Another Photo Session

I have been wanting to continue to improve my photography skills so I've decided to try and have some photo sessions with Emily & Abby...and anyone else I can convince. I figure the only way I'm going to get better is if I just keep practicing. So this past Sunday I hung a sheet up in Emily's room as she has some nice natural light coming in from her windows. I put on my 50mm lens and took the camera off automatic. They weren't very long sessions with either girl as you can only get 4 year olds to be happy to be in pictures for so long. I was happy with a couple of the pictures that I took. I just bought Photoshop and hope to get it up and running in the next couple days and then I'll play around with the pictures a little more and see if I can improve them a little but for now here are a few of my favorites. I appreciate any feedback. Already I know I need to get a better backdrop (any suggestions??) as well as a reflector to bounce some of the light back onto them. It's a learning process but it sure was fun.

Mother's Day

Emily tries her hand at baseball. Notice she's holding the bat the wrong way. Fortunately her cousin Chris was able to help her out some.

We are working on teaching the girls to ride with no training wheels. Both Emily and Abby are doing pretty well. They don't always go very far but they are working on it.

Riding to me. I was so excited to see how good she was doing. That's her cousin Chris cheering her on. He's been a big part of helping her ride a two wheeler.

My sweet Emily!!

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope all you mothers out there had a great Mother's Day. We had a great day with family. Emily & Abby just love it when they get to spend time with their cousins. They got to ride bikes, play baseball and just have fun.

Taking pictures

I have been trying to improve my photography skills lately. I have been a little frustrated that I haven't been able to find anyone to get some lessons from but I'm still on the look out. In the mean time I have found some cool photography sites that I have been able to get some tips from. So I'm trying to take my camera out of automatic some and start playing with some of the manual settings. Here's a couple recent pictures.

If you have any tips or suggestions...please send them my way. Have a great night.

PS...One of our travel mates is headed back to China this week to bring home their daughter. I'm sure they would appreciate your prayers for safety during their travels as well as a smooth transition for their new additon to their family.

April so far..

We had our annual Easter egg hunt at my friends house.

Emily having fun searching for the eggs.

Lunch provided some much needed fuel for our egg hunt.

Lastly, Emily was very excited to finally be able to make it across the monkey bars without any help. She has been trying since last year and was finally able to do it. I was so proud of her.

March fun

March came in with a little snow storm. It was just enough snow for us to have fun. Emily had fun sledding down a little hill in our backyard.

Abby enjoying making a snow angel.

We went to the Mystic Aquarium in CT. It was a really nice aquarium. Not too big but just the right size for two 4 year olds and a five year old. That's their cousin Jason that we brought along with us. Our favorite part was getting to pet a sting ray.

We also got to go to the circus. The elephants were Abby's favorite part. It was their first real circus and they had a great time. They keep asking when we can go back.

Abby and her friend Ashley at dance class. They both have a great time in class together.

Emily has been taking gynastics for a couple months now. She really enjoys going each week. It's fun to watch her get to do all kinds of activities as she's our "monkey" and is always climbing and hanging on stuff.

Well that was just a taste of the fun we had in March.