Super powers

So I snapped a few pictures of the boys this morning and can I just tell you these little guys crack me up and melt me into a puddle all at the same time. I think it is their super power. So if you DON'T feel like laughing or melting read no further, if you DO read on my friend, read on.


{Mom, it is way to early in the morning for picture taking! I imagine these faces will become all to familiar when they reach teenagehood}

{awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!}

{Make it stop I can't handle the cuteness!}

{Taking turns blinking: A first}

{Now G: isn't he a happy blinker?}

{hahaha! They make the best faces!}

{C-U-T-E!}

{Happy Boys!}

{Another funny face--bwahahaha!!}

{I so wish G wasn't blinking in this pic, but it is still cute}

{Kisses for A!}

{Not the eye! He's going to need that!}

{Can you see G's two bottom teeth poking through? So stinkin' cute!}

{Hugs for A}

{so so so so sweet!}

{Matching faux-hawks}



{Get outta my picture!}

{More hugs for A: This picture seriously melts me into little puddle}


They are getting to be so much fun! And if you couldn't tell they are really starting to enjoy each other. There are times we'll sit them down across from each other and they'll just giggle back and forth for about 5 minutes. We've yet to get it on camera (doh!). Well I best go get some "real" work done (blogging counts, right?} while they nap.

Adventures in Photography

This post is momentous.
It is the second post in a row that has absolutely nothing to do with my children.

I'm feeling very proud of myself. :)


It is also the second post in a row about photography. 
(hmmm...maybe I need to diversify my interests)


But I digress. 


So one of Nathan's fellow interns needed a professional picture for the website at her new job, but it had to be taken outside. I happily offered do it so I could try out my new camera skills (before I forget them!). It took me a little while to get into the groove so the pictures got better the more we took of them. (Thanks to Ashley for being such a great sport!)

This one was the winner (at least for me):

{Did I mention this is with NO editing. Yehoo!}

{Same pic with her eyes enhanced a little bit. I can't decide if I like the effect or not. Thoughts?}

{Just a for fun picture; again, no editing}

{Same with enhanced eyes. Ah! I have such mixed feelings about this effect}

I like outside portraits to have the background blurry, but have had a hard time creating that effect. I found if I pulled her quite a bit forward (away from the greenery) I was able to get a more blurred (and less distracting) background.

Bad example:

{Ashley looks great, but the background is a little distracting}


Good Example:

{Look how blurry that background is! Much less distracting}

I really like to take tight shots of people's faces, but it seemed that when I did their faces (in particular the nose) looked really funky.


Photography class to the rescue!


One of the instructors advised us to stand further back and then use the zoom on your lens to get a close shot of someone's face. If you keep your lens zoomed out and then try to stand close to them to get the close up it distorts their face and you get what she called the door knob look (similar to looking at your reflection in the back of  a metal spoon). Standing back and zooming in with your lens doesn't have the same effect. For example:

Bad Example:

{tight shot zoomed out, but physically standing close (don't hate me for posting this Ashley!)}

Good Example:

{Tight shot, standing back and zooming in. No distortion! Hurray!}

All this picture taking has me itching to take more photography classes. It's amazing how much more fun it is when I actually (sort of) know what I'm doing!

Thanks again to Ashley for being such a good sport! 

The Photography Class

So my sweet husband signed me up for a photography class for my Mother's Day present. It was this past Saturday and it was great! I was impressed with how much I knew/had already figured out on my own, but it was nice to have a lot of the holes in my knowledge base filled. It was a basic digital photography class, but the instructor offers more advanced classes which I'd love to take if we were sticking around here.


SIDE NOTE: We are officially moving to Kentucky! We got two job offers: one to stay here in South Carolina and the other in Kentucky. We've officially accepted Kentucky's offer and will be moving in late July (yikes!). 


Back to the photography class.  The coolest thing I think I learned is how to take pictures with blurry backgrounds. The next two pictures aren't great pictures, but they illustrate the effect I'm talking about.

Exhibit A

{photo with sharp background}

Exhibit B

{Similar photo with blurred background}

Cool, right?

I have been wanting to take pictures like these for a long time, but could never figure out how to do it consistently despite reading up on depth of field. He showed us a pretty easy way of doing it and some tricks on how to get your camera to cooperate.

Here are a couple more examples:

And here are two of my favorites from the pictures I took during class:

Overall it was a great experience and the only thing that would have made it better would have been to take it with a friend (a lot of people had a buddy). Now I have a list of camera equipment I want to get! :) Looks like I need to figure out away for my photography hobby to start paying for itself!

Look who's sitting up...

Happy Father's Day!

The big 6 months

Guess who turned 6 months old on Friday.

These two darlings!


We had a little photo shoot a few days before in honor of their half birthday and in preparation for Father's Day. They were really in no mood to take picture so we got quite a few shots like this:


{Gavin trying to roll over and Andrew protesting picture taking}


{even more so!}

We also got a lot of funny shots:


{Andrew's latest trick is sucking on his bottom lip. I think it makes him look like a turtle}

{Andrew's face totally cracks me up in this one}

And some "everyday" shots:


{Andrew grabbing Gavin. This happens a lot at our house.}

{Yeah those are definitely not his toes he is eating.}

{The boys favorite toys: Rings!}

We did manage to get one or two decent (sort of?) pictures for our time:

{Andrew could be so pensive as a newborn. He isn't so much that way anymore, but this shot totally takes me back to that.}

{Gav-man}

{Drewber}


So the photo shoot didn't exactly goes as planned (i.e. squirmy babies and bad light), but hey their six month mark has been documented all be it some what poorly. I'm really looking forward to my photography class this coming weekend.

Six months also marks another very important event. I have stopped (pretty much) pumping! Hallelujah!! Let me tell you it is AWESOME to be done. I'm really glad I did it and I'm really proud of myself for going as long as I did. Most of all I'm really really really really glad to be done! I think we need to have a giant stopped pumping/finished dissertation/turned 6 months old/survived this crazy year PARTY.

In other news we have one job offer (yay!) and are waiting to hear back about another (we really want this one!). I'll wait until we make a decision to say where we are headed, but we are very grateful to have job.