Easter Picture

here are the boys on Easter Sunday at S's grandparents.

i have never wanted to dress the boys the same, but Debra bought these shirts and i have to admit they look very handsome!

don't they look sweet?

this is an example of 2 of my biggest hang-ups when taking pictures; facing the subjects the incorrect way in consideration of the light and cutting off hands/feet. i guess the best thing for me is that i can recognize these mistakes and hopefully one day it will sink in and i can remember how to avoid it!

Our first attempt...

at bluebonnets. not so good. very frustrating.








I don't know why it is so hard to get through to my husband that the WORST time to take outside pictures is in the middle of the day, but i can't.


So once again we headed out to get pictures in the bluebonnets in the middle of the day. now a veteran photographer would have been able to get amazing

pictures in the conditions we were in(bright, overcast), but all i got were mediocre shots at best, with uncooperative

kids, A LOT of squinting eyes, and crooked horizons lines.


this is where i get so frustrated because i don't catch these things while i am shooting(i tend to go brain dead as soon as the camera turns on) and fix them. i am always in the car, on the way home and realize that i am not happy with any of my results. but i guess this is how i am going to eventually learn.


So with that, hopefully we will head back to the same spot this evening and i can correct some of my technical mistakes, because i fear the the uncooperative kids will never change!

a boy thing?

I don't know if this is a boy thing or what, but K has become obsessed with dog poop. yes- i know has gross that sounds, how do you think i feel?
We have lucy, who for 5 years has been the queen of our back yard, and we have never had to worry about the mess. but with L's dog coming over during the week and since K has gotten big enough to play in the back yard, it is a big mess indeed. it gets pretty overwhelming at times when the kids want to go out to play, and it is EVERWHERE!
So, the other day, S was on poop patrol because we all wanted to go out in the back yard to play. he told K he needed to go get the poop scooping shovel from the garage to clean up the mess before we could play.
we though nothing about it until we got back to the back yard with the shovel and K was standing there with a piece of poop in his hand, saying,"poop,daddy,poop!"
Luckily(if this is actually something you could call lucky), it was hard and not soft! sorry for the details, but he was SO proud of himself.
he had no idea how totally gross this was and could not figure out why we completely flipped out. he just thought he was helping out daddy! now he combes through the yard, front and back, letting us know where all the dog poop is!
K: 'poop, mommy, poop!'
me: 'okay Kyle, thats great, just DON'T touch it!'

Krestyn O.

These are a few shots i was able to snap of my niece awhile back. love her to pieces, but dang it is hard to get pictures of her and Kyle! i have a bad habit of cropping in camera and wishing i had a little wiggle room after the

fact. i need to learn to step back and crop later, i would be much happier!

I post-processed these, playing with color and re-sized for the web.

Some are over-exposed, but i kind of like it.

A shoulder to...um...well...

I have recently discovered that the saying, a shoulder to cry on, brings on a whole new meaning with a two year old.
In most instances, my left shoulder bares the tears of an overly emotional little guy, i love that, and think one of the best parts about being a mom is being the comforter.
The other, not so glamorous, duty of my left shoulder is the softest, most obvious snot wiping surface.
My little guys have been plagued with constant runny noses for a month. Poor little T's nose hurt him so bad the other day, he screamed when i attempted to wipe it. i luckily found that aquaphor works wonders for that!
i guess K seems to think my shoulder is more fit to handle his runny nose than a tissue and i caught him rubbing his nose all over my shirt. i was holding him for whatever reason(i think he wanted me to pick him up just for that purpose!) and he started rooting his face in my shoulder, i couldn't believe it when i realized what he was doing! i looked down and there it was, snot all over me! i know that boy knows what a tissue is and how to use, because i have shown him where to wipe his buggers(that a whole other can of worms!)
i think back about it, and he has done that exact same thing so many times, like when he has been crying, he rubs his tears and his nose, i have just not been paying much attention to what exactly he is wiping. I so i guess i now have 'the shoulder to snot on.........'
I just wonder how many times I have been walking around a store with snot shining on my shirt?

Past the point of frustration

Okay- i am seriously about to throw away all my stupid camera equipment and find a different hobby. i have about decided that i just don't have it when it comes to photography. something is just not getting threw my thick head. ARGH!

I know it takes A LONG time to really understand and be able to produce consistently proper images, but all i am asking for is one every now and then. i am not wanting to be some sort-of professional right now, just someone who can produce something better than the average 'snap-shot'.

poop.

yes, you just read a pity-me post. sorry.

sorry they are all so pixilated, i uploaded from photobucket?

the first one and the last one are very unevenly exposed and not very creative composition.

the middle on is very back-lite, which i love sun flare, but i can't seem to get it with out blowing the exposure of the subject!?!?

i just can't seem to figure out what to do with light.

What goes around comes around........

and so on. you know all that stuff people say when you were growing up, about what life will bring you when you have your own children, pay back or something like that, right?
For several years i have been keep quite a long mental note of all the things my mom was right about.....smoking, drinking, sex(well i guess we are a little beyond that now!), grades, friends, gossip. all the stuff that ultimatly just effected me, that i wasn't willing to listen to, that i wish i would have.
Well i am passed that point of high school regret and am learning a whole new world of mom's right-ism's.
Because i swear, if i pull another one of K's 'brown-bottomed' white socks out of the dryer i might just blow up right there. Socks have become like gold around here(when i can actually find a matching pair), for the simple fact that i have the hardest time finding the kind of socks that i like for K in the right size, they are always sold out! So when i pull out clean, stained socks, worrying whether he will be taking his shoes off where we are going, i can hear my mom in the back of my mind yelling to get back into the house with socks on. i really never could figure out the big deal, now Mom you can do your happy dance, your work is done, because i
know now.
The unfortunate thing about all of this is all of the other things i am realizing she was right about. Things that effect S and I as parents as well as them, for instance; me and S having to meet K and T's friends and their parents, and teaching them to obey curfew. i HATED this, how embarrassing that i had to introduce my parents to my friends parents. I understand now, they just wanted to be sure I was safe with the people I would be staying with, and the curfew thing, well DUH!
Hopefully K and T will not be as hard headed as i was.....i think i am dreaming!

Beauty

These are beautiful pictures, i just wish someone else would have had the camera. i managed to underexpose all of them, these are just the best i got out of about 30 different shots. In defense of the rainbow image, i was completly caught off guard, how many times do you see a double rainbow driving down a back country road? I had my fisheye hangin' out the window trying really hard not to get soaked(it was a nice rain storm!), i forget to reset my custom white balance. oh well, they may not be technically perfect, but they are neat.




Scott's Family owns land in Hempstead, Texas along the Brazos River. we brought Kyle out there to run around and see the cows(moo's), and i finally got some camera time, though short lived with an infant, toddler and the sun going down!


These pictures where taken there and on the way there.