Friday, November 18, 2011

Christmas Extravaganza


Saturday, December 3 1-4 pm at my house, we will be making two sets of tags, one small gift, one card, and one gift bag. The cost is $15 and includes the cost of everything needed to make the projects. If you wish to bring your own adhesive and scissors, please feel free. To register for class, please click on the RSVP link here on my website. Here are close ups of the projects we will be making. Please let me know if you have any questions.








Monday, November 7, 2011

Halloween (finally!)

    
 There is a real problem with studying photography and being a perfectionist. It makes you think that every photo you take has to be perfect, especially as the holidays come around. After all, I began this whole photography thing as a way to have better photos to scrap. Despite my best intentions, by the time the kids were dressed up in their costumes on Halloween night, I had lost the light. I'm not terribly comfortable with the flash yet (especially as my camera broke and I've been using a loaner one from school that is older than mine and I can't control it as completely as I can mine). So I improvised and made them dress up for me again this weekend so I could get good pics...of course what any good mom would do, right?







 
Bailey was not decided about what she wanted to be for Halloween until we were at the costume store and saw this costume. Then I told her about the artist behind the piece that this costume was inspired by and she really loved it. Of course, it took the cake when I found this wolf's head in a basket. I could never get her to wear the hood, but I think she made a pretty cute Red anyway.


Cole had a really hard time finding what he was going to dress up as this year. He really wanted to be a ninja, but the costumes were all too small. He's at that size where the boy costumes are too small and the teenage costumes are too big. He kept saying, well, maybe I'll be Luigi until he finally tried on the costume and he was hooked. If we had more time, we were going to make him a brick for over his head, but time escaped us this year. Maybe next year!


By contrast, Lindsay has known what she was going to dress up as for a whole year. The nice part for me is that she could use Cole's Harry costume from last year, we just found her some cute Gryffindor knee highs and a cute little skirt and she was in business. We tried really hard to get her hair to be "poofy" (her word to describe it) like Hermione's, but she has hair just like her mama: stick straight and unwilling to style. I thought she was a cute little Hermione anyway.




For the first time, Jason and I both dressed up for the ward Trunk or Treat this year too (of course, being behind the camera, there is not actually any proof of this, but I swear I did!). When Jason and I were shopping for costumes, I had an idea of what I wanted to be, and I was really hoping to get J to dress up as a couple with me, but that didn't work out. Then he was going to be Mario for Cole but they didn't have a costume in his size by the time we went out looking for us. I did think it was pretty clever, though, when he decided to dress up as Jason. I really loved how goofy he was at the trunk or treat too (although he would end up scaring the little kids a little until he took off his mask to show them it was really Brother Mauss--of course, they don't know that he's even scarier than Jason!). It's always fun to see people you only see dressed up in church clothes actually dressed in costumes and there were some pretty funny ones. Although we were so rushed this year that we didn't really have time to enjoy it, I love Halloween. Of course, the weather wasn't really cooperating leading up to it, but finally on Halloween it cooled down a little and gave us a little taste of fall. Having lived in Arizona for 5 years, this has definitely become my favorite time of year!

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Second photo shoot

 Soccer this year is seriously crazy for two reasons. First is because I decided not to put the kids in the City of Surprise soccer program because I felt like they weren't really learning how to play the game. Instead I signed them up for AYSO which is 30 minutes away for practices and games. Second is because my kids were put on teams that practice opposite nights (of course!). (On a side note, the kids practice at my college, so add in another couple trips to and from the same location for school and you'll see where my sanity has been for soccer season). Lucky for me we were able to find someone on each team we could carpool with or I would be even more insane than I already am. The family that Lindsay plays with has a daughter that plays as well, so when we carpool, I get to have the older sister as well. She's a real cutie, and when she first found out I'm taking photography, she and her mom made sure to tell me that Emily loves having her picture taken. So when it came time to work on the rule of thirds, I thought she would make a perfect model, so I set up a time to borrow Emily for a little photo shoot. Apparently she was so excited when she found out that she screamed, so I know she'll be good for more photo shoots in the future.

When I got there to pick her up, Emily was all dolled up and ready to go. I had spent the morning walking around where we live trying to find a good location and I found this great place really close to my house.

Emily was a great model, did everything I asked her to and was patient as I tried to get what I needed for my assignment. I'll definitely be using her in the future since it was a cinch taking her photo. I'm pretty pleased with the results, so I hope her parents like the photos when I give them to the family on Saturday.

Of course some of my favorite shots came when she wasn't exactly expecting it. It shocked her the first time when I snapped pictures of her swatting flies, so I just let her know that anything was fair game. So as we got to the end of the shoot, she was getting a little hot and started pulling her hair off her neck. I thought it was cute so I asked her to do it again, and this is what I got from her:

Definitely one of my favorite shots from the day. I had so much fun with her, I can't wait to work with her again!