Fun at the library

We've been spending a couple afternoons each week down at our local library.  Sometimes the kids do an art project.  Other times, there is some form of entertainment, like musicians, dancers, magicians, etc.  We always enjoy picking up new books to read.

And the kids thoroughly enjoy their art projects.  On this particular day, they made an owl using foam pieces.

The finished product!

We'll miss these programs when they come to an end.  We're so grateful for the Friends of the Library, as these programs wouldn't be possible without their support.

Here I go again

I know what you're thinking.  

"Here she goes again, getting all snap happy and bogging down the blog with photos."

And you might be right, to a degree.  I have been in one photography class or another since the beginning of June and still have five more weeks in my current class.  And part of my class participation means getting out there and practicing.  Now, I know I can't possibly share every photo I take for my class/es.  But I do have a few that I'd like to share each week because that's honestly how we are spending our summer days.

On this particular evening, we went down to the ball field so Caleb and Patrick could play catch and get in some batting practice. While Caleb practiced his hitting, I spent some time with Madeline on the playground. She wasn't interested in me following her around with my camera, but I did capture some sun flare. 

 Then Patrick helped Caleb practice catching fly balls.

Madeline asked to use my phone so she could take pictures too.  So I complied.

So please pardon me these next few weeks if I happen to share a week bit more than I usually do.

Well, tomorrow is the big waterslide gotcha day/forever family day party.  The waterslide peeps have a busy Saturday planned and asked if they could come tonight and set up early.  Um, that's a no brainer!  Can't wait to get wet and enjoy some bar-b-que pork and all the trimmings!  And I'm gonna do my best to capture the fun in the noon day sun, harsh lighting and all!


For more photo fun, hop on over to Lisa's blog.

Some forgotten shots

One of the drawbacks with my old computer is that if I snapped a few random photos here or there, I didn't take the time to upload them; It just took forever and a day.  So there they sat on my memory card, collecting digital dust.  But now that I have a computer with some RAM, I'm just a wee bit giddy.  The thought of working efficiently has my heart all in a flutter.  And those random photos begging to be uploaded have been dusted off and have seen the light of day.

Take these two shots, for example.  

My precious boy snapped them with my big girl camera just after my birthday, about 2 1/2 months ago.

Just sharing some love with my little princess.

And since it's been a while since I've embraced the camera, I thought I would share them and link up with Emily over at the Anderson crew.  Have you embraced the camera lately?  If so, join the fun!

Her bed head

I just love it.

See that little wispy pointing left?  When it shows up, I have to grab my camera.

And did you see her cute little morning stretch?  ...blurred because my shutter speed was so slow.  Well, I'm learning to embrace the technically imperfect shots, thanks to Ashley Ann's class that I took earlier this summer.  So I'm keeping it, blurred image and all.

Celebrating Madeline

As I mentioned earlier this week, I took Caleb and Madeline down to the park/pier to enjoy the "sunset" on Madeline's 2 year Gotcha Day anniversary.  I haven't been out to watch the sun set in a while.  So I thought it would be a nice thing for us to do together and for me to brush up on my sunset taking photo skills.  But as you can see, the sun forgot to show up for our little date.  The kids, though, indulged me a bit as I tried to get in some photography homework.

Madeline really wanted to play on the playground.  She had had enough of me and my camera. lol

But Caleb convinced her to hang in there just a wee bit longer.

Then I suggested we head over to the pier to watch the fisherman.

The kids were tickled to see this Great White Egret.  But as we approached, he naturally took off.

He came back to the pier, though, and they had yet another chance to get close.  

This time I managed to get a reasonable shot of him mid flight when he took off again.

Caleb and Madeline were so intrigued by the fisherman.  They probably could've sat there all night watching them.

And then...as the sun slooooowy dropped lower in the sky, some rays finally peeked out above that cloud that had lingered so close to the horizon.

I love living on this narrow barrier island.  I love that we have sunrises over the ocean and sunsets over the river.  I can't wait to go back and capture more sunsets when the sky actually cooperates.

Madeline had fun, too, snapping photos of the sunset with my phone.

And then it was time to head home.

And take one more rest and assess those sunset photos.

We truly had a lovely day celebrating our big girl.  The only thing missing was Baba.
We're so glad he's back because we missed him something terrible.

For more Sunday Snapshots, pop on over to Stefanie's blog.

A belated Gotcha wish

Lest you think we somehow forgot about Madeline's 2 year Gotcha Day Anniversary yesterday, this mini post will clear the air.  Knowing in advance that Patrick would have to be out of town on her special day (and very early...like 3:00am,) we opted for balloons and flowers the night before.  She was tickled and said a million thank you's.

The rest of the day passed pretty typically for summer- some play indoors during the morning and then swimming in the afternoon, for 2 hours.  I had hoped to take the kids down to the park and pier for a few sunset shots at the end of the day.  And while we did go down to the park and pier and snap a few photos, the sun decided not to cooperate.  So the end result was not exactly what I was going for.

So where are those photos, you might ask?  Still on my camera. Why?  My computer is on life support.  It has been for some time, actually.  I have no RAM left to run Lightroom (sniff sniff) or anything else at a reasonable speed.  So my new computer is on its way.  It will actually arrive tomorrow, which isn't soon enough! lol.  Once I get it up and running, I will be a happy camper again. I have had to revert back to editing in Photoshop Elements, which is fine....except I loathe editing my images one.at.a.time.  Yep, I've been spoiled by Lightroom's batch editing capabilities.

Anyway, I will leave you with a few homework images I took this week for my photography class.  I am really, really, REALLY enjoying this class.  It's really stretching me, which is exactly what I was hoping for!

And as for Madeline's "real" Gotcha Day celebration...that will happen next weekend when we rent a waterslide for some splish splashing fun.  Bammy will be coming down from Connecticut, too.  And we all can't wait to see her!

Happy belated Gotcha Day, sweet girl.

We love you like crazycakes!!!!!!

Joshua's 1st Birthday party

If you're afraid of a photo heavy blog post, turn back now!

We all had the privilege of helping Little Joshua celebrate his first birthday this past weekend.

My sister went all out with decorations and goodies to eat. Everything you see she made!  Guests were invited to join this precious rockstar for a rockin' good time.  And that's exactly what they did! 

The girls jammed to the Fresh Beat Band via the computer.  They had so much fun rockin' it out like a rockstar.

We all sang Happy Birthday to Josh.

 And then he ate his smash cake like a PRO!

We had a "mock" photo booth outside on the front porch.

Here one little rockstar demonstrated "too much rock for one hand."  lol

 Some of the photo booth props were a bit too big for the birthday boy, but he didn't mind.

All the kids were excited to help Josh open his presents.

My sister asked me to snap a few of her with the birthday boy.

 Yep...all the kids got new tatoos, including Joshua.

Before leaving, we had to snap a "cousins" shot.

If you have hung in here to the bottom of this post, you deserve a medal! lol

Anyway, we truly had an incredible time helping Joshua celebrate his first birthday with amazing family and friends. 

We love you, Josh!!!!

If you want to see some more amazing snapshots, head over to Stefanie's blog.