Joy

Wednesday, I was spontaneous. All the children and I were on our way home from 4-H skit practice and were going right past Lakeside Park and I decided to stop on a whim. It is a beautiful park with gardens, a pond and, of course, a great playground. We used it as an opportunity to snap some spring photos and I was messing around with the camera while the kids were playing. I managed to catch this shot of Abi on the swing. She was having the most fun - giggling with every push. It took me several tries to catch her in motion and in focus, but I think this one is a keeper. For those of you who are photo geeks: I used my 50mm prime lens, f 2.2, 1/6400 sec, ISO 800 Which was an oops. I should have been using a lower ISO in this sunlight, but I forgot to check it and change it. I guess that's the difference between an amateur and a pro. Pro, I am not! I am just thankful I caught this!

This is so cool! I have just been introduced to a kindred spirit. We are both artists, passionate for the Lord AND have the same first name! Although, calling us both artists is a stretch. She is a REAL artist and does the most amazing watercolors. It is really worth checking out her site to see them. And I should mention that she has five kids, too. Well, I guess I only have 4 1/2 right now - at least until September!

Still here

Life is still busy and I am still around. My two older girls are acting in a skit for a 4-H talent contest. There have been numerous practices and plenty of time spent hunting for costumes. If I stop by a local costume shop on our way to dress rehearsal and pick up some spray for Elizabeth's blond hair, I think I will be done. They are doing an original return to Mayberry skit. Elizabeth is playing Clara, and Anna is a 4-Her. It is really cute and they have been working very hard. Anna is the crying girl in the left picture and Elizabeth is the girl in yellow on the left in the second picture. The actual performance is on Friday and then hopefully things around here will feel a bit more settled.

Sadly, I will miss it because I had already committed to a church women's retreat. But I will have seen MANY practices and the dress rehearsal which is this afternoon and the girls are ok with that.

Today, I hope to get caught up on some housework and office work before we have to leave. My allergies have been going CRAZY and my ears and sinuses are so full of pressure. I have been exhausted with extreme headaches. I needed to figure out if I could safely take some of the allergy meds that I had on hand without harming the baby. I found this site last night http://www.safefetus.com/ which is very helpful. I found I could take what I had, but had forgotten how loopy a full dose makes me feel. Hopefully, I am not typing gibberish here because my brain is rather spacey this morning.

Well, that is probably enough rambling for now...

Gettin' Busy

on the computer, that is. I got inspired to create a new scrapbook kit this week. This has not been happening lately, so I thought I had better sit down and work on it. I had lots of fun with this! I think there are 16 backgrounds, most of which I also cut into these cute little patches that can be used like elements. The word art is from Psalm 8 and reads,

"When I consider your Heavens and the work of your fingers, the moon and the
stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the
son of man that you care for him?"

This whole thing reminds of warm summer nights outside contemplating the stars and chasing fireflies. When I went to create a scrapbook page with this, I couldn't find any pictures of that nature that were any good. Perhaps this summer I can do better with the new camera. But, I did find these photos taken over a year ago at the park that I never used. My littlest girl, Abi was just 16 months old and too little to climb on any of the play equipment yet. Luckily she was content just exploring while her 3 siblings were off playing. Now, you couldn't keep her away - she would be climbing and sliding with the rest of them!

Sisters

If you know my girls and their personalities, you know that THIS photo speaks VOLUMES. I really don't think any more needs to be said.

We got our backdrop built and had a fun photo session and took TONS of pictures. My daughter and I are getting more comfortable with the 20D and we both LOVE it. I think it is going to really up the quality as we get more familiar with it.

I'm in LOVE

Is it bad that I spent more time with my new camera than my hubby last night?

I read through most of the manual and did lots of playing around trying to get to know this new camera. Can I just say that it is drastically different from using my little point and shoot - in a totally good way! I do believe that my oldest daughter is in love, as well. I think she has taken just as many pictures with it as I have. The one at the left is one of the first shots I took. This is straight out of the camera with NO tweaking in PhotoShop. If you know me, you know this is HUGE. I tweak all my photos to death. This comes from have photos of lesser quality and trying to make up the difference after the fact. Maybe now I won't have to spend so much time at the computer! :-)

This has been an incredibly busy week! We have had lots of things taking us away from home and I am feeling very behind. I am taking a photography class at the Digital Scrapbook Place called setting up your home photography studio and our homework this week consists of building our backdrop stand. I have all the materials, but haven't had a moment to put it together. Hopefully today!

Much more has been going on, but I will have to save that for later. Have a great day!

Crosswalk

Our church did this really cool thing this year. Before lent, they made up 50 (for each day of Lent including weekends)blank crosses and called for members to volunteer to take one and decorate it as the Spirit led. These crosses were then lined up outside the church to create a "Crosswalk." On each one was a Lenten devotional. They look beautiful all together and it is fun to see how others were moved to decorate their crosses. Our family did one. If you want to look for it in the slideshow above, it is the one that has many faces on it along with cartoon bubbles saying Hebrews 9:26 which talks about Christ being one sacrifice for many. Then there are smaller cartoon bubbles saying things like "This was for me."