Outside my best friend's house

We went home to NYC this past weekend to surprise my family - it was my nephew, Andy's First Communion. Angelica will have hers this Saturday -

On the way home, we visited my best friend, Agnes (her husband, Mike and little baby Claire - my Goddaughter. I have posted about her before - here.) My city girl, Booger bought a house in the 'burbs of CT (I knew she'd fold and move to New England near where Mike grew up - I can't fault her, I did the same thing by moving to MA where Adam is from).

Took a few pictures of the outside of her house -

A trellis in the backyard.


This is somewhere in the middle of their backyard.

The pond at the very end of their backyard.

On the walk back to the house from the pond, we found this - a smurfy 'shroom.


Out front to the right of the round driveway.

The Black Pearl in the round driveway - I was standing on the front porch.


Boog's house has an inlaw addition - this is the front porch on her side of the house.

This is the inlaw side - for now, they have a friend living there.


This is my favorite part of the front porch. I love those rocking chairs.

I only took a couple of pictures inside the house. Melody insisted on this picture being taken - she's sitting on Claire's blow up horsie. This was taken in Claire's playroom.

This is Melody and Claire writing on the deck in the backyard. She's almost 2 years old. Claire was a riot playing with my kids. On the way to their house, Melody said, "I can't wait to see Claire. We might not be able to play together - she can't focus on playing." Well, Melody - I think that almost 2 year old kept up pretty good.

More photos later this week - have a couple of projects that need to be completed by the end of the week.

The Beach on a Spring day in New England

It's the strangest thing about living in New England - when the temperature is about 60 degrees in the sun, the water at the beach is not that cold. When you visit the same beach in the middle of a 90 degree heat wave in July, that water is more like the water you would find off the coast of a melting glacier.

On my last day off during the kids' spring break, I took them to Nantasket - love that beach - the waves are so little and the slant of the beach is so subtle that you could venture to go out pretty far (maybe 50 yards) without the water even reaching your waist.

Took some pictures -

Angelica and Dylan standing in the water. I'm not thrilled by the composition of this photo - I also wish that I had gotten more their reflection in the water...I cut them off. Sorry kids. I also wish that the horizon was a little straighter.....mental note for next time.
While the horizon isn't straight in this photo, I love this picture of Angelica running back to the shore. The look on her face just epitomizes what she's like - she's carefree and much of the time, happy - by her own doing. At 7 years old, she's learning to accept that you don't always get what you want and many times, she surprises me by just letting those kind of things go...

Love this photo - that horizon is as straight as I was ever gonna get it - I love how the kids look little and the beach and sky look huge. I took all these photos with my Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 with a circular polarizer attached to it - I am still learning how to use this kind of filter and as I learn, I will post here...I only know that you can get some hot looking blues in your photos with this type of filter. The unnaturally blue sky was also helped along by a little editing magic on CS4.

More of Angelica and Dylan checking out the shore - I got my feet wet too in this shot.

This is the newly 5 year old Melody watering the sand at her feet - I love how her hand is in her pocket.

When we were leaving, I told the kids that I needed a group shot - the first two I'm posting are outtakes and the last one is the almost best one of 17 shots that I took before I gave up....
What is Melody smirking about?

I kinda like this one - they all look genuinely happy - now if only Dylan's hand was not in this shot....

Someday, they will all smile nicely for me - just not right here....we'll work on it -

Melody's 5th birthday/getting back to the blog

With school finally over - I got an A- in A&P II - I have devoted a couple of weeks now to just wasting away - but I did get back to shooting...and doing stuff at home like laundry and cooking and organizing my scrap room. And running...more on the rest of my extra-curriculars later...

I was off this weekend (thanks BT) for Melody's 5th birthday - we didn't have a birthday party for her but we did everything that this little kid wanted for her birthday. We went to the Boston Children's Museum for Target $1 Friday night. Melody's birthday was actually on Saturday - she made us go to IHOP for breakfast with a quick stop at Toys R Us for a gift and then to Chuck E. Cheese for pizza and games (I HATE THAT PLACE!)

I didn't dare take my camera to Chuck E. Cheese - rightfully so, since there had to be so many kids in there that it had to be a fire code violation. I suppose that is what happens on a rainy Saturday at the beginning of spring break.

Anyway, on Sunday, we celebrated at mom and dad's house - pictures:
Thanks to Auntie Kristin and the kids for the cool 3D bubbles (they really work too!)
That cake looks yummy (chocolate-coffee ice cream cake from Peaceful Meadows). We did cake after the gifts...we're pretty silly like that -

Later this week, I'll blog about the rest of the weekend - good stuff - stay tuned -

Here's my secret

People often ask me "how do you do it all? School? Work? Volunteer? Shoot? Scrap? Housework?"

Here's the answer - I don't do it all!!! I certainly don't do it all and I do none of it by myself - except for school (no one helps me with that stuff).

Well, I guess work is a solo deal too - I mean I do my duties there but I have much support from my team and my new manager (who has the greatest name ever - Bernadette).

The hockey board? I do that for Dylan and his friends and the league. Sometimes it's good fun - other times, it's a lot more work than it sometimes feels like it's worth.

Housework? We shouldn't discuss this - laundry is the bane of my existence. I don't change the cat box (Adam does that). I don't feed the dogs (Dylan does this). I don't usually feed the cats (Angel or Melody does this). Sometimes I empty the dishwasher and refill it with dirty dishes. I rarely cook dinner (I'm not very good at cooking). Keeping the house tidy....well, Adam is much better at it than I am so he does it most of the time. (I love you, Pooka!!!!)

Scrap? I can't even remember the last time I had time to do this - but I miss it a whole bunch...so it's on my long list of things to do.

Shoot? Shamefully, I haven't been in the mood to shoot - mainly because I hate the lighting inside my house; I'm not the best at flash photography (since I think I'm forever a fan of natural light) and the weather outside has been just awful for shooting. It's been very gray - mostly rainy and the colors outside are frightful and dreary.

But I fired off a couple of shots the other day and thought, I miss my camera...I'll have to tote it around more to get more in the mood.


I took this picture of Melody by my favorite spot in the house to take pictures - our big picture window in the living room. I did use a flash but diffused it with a puffer (by Gary Fong) - it does the trick just well enough to ensure my subject is not completely washed out by the flash. Still, she looks a little pale to me - which is why I prefer natural light shooting. Like this one -

I took this one in church while we were waiting for Angel to complete her first confession. No flash. Yippy.

This is Angel by that same window - black and white rocks!!!
We're working on her Jack-O'-Lantern smile - even though there will be lots of dentist visits in the future - I still love that smile.

Hope to shoot more with Spring around the corner.

P.S. - I got a 95 on my first A&P II test - took the second one this morning - only 5 more classes to go!!!!

LOST DAWG FOUND!!!!

After an incredibly sad 5 days, we have been lucky enough to find Buster....safe and healthy and clean and being loved by another family in our city, who thought it prudent to call the phone number on Buster's tag. I think he was as happy to see us as we were to see him.

Thank you for everyone's positive thoughts and energy and prayers. And thank you to the family who brought him home.

We can't be more happy that he's home.

oh my Buster

In a crazy effort to find my missing doggie, Buster - who managed to jimmy open the fence and take off yesterday afternoon -

This is what he looks like - he does have a small scar under his right eye. If you see him, please leave me a comment here - I can only hope someone has picked him up and wants to give him back.

Holiday Mayhem

Every year I wonder if all the craziness that surrounds the holidays is really necessary. I mean, there's the shopping, the wrapping, the card making and mailing, more shopping, more wrapping, worrying that the kids will love what you give them, the worrying that you got everything that you needed to for everyone on the list, the worrying that you spent way too much on the holiday, the cooking, the baking, the eating, the stomach ache after all the eating.

And then there is the worrying that you wouldn't get enough pictures of it all. And prior to that, if you are me, you should have practiced taking pictures a little more with the pathetic lighting in your living room. I did manage a few ok pictures (with lots of help from CS4).

I don't often center my subjects anymore - and unfortunately this was the best Christmas picture I took with my 3 babies together. Someday when I get over the anger of shooting my relatively uncooperative kids, I'll post up all the outtakes (there are many more of those than there are good pictures of them!!!) In case you were wondering, the weird shape of the lights on the tree are called bokeh - which can be created a few different ways - we can talk about that some other time.
My toothy 9 year old, Dylan - complete with bokeh...With that picture window to Dylan's left, I even caught a reflection on Dylan's left eye.
This is a better shot of Dylan.


Here is my Christmas Angel. I tried to take pictures from different angles around the tree - I wasn't really thrilled by this lighting. But rule #1 in photography - there is no such thing as perfect lighting. Except in my living room, the lighting isn't even close to good. It's lovely on a sunny day through the picture window but the light from the ceiling isn't conducive to easy non-flash photography.
This was Melody's turn with the tree.

I will say that I still prefer SOOC shooting with very little post-processing to the photoshopped pictures here....like this one -
This was taken out of the window of my car while I was parked in my driveway a few weeks before Christmas (there aren't 2 suns, just a reflection through the glass).

Earlier on Christmas Eve, Adam and the kids made this -
He was practically perfect. Until the temperature rose above 50 degrees right after Christmas...there was about 20 inches on the ground for nearly the entire week of Christmas - now's it's all but gone - that's a New England winter for you....

Some of the above pictures were taken with my Tamron 24-75mm f/2.8. The Christmas close ups of the kids were taken with my Canon 50mm f/1.8. And the kids were all dressed in new jammies sent for Christmas by Auntie Booger, Uncle Mike and little Claire.

I will resolve to blog more this coming new year than I had this year. It will stay here at blogspot and if I am lucky enough to finish more scrapbooking projects this year, I will shoot those and post here too.

I have a few more good shots to post later this week - I'm on break from school for another 4 weeks!!! YAHOO!!!