Halloween Pictures

I LOVE HALLOWEEN! Always have. Always will.

It’s a chance to dress up fun, wear funny makeup, make people laugh or give them a little scare. I used to drag my friends trick-or-treating with me all the way through high school.

In college, my roomie and I put on masks and layers of thick clothes. We walked into each of the dorms’ lounges and walked and stared and never said a word. Some people would just stare at us, others tried to find out who we were. It was soooo much fun.

My boys share my enthusiasm for this holiday. We love figuring out what they will dress up as. This is what we looked like this year.

I know, pretty scary right? Hope you all had a great Halloween!

Challenges

I’m going to set some challenges for myself.

First, I want to carry my Nikon slr around with me more. I need to have it out and available. I need to shoot more pictures with it for obvious reasons. The more you use it, the better you know it and the better you get with it. Also, it just plain takes better pictures. This is with my slr.

It is Noah (son #3) calling for the ball in his soccer game.

And then I have a little Nikon s6000 that I carry in my purse. It’s just a lot more convenient to carry around than my D300s. Here is a picture from this weekend’s birthday party that I used my s6000….and regretted it.

It’s not bad, but not great either. Practice with your SLR!

Second challenge- Keep running every week at least 2, hopefully 3, days a week. Increase your running time by one minute more every week, while keeping your speed the same. Needed to put this out there to keep myself accountable. Thanks for letting me.

Pumpkin Carving

So, for the past few years, I’ve done some intricate pumpkin carvings around this time. I look forward to Fall so that I can go pick out the perfect pumpkin to do this to. I take a photo, and with a few easy steps, have a stencil for carving. I can’t remember where I first saw it, but if you google it you will find lots on it. There is a good tutorial here.

I will post the results of the last couple of years so you can see what I’m talking about. Sadly, this years creation has already gotten ruined by some pesky squirrels. But, gladly, I already took photos of it! I will show what it looks like with my flash on and then without.

This is from two years ago. It’s my youngest son Jayce.

This is the one I did last year. It is my other son Cole.

And then this year’s pumpkin is my husband and me.

 

It is a little tricky and somewhat time-consuming. But worth it in the end. It may not feel like you are doing it right. To test- put a candle or light in it and turn off the lights. That gives you a good idea if you are on the right track. Hope you guys try it and have fun with it!

Front door redo

I was badly in need of an updated front door. Our door color was a strange tan on the outside and it showed every. single. speck. of dirt. In all honesty it was gross. And we had a bright brass door handle. So I followed some great instructions from over on Young House Love and updated our handles too. Note to self: Next time take pictures or detail drawings/notes of the assembly of the door handle.

Here is a before and after. Almost forgot the before picture in my haste. I’m a little impatient like that.

Here is the after.

I even spray painted the doorbell. Looks 100% better. In hindsight, writing my name in the cement right in front of the door with the power washer probably wasn’t  the best idea.

Oh well.

Updated pictures

I finally got my boys’ pictures done. Now to actually get them printed. That is the hardest step for me. In fact, I never got last year’s pictures even printed. Bad, bad mom/photographer.

In these pictures we were losing light very quickly and I didn’t bump up my iso like I should’ve….. We also had some uncooperative participants because of fighting with his brother and getting in trouble right before his turn. Oh well. They are what they are.

Do any other photographers have such trouble getting good pictures of their own kids?

Goofy Boy

He came into our lives 3 years ago today. My littlest one, my baby. I can’t believe he’s already this old and I can’t imagine life without him. He is my sweet little silly boy. He is talking so much now and makes me laugh everyday. He’s my snugglebug and my Honest Abe. Especially when he pats my tummy after I have too much to eat and asks, “You have baby?”. Ha!

We love you JJ!

If there is still anyone out there

Okay, so I never was a very faithful blogger....but this has been REALLY bad.

My oldest (5th grade) started in a public school this year (previously homeschooled) and my youngest is almost 3 years old. And I'm not pregnant like I was at this time last year. (if you're confused about that not adding up- read more here). So I'm finding I have a little more time on my hands. Hopefully this trend will continue!

I'm still homeschooling my 7 and 5 year old, but it's a lot easier than last year trying to do three kids at once with an active toddler and being pregnant.

To start things off, I will post some of my photography pictures that I did during my looooong absence.

More to come....stay tuned.