A few favorites...

I was showing someone my photo blog the other day and they asked me why I dont have more pictures of my kids up. It's not that I don't take pictures of my kids, in fact as soon as they "think" they see a camera, they smile or say cheese. I find that taking pictures of my kids is a little more challenging than you may think. Partly because I'm pretty critical of my own work. I should take more pictures of them though. And I will... Soon. For now though, here are a two of my favorites that I have taken recently and the story of why:

"Alec on the Beach"
The moment we arrived Alec cried and cried for almost an hour. He was terrified of stepping on the sand. We were there for quite a while and when he saw the other kids having fun, he slowly got out of his stroller and cautiously walked over to the spot where I had been taking everyones picture. I snapped a few before he realized that he was standing on the BEACH! He actually sat and played for a little bit though before we left. He loved the sand... wouldn't go near the water so much.

"Smell the Flowers"
One day the boys and I took a walk around our neighborhood. The weather was beautiful and the flowers were blooming. We came up on a patch of these flowers and Caleb wanted to smell. Alec, wanting to do everything that Caleb does these days, followed him. This is Caleb "teaching" Alec how to smell a flower. He kept saying, "like this Alec!" I snapped this the moment before Caleb stood up and said, "Ok, that's enough sniffing, lets run!"

Family Weekend Post 4

Ok, so here are a few pictures of Lexi... Most of my pictures are of her! :)

Family Weekend Post 3

With Lexi being only a week old, she was always being held by SOMEONE! Here are some pics of people who were all goo goo gaa gaa over baby!

Aunt Rachele
Cousin Caleb
Aunt Robyn & Mommy
Great Grandma Elaine
Aunt Gayl

Family Weekend Post 2

Random pics... short stories:

Alec on the drums... My boys were on these drums all weekend. I kept hearing them and thinking... "That's not them... that's too good to be them..." Ha ha! Just before this picture, my brother made a motion with the cake like he was going to shove it in my grandmother's face. She was still surprised and my brother was laughing as I snapped. I wish I had a video camera for that one! :)
Caleb asked us for almost an hour to hold Lexi. Finally we let him hold her and he was talking to her in that baby talk and telling us how cute she was... He was smiling from ear to eat the entire time! He loved her!
Caleb still wanted some Lexi time the next morning... Here he is giving her some kisses.
This is the only picture I have of Alec and Lexi. He wouldn't get near her all weekend! Carrie had to hold her up next to him so that he wouldn't notice that she was nearby. As soon as I took the picture he looked over and sort of fell backwards away from her... LOL!

Family Weekend Post 1

The boys and I packed up on Saturday afternoon and headed down to Spotsylvania to visit with the family. We attempted to take another family picture while we were there. If you have a large family you know how near impossible it is to get the perfect picture. We sat on these steps for a pretty long time trying to get one... We came pretty close though! Here are the best 3 (out of 13)


From top left: Grandpa Frank, John, Grandma Elaine; Rachele, Gayl, Carrie; Dad, Caleb, My and Alec. Belinda was behind the camera and Grandpa is behind Rachele's head. Other than that, a good picture! Here's us, Sans Kids. Grandpa, John Grandma, Rachele, Gayl, Carrie, Dad and me. This one is awesome! (except that the kids are missing.... the trampoline distracted them....)
Thumbs up! We all gave it our best shot! :)

My first week of Class

I started school on Friday. We went over some things that I basically already knew about however now I understand the why's and how's a little better. To any other people who are into photography out there, we went over what the F-stop was and we talked a lot about shutter speeds and apertures and ISO's. All that good stuff. He informed us that if we don't already print our pictures, then we better start because it's required. I think I must have a couple of thousand pictures that I have not printed... Ha ha! This is going to be an expensive hobby/career for me.


On Saturday we had a "lab" which is basically just a field trip out to take some pictures and to get some one on one with the professor. We met at Colvin Mill Run Park which is in Reston. I'm actually really happy with some of the pictures that I took. Below are just a few of my favorites. I posted some others on my photography blog if you want to check those out. I'm looking forward to my next class on Friday!

Alexis Nicole

I asked my sister earlier this week if she had a name picked out for baby girl and she did! So after talking for a bit, I asked her when she would want to come up so that I could practise taking some pictures for her. She basically came later that night! LOL! We got around to taking some pictures today and we are both very pleased with the outcome. We'll be taking some more tomorrow! Here are my favorites: