Day 30

Nothing really exciting to talk about today. It's another busy day but I did make some time to snap a few photos. I'm having a big party for my younger two on Saturday. He just turned 4 and she's turning 2 next week so we decided to do a combined party. I've been running around all week getting this all together (which explains the weekend Costco visit) and decided last minute that I want to have 11x14s photos of the kids up on display. I will be printing the one below, and an older photo of the baby from a couple months ago (my Mom's request, it's one of her faves) . I'm having them mounted and will use table top easels to display them.

For those of you that are reading this and will be coming to the party, this is suppose to be a surprise. So act surprised. :-p

Day 29

The tooth fairy has been a regular visitor at our house lately. Tonight my 6 year old lost her 6th tooth. She's so proud when she loses it. I think she just wants the money.

Day 28

Ahh, gotta love Sundays. Today was spent doing a whole lot of nothing. Just what I love. Although, I did brave Costco. Have you ever gone to Costco on a weekend day? It's simply painful. It's bad enough during the week but the weekends are just horrid. I don't know what possessed me to do that. Anyhow, today's photo is just a quick snap for our walk this evening. I love her little cheeks here.

Day 27 ~ Rain, Rain, Go Away

My daughter loves her rain boots. She puts them on and will walk around the house with them on for no particular reason. This afternoon she put them on and I realized that we had a brief break with the rain. So we grabbed her jacket and umbrella and had some fun.

I normally share just one image a day but I think it's appropriate to include two for today.

Day 26 (Woo Hoo Friday Again!!!)

Whew! It's been quite a week! (Read comments from yesterday) I'm so unbelieveably drained, I can't even think straight.

Today's photo is of "Bailey Bear". Bailey Bear is from my daughters classroom and each weekend a student in her class is picked to take him home. He comes with a luggage case stuffed with clothing, tooth brush, journal, books, and even a photo album. All the previous students, dating back to 2003, who have had Bailey Bear, have added a photo to the album. So tonight at bedtime we took some photos of Bailey Bear. It will be a tough decision to decide which one makes the cut into the album but we took this photo just for fun. My daughter added the toilet paper as the finishing touch. ;-)

Day 25

Today the only photos I took were at a 5 year old session and since I don't have a signed model release yet, I won't use any of the portraits I took. I am sharing, however, a test shot. I was checking my settings since I was shooting in full sun.





I apologize for the lack of creativity this week. I've had four photo sessions this week and have been swamped with things going on. It's going to take me a good week to get caught up.

Day 24 (Wed)

Okay, and here I was all happy that I have kept with the project and I slowly find myself falling behind!




Here she was complaing that she was losing her grip and me, the mean Mommy, tells her "Just one more picture"! lol

Day 23

Matching Converse.

What's cuter than a little toddler wearing hot pink converse? Not much if you ask me!

Day 22

Yippee for me! Day 22 and I'm still with it. I think I'll give myself a big pat on the back.

Today's share is from a walk we took this evening. They were being real sweet with each other. But alas, I got the "glare" once I pulled out the camera.

Day 21

Another busy day. Here's a quick one of my oldest. She's such a girlie girl, but you get that child around trees and she will be the first one climbing it. Dress or no dress.

Day 20

Ack! I'm falling slightly behind. The weekends aren't good for me, so forgive me if I'm a day or two late. You know how it goes. Anyway, for today's photo I'm sharing my niece. She turns 1 tomorrow so we did her one year portraits today. I photographed her first breathes after birth and it's been fun watching her grow. Happy 1st birthday my little sweetie! (More on Flickr)

Day 19 - TGIF

Thank Goodness It's Friday- need I say more?

Day 18

I have been neglecting my camera so this evening I grabbed it while we were on our way out the door. The sun was setting and that means I'd probably have to pull out my flash if I didn't shoot something. ;-) Just as well, sometimes you gotta love that golden sunlight. Anyway, my youngest has these boots and they are too darn cute. I wouldn't mind a pair in my size! So I just had to share them.

Day 17 - Still trucking along

So today I made myself go around the house and even hunt outside for something to photograph. My daily challenge was something non-kid, and out of my norm. I even resorted to photographing the ice cream man who was driving by (who's going to buy ice cream when it's 50 degrees out?!?)





In the end, this is which photo I liked the best. With the birds perched up on the branches of the oak tree, it reminds me of a scene from that one movie- Birds, by Alfred Hithcock.

Day 16

I've been trying hard to get some interesting macro shots but I don't know... I'm either not cut out for it, or our yard is just plain BORING. I constantly find myself drawn to portraits. And I hate being out of my comfort zone.

So, today's photo is of some ice crystals that formed on my windshield. I really wish I could've gotten in closer but the minimum focusing distance on the 100mm macro is 1 foot.

Day 15

It was kind of nice having the day off of school today. You know how Mondays are, you always need a day to recover from the weekend (even if we were stuck sick at home!).

Today we basically did just that. Bummed around the house, caught up on cleaning and all that fun stuff. I was also able to talk my oldest into bundling up and going outside for some photos. She was pretty into it, which is not always the case. Here is one from the mini-session. More are on my Flickr (though you need to be a contact to view my photos).

I hope to be able to brave the cold soon and get some non-kid photos soon. But I don't know.. they say rain will be coming. So you might get kid-in-rainboots photos instead! :-)

Continued from Sunday

I had a couple people asking for more info on Sunday's Jumping photo so here's some technical info:

I shoot with a 5D and this particular shot was taken the 85mm 1.8 lens. Settings were 1/250, f/3.2, 800 ISO. Whenever I photograph in the gym, I usually bump up the ISO to 1600. But because it was daytime I had some ambient light coming in from the windows. Another note, I try never to let my shutter speed go under 1/250, that way I can freeze action.

Hope that helps some, and thanks for the great comments!

Day 14 (Sunday, Jan 14)

We are finally restoring order back to this house. Soooo, I pulled the camera out briefly. My daughter was invited to a birthday party at her Gymnastic Studio and I was asked to take some photographs for the event. Of course! Here's a quick shot of my DD.

I hope to have some outdoor photos to share soon. It's been SO cold lately, the last place I want to be caught is outside. Where the heck is Spring?!?

Day 13

We are still feeling under the weather, but at least MUCH better than the past two days. It hate feeling this way. This evening I finally crawled out of bed and grabbed the camera. Here's my little one that got sick first. I'm proofing on the laptop because I don't have the energy to sit at the computer desk. I hope my colors aren't off too much.

Day 12

Sorry, no photos for today. I've spent the day very sick in bed. BLAH. Gotta love stomach flus :-(

Day 11

Whew, I can hardly believe that it's already the 11th! I feel like it's still Jan 5th or something. This month is going by way too quick.

Today was another uneventful day. My 6 year old got sick with some kind of stomach flu so I had to keep her home today. I was able to set up my studio though and get a couple shots of my youngest. She was being a little ham but the child does not stay still for longer than .02648 of a second. Just as I get my focus, she moves. Here is one of my faves from the day.

Day 10 (Jan 10)

Well I finally was able to get my 365 links up on my page. Blogger is really slow for me at times so it took a while. I hope that I got everyone's name and link correct. If I messed something up or forgot to add you to my list, please leave a comment so I can get you on correctly. We have so many people on this project now, it's going to be a task to keep up with all the other blogs. I also want to take a minute to thank everyone for the comments. It's so nice to log in and see a long list of nice comments. Definitely brightens up my day a little!

So, on to business. My son doesn't make it into photos nearly as much. He's pretty dodgey when I pull the camera out. But when I do catch him, I'm always pleased with what I get. He's just a handsome little guy.

Day 9

I'm afraid I don't have anything creative today. I took a few macro shots with the 100mm lens but nothing impressed me. I was in a slump and could not motivate myself to try very hard. Bad me. So I scrapped everything else and decided to pick a photo that gives me much pleasure as a Mother, though it's not technically perfect.

While my Dh was doing some yard work, I let the kids run off some energy. In this photo, my son was running along the sidewalk pretending to be a plane. Little sister went running after him, imitating him.

Day 8

I rented the Canon 100mm 2.8 Macro from rentglass.com and it arrived today. I love using this place because it allows me to test out a lens before spending $300 or $400, or even more, on a lens. I took a couple test shots today and so far I'm liking what I get! It's super sharp and it's got delicious bokeh.

Look for more macro shots over the next few days, as I will have it for another two weeks.

Day 7 ~ Weekend Getaway Continued

Ahhhhhh, do you know how nice it is to not wake up to kids or alarm clocks? I got a slight taste of that this morning. Once you become a parent, you forget what a treasure those little things can be!

So after checking out of our hotel this morning, we went to Carmel Mission and visited the grounds there. What an extraordinary place! It was constructed in 1771, and has had renovations since then.

The rest of our day was spent just taking our time, stopping at different places and taking the drive along the coast home. It was a very relaxing and weekend away, but we were also very happy to go home and get our little kiddies (who were also very happy to see Mommy & Daddy).

This photo is of the front entrance into museum section.

Day 6 ~ Weekend Getaway

We put together some last minute plans and had a kidless weekend away in Monterey, CA. We stayed in a beach front hotel and ate dinner at Bubba Gumps, which is our absolute favorite in Monterey. We can't visit there without stopping for lunch or dinner at Bubba Gump's. I love their shrimp scampi & cajun shrimp and hubby loves their coconut shrimp. YUM!

After dinner, we were walking along the ocean front, heading back to our car. The moon was coming in and out of the clouds and I thought it was neat, the way that it was reflecting over the water. Here is a shot looking back into the bay. Our hotel is among those lines in the middle.

Day 5

Every Friday I help out in my daughter's 1st grade class. She always asks me to stay for lunch but I usually have to leave at noon to get my son from Pre-School. Today he was off so I was able to stay and have lunch with her in the cafeteria. She was very happy to have her Mommy eatting at her class table.

Day 4

My youngest is having her 2nd birthday in about a month so today I took some photos for her birthday invitations. She wasn't quite digging it but I think I ended up with one that will be good enough. This is not the photo I was be using, but a sample from the mini session.

Day 3

Nothing exciting today. The weather has turned cold again and we are officially back to our regular routine. Bye Christmas, bye sleeping in, bye sitting around all day in our Pjs. In the afternoon, I let the kids run off some energy in the backyard. I took this opportunity to snap a couple shots of the kids. This is my favorite one of my oldest. I'm envious of her beautiful blue eyes.

Day 2

I don't have any photos to share today. This was the first day back for JRB and getting used to our usual routine took a little adjustment. So today I'll just share another favorite from yesterday.

Jan 1 (Day 1)

I decided to join some fellow photographers in this 365 photo-a-day challenge. I've never been much into blogs, but I figure this is a way for me to try something different and hopefully be a little creative with my photography. I will try my hardest to post a little something at the end of each day. But the reality is, I have 3 young children and it's so hard to keep up with even the most regular duties. I hope my blog holds your interest, even just a little bit.

Today we decided to take advantage of the nice weather and Holiday and take the kids to the beach. We had lunch on the Wharf, walked down and let the kids play on the beach, and then drove up the coast to watch the sun set over the Pacific Ocean. It was perfect way to kick of the new year.

Some favorite photos from the day: