Cole's 9th Birthday Party.
We celebrated Coley's birthday party last weekend. (His actual birthday isn't until the 17th though.)
We BBQ'd. (No great surprise.)
That's Josh's Grandpa figuring out what sort of faux chicken patties I got for he & I.
Coley's Great-Grandpa.
Annie was in heaven because 2 out of 3 of her Grandma's and both her Great-Grandma's were there.
Annie loves Grandma's.
Courtney Lee is a big fan of Grandma's too.
My Dad & Step-Mom got a new puppy named Peanut. She was trying to escape from Annie.
This is why she wanted to escape from Annie.
I don't have a clue what Ross is laughing about but I love this picture.
I'm not sure why she would't keep her dress down...but that's precisely why she's got bloomers on.
Uncle Donnie's present was a big hit...a Bionicle set. (His presents for kids are always a big hit.)
Cash money is always a big hit too.
That's a guitar from Josh & I...another big hit.
Coley & Grandpa Tom playing with his new toys.
My Uncle Donnie and one of his typical faces.
My Dad pretending that Peanut is enjoying his beer.
And a payback from Uncle Jamey for the cupcake Ross smashed in his face at the last BBQ we had.
Dylan.
I took Dylan's (Ross's best friend) senior pictures last Friday.
Dylan used to be a constant fixture in our house until Ross and Dylan both got serious girlfriends last year ago and we've missed him.
He stayed the night on Friday and all the kids just about lost their minds when they saw him. Annie has always been particularly crazy about Dylan and was bugging him to hold her all night. When it was time for her to go to bed, she asked Dylan if he'd sleep in her bed. When he told her that he was going to sleep in Ross's room she said, "But, I promise to rub your back."
And since I had Dylan one-on-one for a couple of hours, I was sure to give him an earful about making sure we got to see more of him.
And I know that taking senior pictures on train tracks is totally cliche but I couldn't resist.
The Pumpkin Patch.
I'm a big fan of going to the pumpkin patch and look forward to it every year. I also get pretty excited about taking pictures. Unfortunately though, I always have this unrealistic expectation that each year's pictures need to be better than the last...and this year, my pictures weren't anything to write home about.
I'd like to blame it on being sick but truth is, sometimes you get good stuff and sometimes, you don't. And like my kids would say, "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit."
Too bad they don't always abide by those prophetic words. (I'm really rocking the big words lately...last week it was 'olfactory' and this week it is 'prophetic...my high-school English teacher, Mr. Simpson would be proud.)
I'll bet he's not so proud of my run-on sentences (and my overuse of parenthesis) though.
I didn't even have to tell Josh to wear orange. 98% of his wardrobe is orange because he's a Beaver...works brilliantly-well come pumpkin patch day each year.
Coley is very decisive. He had his pumpkin picked out in no time at all.
Annie got pecked by a goose a few minutes after we got there and was pouty & whiny for the rest of the morning.
Courtney Lee's not as decisive as Coley so it took her awhile longer to find hers.
We have an 'If you can lift it, you can have it' policy so she got to keep this big guy.
I'm not very decisive either. Took me forever to find this goofy looking one.
She didn't want to pick a pumpkin. (She just wanted to whine & pout.)
I don't really understand the fascination with feeding goats. They kind of creep me out. Maybe that all stems back to high school (where all of my issues stem from) and the billy-goat that used to chase me while I was walking to the school bus.
As if riding the school bus in high school didn't already suck enough.
Cali is feeling a little sensitive about her closed-mouth smile so she's cheesing it up with big, toothy smiles now.
That's what I get when I ask Ross for a nice picture.
I knew I wasn't getting any good shots so I did something I don't often do...made Josh round up the kids for some posed stuff.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Look at Courtney Lee trying to help me out with some candid-looking stuff. Good girl.
I tried to get a photo of all three of the little kids together but Cole started acting like a pill so I abandoned the shot.
I also had it in my head that I wanted to get a photo with everyone in it...but abandoned that one too for fear of losing my cool at the pumpkin patch. (That's why you rarely see group shots from me...lack of patience.)
And then the girls decided to paint pumpkins while the boys played over at the beanbag toss.
I stepped in dog poop over at the beanbag toss which put a damper on my picture taking of that particular event.
Not the best shot but I love it. (Cole was mad at Ross because Ross wiped hand sanitizer on Cole's face and told him it was goat drool.)
At least this guy was willing to cooperative for pictures.
And now that I think about it...maybe I didn't use the word 'prophetic' correctly. Oh well, I like the word and I'm sticking with it.
And here's some links to the last few years at the pumpkin patch...2006, 2007, 2008.
Bikinis.
Josh made fried zucchini with dinner tonight.
We're big on no thank-you bites in this house so each of the kids had two, tiny pieces of zucchini on their plates.
Courtney got hers down first with a slight gagging noise and a swig of water. (She likes to get the yucky stuff out of the way first because she's a smart girl.) Cole got his down but not without complaining. (Because he's a complainer.)
Annie took her first bite and immediately started drooling and crying, "I don't like bikinis."
Josh offered her two of his raspberries if she took the second no thank-you bite without fussing. She quickly decided that two raspberries were not worth one bite of 'bikini' so I sweetened the deal with three more of my own raspberries.
So she stuck the second no thank-you bite in her mouth, made a loud gagging noise...and it all kind of went downhill from there.
(Actually, it all kind of came uphill from there.)
Good times.
And on a totally different note...
I'm teaching the One Day Photographers' Workshop two days in a row this November in Louisiana. I'll be at Memory Mania in Prairieville, LA on Saturday, Nov. 7th. 225 744 2767 and at the Scrap Shack in Houma, LA on Sunday, Nov. 8th. 985 223 1794.
And yes, Annie's eyes are still two different shades of brown. (It doesn't normally show up all that much in pictures but it really shows up in this one.)
Field Trip.
Annie's preschool went to the pumpkin patch this week. I went too to take pictures of for her school.
Guess who else was there?...Tater-Tot. (Annie and her cousin, Taylor go to the same preschool.)
Misti (Taylor's mom) and I went together.
Out of all the pumpkins in the field, that's the one Annie picked. (It's got her name-tag on it.)
Once she picked her pumpkin, she just stood there, pouting because she wanted me to hold her instead of walking around taking pictures of her classmates.
Taylor did her own fair share of pouting too.
Goats are good for cheering up pouty three-year-olds.
Pretending she had horns (like the goat.)
And one of Tate and her Momma.
Have tons of pictures to post this week. I've been sick but just kind of had to push through it this weekend because I had so many things to shoot (Annie's field trip, senior pictures for Ross's best friend, Coley's birthday party, our own trip to the pumpkin patch and some photos of Annie that I did for a catalog...can't post those photos of Annie until January though.)
So you can expect lots & lots of photos from me this week.
The weekend.
Lots going on this weekend.
Much like last weekend, there will be some soccer.
We're also celebrating Cole's birthday a little early and hitting the pumpkin patch.
And we've also got an entire attic to insulate before it gets much colder. (I saw we as if 'we' are actually going to insulate the attic. I should clarify...Josh has an entire attic to insulate.)
Hope your weekend is great.
The beard(s).
Josh and his manly, man-beard got home from hunting Monday afternoon.
He smelled like meat and campfires. (I have a very sensitive olfactory system.)
He didn't shoot anything but said they had a really good time anyhow. (He went with his Dad and Brother.)
Jill (my best friend in the whole-wide-world) and I were talking yesterday and she asked what they did while hunting for three days. I said that they ate a lot of meat, drank lots of Wild Turkey (whiskey), walked around looking for things to shoot and talked.
Jill asked what they talked about and I said, "I don't really know...it's not like they sit around and talk about their feelings and stuff."
To which Jill replied, "Well what's the point in talking then?"
Add that to the long list of differences between estrogen and testosterone.
After he took a shower, he shaved off the beard (in stages.)
I love him (without a stash.)
I stink.
That's Annie drinking some water.
Every now & then, I come on here apologizing for the fact that I haven't kept up with all the questions that get posted on my blog.
Figured today was a good day to do that again.
I used to be great about it. But now, I must admit that I kind of stink at keeping up.
My intentions are good. Every time I see a question, I make a mental note of it so I can answer it in an upcoming post. Unfortunately, my mental note taking skills really stink too though.
So, here's some long overdue answers...
1. I shot some of Cali's senior pictures in a field in Central Point that is for sale. There's no fence around it and there's not a 'no trespassing' sign on it...so it's fair game in my book. I also shot part of the time at Josh's parents. (They run a mill in Central Point). The green car is Josh's mom's. And no, Cali's not a toothy smiler. I have no problems with that though because a bunch of toothy smiles from Cali just wouldn't be authentic.
2. Yes, you can assume that I will indeed be posting pictures of Josh's manly-man beard here soon.
3. I am no longer using the old email address that I had used for years. My current email address is karen@snapshotsofagoodlife.com. If you had sent an email to that old address in the last few months, I didn't get it so feel free to resend it to the updated address.
4. Yes, I was laying in the sand with my camera in all those beach shots taken in August. Sand is your cameras arch nemesis though - so you have to be careful. I don't change lenses, batteries or memory cards on the beach and the camera is always either around my neck or in a zippered bag.
5. Yes, you do have to be on the wait list to sign up for any future Photographers' Workshop classes. I kept thinking that over time the wait list would get smaller...but it just keeps getting bigger. (Over 1000 the last time I checked.) I'm working on some solutions though. Will post those details in early 2010. In the meantime, you can get on the wait list by going through the regular registration process.
6. I can't for the life of me remember where I ordered the flower girl dresses for Annie & Courtney when we got married. I just remember doing a Google search for 'polkadot flower girl dresses'.
7. For those of you who went through the archives and read my blog from start to finish...I hope it didn't bore you to tears. Probably a good cure for insomnia though. (Thanks for all your great comments - it's fun hearing which posts really stuck a chord.)
8. When Josh and I had dinner in Corvallis, we ate at the Big Fish.
9. I shot the pictures of Annie in the Sept. 15th post (and all of the jet boat pictures posted shortly before that) with a Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 lens which is probably my most used outdoor lens. It's spendy though. Back when I was a single mom, that lens was not in my budget though so I shot exclusively (for 3 1/2 years) with a Tamron 28-75mm f2.8. It's fabulous.
10. I do sharpen most of the images that I post on my blog. I use a variety of different sharpening techniques (some actions and some of my own sharpening methods). In general though, you have to have a good, sharp image to start with. The keys to that are all related to exposure, lighting, the quality of the lens you're using, your depth of field and your focusing technique.
11. There's more info. now in regards to the trip to Greece that Cocoa Daisy is hosting. (Ali Edwards, Jenni Bowlin and I are all teaching on this trip.)
12. If I missed a question, feel free to post it here and I'll update this post with the answer. I do have to somewhat limit photography related questions though, only because I can't really charge my students for information that I'm supplying for free here on my blog (or via email). You know how it goes.
13. Have a great day.
ETA...14. Yes, I meant to say that we had dinner in Corvallis at Big River, not Big Fish. I screw stuff up like that all the time.
15. The frame I used in this shot is available here at Polkadot Potato. I have quite a few borders there. Would love to design more in the future. As always though...it's a time issue.
16. Thanks to my used-to-be-neightbor Cheryl, I now know the site where I got the flower girl dresses the girls wore at our wedding. It's Cutie Clothes. Doesn't look like they carry the exact dresses they wore anymore, but they have similar dresses and tons of cute stuff.
17. And Annie came home with that crown from preschool. Must be a template they have or something. I just Googled the words 'paper crown template' and found lots of stuff, like this.
Cali.
Took some of Cali's senior pictures this weekend.
Shooting a cooperative subject that actually enjoys having their picture taken is such a novelty for me.
Going to take even more when we have some time.
That one's my favorite.
So now I have senior pictures of Ross's girlfriend...still needing some of Ross.
