Ice Skating Party

We spent part of the afternoon at the Ice Skating Rink, for my nephew's 6th birthday.. photo overload to follow..
















A fun time was had by all ;)

New Layouts

I started out this month with a goal of doing one layout a day for the month of January. That hasn't happened. I am feeling better now that I'm in the second trimester, but I'm having a lot of headaches and still more tired than usual, so my night's are sometimes better well spent in bed rather than scrapbooking. Last night I was feeling pretty good, so I got a few pages done.
The second one was for scrapjacked, and the third one is for the One Little Word challenge, using the word prompt, "steps".




Last night I also tried to get a bunch of pictures ordered so I have a good supply on hand of stuff to scrap. I haven't scrapbooked since October, so I have October, November, and December pictures to print. I have over 900 pictures for those 3 months. I'm obviously not going to print all of those and I certainly can't and won't scrapbook them all. I used to feel I should scrapbook every picture, but now in this day and age with digital photography, that is not even a reasonable expectation. Now I just have to sort through them all, pick out the best ones for printing, put them into regular photo albums and then pick my absolute favorites to scrap.
I'm hoping I can get in the habit of uploading for printing at least once a month.
900 pics.
Over 3 Months time.
I guess I need to classify photography as a favorite hobby. Ya' think?

My Beautiful Girl

Just had to share this pic from a few days ago. I love this girl so much, and I can't say it enough.

I've actually been scrapping tonight, so I'll have some pages to share tomorrow. I don't have the energy to take pics of them and upload tonight..it is WAY past my bedtime.

Photography

I've had several emails and comments asking for more details about the new lens I bought. First let me say that I am in no way an expert. Not even close. So if you're thinking about buying an SLR camera and/or a new lens make sure you do some research so that you get the best for your money. A lot of what I have learned, I learned from Karen Russell's blog, who teaches photography and works for Creating Keepsakes magazine. You can also browse photography message boards like on Flickr, to absorb all kinds of information. Or buy SLR photography for dummies if you're really interested in understanding just how an SLR camera and lens work. All that being said, I purchased the 50mm 1.4f lens.

I needed something that worked well for photographing people in indoor setting and low light situations. I also was very interested in achieving a clear, sharp image of my subject while blurring the background so that background stuff is not distracting and the focus remains on the subject. I've learned that these things in the photography world are referred to as depth of field and aperture. The aperture setting on your camera determines how much light is let in and it affects the depth of field. If you Google some of these terms you'll find stuff that explains it a lot better than I ever could.

After somewhat understanding all these things I realized that I needed a lens with a large aperture opening. These are represented by f-stops, hence the 1.4f in my lens description. Most lens that come with the camera only go down as far as 3.5f. The smaller the f-stop number the larger the aperture opening. I know that seems backwards and if you're really interested it's explained more here and here.

That may have been way more information than those inquiring wanted to know, but I have found any blogs that shed some light on the subject (no pun intended ha.) have been very helpful. Here are some shots I took this evening as Natalie learned how to climb on the coffee table for the first time. It was funny because she was so proud of herself, but will obviously be a no-no from now on.

All of these were taken with no flash. It was already dark outside, so the only light was from our lamps. You can tell a big difference between these and the ones I posted yesterday that had natural light from the windows coming in.

2008 and a new Lens.

2008 is here, and as I think about all that needs to be done over the next 6 months, I get a little overwhelmed. But, I know that if I take it a little at a time and set a good pace, it shouldn't be so bad.

Here's what's on our agenda for the next few months.

• Prepare our bedroom for new furniture. John and I's Christmas present to each other was a new bed and dresser. We have been sleeping on a full wave water bed since we got married. It wasn't easy to get in and out of during the last stages of my first pregnancy and wasn't possible while recovering from a C-section (so I slept on the couch for the first week home.) I've been ready for a new bed for a while, so we finally made up our mind to buy one and this (the bed and dresser): will arrive at our house in about a week. So we've got to clean out and purge dresser drawers, decide what furniture is going where, etc.
• Completely clean out and purge our junkroom aka Natalie's future bedroom. I would show you the before picture of that, but I think I'll wait til we have it done and decorated for Natalie, so it's not quite as embarrassing. There is mounds of paperwork and files to go through and lots and lots of other knick knack junk.
• Paint Natalie's new bedroom
• Find 1 or 2 tall bookcases and baskets/bins to organize all of Natalie's toys and books
• Move her new toddler bed and other furniture into her new room
• transition Natalie into the toddler bed
• Transfer "stuff" from the nursery to her new room
• Prepare nursery for new baby

It actually doesn't look too bad all written out, but knowing that I have a lot of other organizational projects on my list that I'd like to get done in the midst of everything else, makes me realize we are going to be very busy.

On another note, I used some of my Christmas money to buy a new lens for my camera. I know I am going to love this lens. It makes it so much easier to take crisp clear pictures in indoor settings. Here a just a couple of my faves.

It also takes great close ups. I can't wait to play some more!

Top 10 Layouts of 2007

I have not scrapbooked in almost 3 months now. If you're a regular reader of my blog you know it's only because I just haven't felt like it. For most of this year scrapbooking was just about a daily thing for me. I completed somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 layouts this year. I got this idea to post my top 10 of the year from Bernadette.
Beauty: This was the very first layout I ever did with only ONE picture. This is my absolute favorite picture of Natalie just minutes after she was born, taken through the nursery window at the hospital by Telah. That is John's hand on her back, and I tear up just looking at it now. This picture deserved a page all it's own.

My Daughter's Eyes: At the beginning of this year is when I discovered the online world of scrapbooking. There was a new site that started up in January called Scrapjacked. They take a well known scrapbooker, find a page they like and lift it. Ali Edwards was the very first person to be "jacked" and this is my lift of her page. It was the beginning of my love for scrapbook challenge blogs.Automatic Bond: If you're a parent you know how much having a child changes your life. And you know how instantly you can feel such a deep, deep love.

Simplicity: This picture was taken on Father's Day, and though it may look staged, it wasn't. We were out on the porch taking some group photos and I just happened to catch this one in between group shots.

Miss You: This picture is the last one I took of our MeMaw. It was taken in June at my brother-in-laws wedding. She passed away in September. We miss her sweet smile and loved her so much.
Seek the Lord: My primary job and goal as a mother is to teach my children to love God and always put him first in their lives. I pray every day that I accomplish that as they grow.

Mother. May I: Another one that carries the same general thought as the previous layout. The journaling is talking to Natalie about the kind of mother I hope I'll be. Plus I just love these pictures of her.


Spider Baby: This is just a fun one, that I actually completed in about 15 minutes. I was trying the technique of putting stickers down, painting over it, and then removing the stickers. Just love the bright colors humor in this one.

Beautiful: Not much to say about this one that's not already said in the layout itself. Another moment I was so glad I caught with the camera.


Believe: This is one of the last layouts I did for this year, just shortly after we found out we're having another baby. It is such a blessing to have another child on the way after at one time thinking we may never be able to have children.

There you have it! It's been such a long time since I've had some pages in a post. The thought of scrapbooking isn't making me feel sick anymore. I have to say that was the weirdest 1st trimester side effect of them all. :) So hopefully I'll have lots of new pages to share in 2008.

Christmas Photo Overload

We had 5 days of Christmas, starting last Friday night. These are some of my favorite shots from the week. I am still struggling with figuring out my camera. I've probably said this before but I don't like the look of the built in flash. It washes everything out. But the problem without the flash is blurriness, bad lighting and shadows. Some of these pictures fall into those categories, but I still think I got some good pictures.









I bought Digital SLR photography for Dummies the day after Christmas, and have spent some time trying to understand how all the different settings work, so I can take better pictures. So I practiced today with Natalie. She is learning how to really ham it up for the camera. Todays goal was to conquer the blurriness. I took these in Manual mode, so even though the lighting is bad in, Natalie is not a blur.




Hope everyone is having a good Holiday! 2008 is almost here!

Merry Christmas

From our house to yours!

Santa and Grandmommy

Just a couple more Christmas pics to share...

Last weekend, my mom and I went to a local Craft Fair to do a little Christmas shopping. When I saw Santa was there, I was so glad I had my camera with me. I just wish I had known, so I could of had Natalie in Christmas clothes, but a free picture with Santa..you just go with it. She wasn't too sure about him but no crying took place.
And she loves her Grandmommy!

Meet Baby Wright #2

I am now officially 12 and a half weeks pregnant. While my energy level is not where I want it to be, I am beginning to feel some better. We got a great view today at the ultrasound. If you can't make it out, the baby is on it's back looking up. You should be able to make out the profile of the face on the right, and you can even see the little ear in the center. We saw two hands and two feet and everything is looking good. Even the second time around I am still just as amazed at God's handiwork.

O Christmas Tree

I have several Christmas-ey things to share. My plan is to post several times this week. I'm not making any promises given my track record the last couple months, but I'm gonna try.

We got our tree up a couple of weeks ago, and Natalie really enjoyed helping with the lights. I have no idea what I was saying to her in this first picture, but I'm guessing I was trying to keep her out of trouble.







It took us a few days, but we finally got it completely decorated. I don't have a full shot of the tree, but here's one of Natalie "just looking" at the ornaments.

Maybe I'll have some presents under there soon!