balance, something I'm interested in as I've struggled with it ever since switching away from auto, but we ran short on time.

Sadly, I have yet to figure out what pictures I'm going to bring in for the next class. The assignment is to bring in one shot, iso 100, that is taken outdoors or in good lighting. and one shot that is at iso 800 indoors and poor lighting. I've been shooting all week, I feel like my camera is never more than two steps away from me now, but I've yet to find anything i'm really excited about. I think much of it has to do with the fact that I'd much rather shoot in good light simply because the pictures are better quality I think. And very few of the indoor shots are completely free of computer touch ups whether it be in exposure or saturation or contrast.

Here's some of the randomness I've shot this week thus far. Hopefully tomorrow will bring with it a little bit of inspiration. An outside shot is hard to find when its too chilly to drag the kids along for the ride....or when one of them is loopy on valium. =)

This boy loves his cars...

The light coming in from the living room windows is miserable here...and the shot is a bit dark for me.

The beginning of Ky's class Valentines for their exchange during their class party. These guys are pretty cute. Ky's working on tags for them now...another post to come once they're finished.

There's not much better than snapping a shot that really captures a child's personality. This one most certainly does that...

Strat and Beck entranced in watching bubble guppies. newie is really starting to become a fan of the t.v.

Playing with focus and depth of field. Similar shot as above but focusing on Beck.

I know she takes my breath away, but I'm a bit biased =)

This boy has such a goofy look about him...

Playing with the lens cap, and mom's cell phone, maybe this is how I happened to call (and get charged) for so many 411 calls last month...

Taking a short break on mom's lap...he really wanted to play with the camera....

100th day of School...

For the 100th day of Kindergarten, the kids were allowed to dress up with a 100 day theme or decorate a shirt. Kylie decided she wanted to do a shirt...and wear her big tutu skirt, and crazy socks, and of course, her fake hair extensions. No matter how hard I tried to get her to do something creative, or even within the realm of a 100 day theme, she wanted nothing to do with it. The closest I got was putting an owl on the front (only because she could color it herself) and the number 100 on the back! Oh well, she was really excited about it and in the end, I guess that's all that matters!

Camera Practice...

I needed to practice using different ISO settings on my camera for class this week, so I lured Ky in to be my model by promising she could try on my wedding dress. At which point, she was all about it. I'm sure most wife's would find this a crazy trade off, but the dress cost $200 and was bought at a Jessica Mclintock store in the mall (I've never really been one for fancy weddings) not to mention that it hasn't even been dry-cleaned since the day I wore it and still has dirt on the bottom of it from walking to the outdoor garden where we wed. ANYWAYS, the pictures, from a photography perspective, are a complete mess! But some of the shots made me laugh so I thought I'd share a couple... Ky gets really strange in front of a camera, it is either all (crazy cheese face) or nothing (I mean literally, nothing....see below)

So seeing as I gave birth to her, I'm fairly certain I've been around all her life, but where did my little baby go? and who replaced her with a young lady?

It might just be me, but she seriously looks like she's 20 here....and that was totally not what i was going for...

whooop...there's my little girl again, thank goodness...i started to get worried...

One of the last shots I took, trying to work on depth of field by focusing on her face and getting the dress out of focus...

Apparently being my model is exasperating!

Warm Weather ...

It isn't very often in Jan./Feb. that you get to spend a whole lot of time outdoors. We've definitely been taking advantage of it this week. I took my camera out while the kids played in the sandbox and on the trampoline after Ky got home from school today.

I asked her to smile for me and this is what I got...we're in so much trouble when she hits her rebellious stage...

Stratton managed to crawl himself right back indoors and close the door behind him. On the plus side, he really enjoyed mirroring where Ky and Beck put their hands, on the downside, my once clean window is now disgustingly dirty!

Playing in the dump truck.

Showing off his tummy table while in the sand...

I love Beck's face in this shot. He was super angry that Ky jumped in front of the camera...

This is classic Beck....

Photography Class Part II

(I will warn you now. This post has nothing to do with cute stories regarding my children or quirky antics among our household....so I apologize for the boring nature, but writing is how I learn!)

So last week I embarked on a 6 week photography class at a nearby college campus. Jason surprised me with the gift for Christmas. Yeah, he must REALLY love me to put himself in a position to fly solo with the kids for 4 hours for 6 consecutive Saturday mornings! ANYWAYS, last week was basic intro: quick history of photography, basic functions/buttons on DSLR cameras, etc. This past week we focused on Aperture and Shutter speed.

After the class my head was spinning. It all made sense to me, but my thought process was slow to get from "wanting to shoot" to "having the settings I want to shoot" that there's no way I could do it in a natural setting. SOOOO...with that in mind. I'm going to try and blog what I've learned each week, in hopes that writing it down and in my own words will help it all sink in that much more!

Now, I'm the first to admit that I have no clue how to use my camera, nor do I know much of anything about photography in general. If you're not a novice like myself....you may laugh at me. Go ahead, its ok...I laugh at myself all the time. If you DO happen to know what you're doing and can shed some more, or CLEARER light, on the topics, feel free to comment...I could use all the help I can get!

Shutter speed: So shutter speed controls how long the "gate" is left open and it is measured in seconds or fractions of seconds. The longer the shutter is open the more light you allow into your photo (thus affecting exposure) Shutter speed is particularly important when dealing with fast moving objects (i.e.: my children) or when you want to blur a picture to show movement (i.e.: a waterfall). When wanting to freeze time you need a fast shutter speed (1/125 or faster usually works for kids) However, anything slower than 1/60 and you need to use a tripod to avoid camera shake (this is usually needed when working with very low lighting)

Aperture: Aperture controls how wide the gate is open. It is tricky because it is counterintuitive. The larger the opening= the more light you allow = the smaller the F stop number and vice versa. Aperture and Shutter speed work together to create your exposure. But aperture also affects your depth of field (essentially what is and is not in focus in your picture). DOF helps add interest to your photos. The lower the number = the higher the aperture = more shallow depth of field (less in focus) and vice versa.

Probably the most interesting thing I learned was how to use the shutter and aperture priority modes on my camera, how to bracket and check exposure while in manual mode, and that it isn't always the shot that is perfectly exposed that you'll like the best. This last one was the most surprising to me.

Our homework was to play with shutter speed and aperture, mainly focusing on exposure, looking at the difference between a shot perfectly exposed vs. one under exposed vs. one over exposed. Here are a couple different pics that I took while practicing. I didn't have a lot to work with: the backyard while the boys napped. I couldn't' imagine going out to shoot with the kids in tow....all of these were at ISO 400 (don't even know what that means yet, but that's what the instructor told us to put the camera on).

One of the trees in our backyard, I tried to shoot it from the ground up to add interest. Another thing I learned: never take the shot that everyone sees (i.e.: change angels)

F/9 aperture, 1/13 shutter speed=over exposed (too much light allowed in)

f/9 aperture, 1/30 shutter speed. This one is considered perfectly exposed. But I liked the last one best.

f/9 aperture, 1/60 shutter speed.

The following is the one and only flower growing in our back yard right now, which is kind of cool if you consider its a gerber daisy that isn't suppose to make it through our winters. It has not only survived 4 years for us, but is blooming in the middle of January....

f/9 aperture, 1/200 shutter speed = under exposed (also the one I like best)

f/9 aperture, 1/125 shutter speed = perfect exposure

f/9 aperture, 1/60 shutter speed = over exposed.

And this next one is the shot I ended up printing and I am going to take for critique next saturday. The flower (as you can see) is a little gimp on one side, so I tried to shoot it off center to compensate and add interest to the shot. Not sure it worked, but its all I got!

f/5.6 aperture, 1/250 shutter speed = under exposed

f/5.6 aperture, 1/125 shutter speed = perfect exposure

f/5.6 aperture, 1/50 shutter speed. This one is actually my favorite. I like how the very edge of the flower almost blends into the overexposed white in the background. I could see this picture being cropped on the right side and adding text on the left. Again, this is me talking like I have any clue what I'm saying....

Whew, and that's about it so far... we'll see where next week takes me!