brothers

here are my favorite pictures from the santa barbara zoo the day after thanksgiving. i just love photos of children walking on bridges. yes, they often fight but they rely on each other as well.

$6 and 2 hours later....

Two hours of my life and I have been given this smile. Lucas wanted a Native American costume to wear for his Thanksgiving feast at school. We discussed some ideas. This is the result. It only took 2 hours and cost about $6. Lucas helped with the painting which took the longest. I was going to pair the top with jeans when I was informed at 9 pm that Indians do not wear jeans. So while my 4 dozen corn bread muffins were baking (12 at a time!) I whipped up the cutest little pants. This by far has been one of favorite of all our creations. He was such a big hit at school. Of course he and Melia were the only 2 in costume. I am hoping to get a little shoot of them together if their costumes survive the weekend!!! I am hoping to get a decent shoot of Lucas this weekend. I was so rushed this morning and could not join them for their feast these are not the greatest pictures but better than nothing! I did leave work a bit early but did not make it in time, so we came home and made terrible cookies and jello before running some errands. i think with 3 people making one batch of cookies the dough gets a little tired. So for 2 hours and $6 this is what we made. For this joy I would have paid a lot more and spent a million hours. He is sooo happy wearing this costume.
I will probably do a re-post of some of these pics once I have time to work with them. They really make me smile! I was so anxious to post them.

School Pictures

we seem to be on the every other year cycle with a "good" school picture. this was a good year. i have learned my lesson. i just let them wear what they want. this seems to be the first step for a good picture. they look more natural in something they have chosen to wear. the second step is do not buy the largest package. if one is to purchase the largest package this will result in a giant package of awkward looking pictures. the third step is to just let it go. do not hover and over brush and style them just let it go and hope for the best.




i have posted jackson's class picture as a point of reference. yes his class is mixed ages (between 2 1/2 and 6), but look how giant he is!!! i have decided he is a super sonic child. on monday he had his first loose tooth. when i peered inside his mouth he already has half a giant tooth behind the loose one. he is barely five years old!!!!! his teeth look so tiny in is mouth now. it is very funny.

The Group

here are the rest of our halloween friends. i did not get great snap shots this year. my kids are so over posing for me i have very little to offer. they went trick or treating for the first time on their way to the carnival at calvary church down the street. where they go every year. melia and lucas were very impressed with the whole trick or treat concept. at the carnival they love the cupcake walk, carnival games and the playground. they had a really fun time with all their friends. the boys and melia had a parade at school and a pizza party. it was a long day and they both behaved really well. jackson was quite proud he did not ruin halloween for everyone.

Halloween photo shoot

i did a very last minute halloween photo shoot with melia and the twins. the light was fading very fast on a cloudy evening. i had to make some editing choices. i decided to just over saturate and expose everything. the colors are very intense but halloween is all about make believe, so i figure a little over exaggeration is ok.

Tie Dye Shoot

I got to babysit the twins today so melia could have a sibling free dental experience. the boys were home from school today so we had a full house. of course i had to take advantage of this photo opportunity. i wanted to try and use indoor natural lighting. this is quite a challenge with low light and moving babies. my wish list fixed 50mm 1.4f lens would have been very helpful!!! i chose lighting over clarity. if you enlarge them you can see the "grainey noise" from having a high ISO. i love the vibrance. eden was the big star today. and yes i made these tie dye onsies for eden and logan at lucas' birthday party.