Off

by Ang

Tomorrow I'm leaving for a long weekend to see my fiance. (I love calling him that!)

I promise that Amy and I don't plan our vacations at the same time on purpose. The last two have just worked out that way! They always seem to overlap.

Anyways, I may be able to post while I'm gone, or I may not. But I'll post for sure when I get back! I get to have a lot of nephew time and that is ALWAYS fun! Who knows, maybe I'll convince one of them to blog! (I bet they will - they always have interesting things to say!)

Hugs & kisses & all that good stuff!

Cousins

By Amy

I never would have dreamed that my 8 year old would love his nine month old cousin so much. It's almost.....annoying. That sounds mean. But sometimes he is just so.....in her face. And although she doesn't find it annoying, I do. Most of the time though, he is perfectly content to let her feel his face, pull his hair, and grab his ears. It's really very sweet.

I didn't really take a whole lot of pictures on Saturday night when I was watching little miss A. I was to busy watching her little personality. She has two bottom teeth now and cutting more. She wanted to chew all night long.

Look what a big girl she is!

I told her to stop growing and she just smiled at me.

I don't think she will listen to me. (: On another note, this week is going to get crazy on me. I only have five more days to get my stuff together and get organized for Costa Rica. So I'll be signing off the blog for awhile. It's up to my sissy to keep things going. She is going to have her hands full with my kids so posts may be few. I'll be back on the 13th!

Products of the "Clown-White Skin" Tribe

By Amy

I think I've mentioned that I'm going to Costa Rica. In ONE WEEK. I do not have a single item packed or any sort of schedule typed out for my sister who will be taking charge of my boys. The only thing I have done is throw some "must not forget" stuff in a pile on my couch. More then half are skin care products. It's actually kind of funny.

I am DETERMINED not to burn. Every time I am anywhere with sun and heat I burn. And it hurts. And it ruins the trip. Well, not completely but it does put a damper on my mood. So I am going to take every precaution possible not to burn but still enjoy the sun. I'll let you know how it goes.

On another note, guess who I am watching tomorrow?!?!?! You'll never guess!!!! Ok, I'll give you a hint. Her name starts with a A and she is quite possibly the cutest nine month old ever. Give up? Ok I'll just tell you.....

I'm pretty sure my next post will be full of her cute grin and pretty blue eyes. I've got my camera battery already charging. (:

Photos

by Ang

Amy's last post got me thinking about my own photography skills (which are ZERO...NADA...NOTHING). But I have taken a few pictures that I like with my own little point and shoot camera.

Because I left my camera at work (long story) and have no new pictures to share tonight, I'll just post some of my favorites below!

Jackson, WY - 2008

Jackson, WY - 2009

Imperial Beach, CA - 2009

Little Miss A - 2009

San Diego, CA - 2009

Paris - 2009

Paris - 2009

Amsterdam - 2009

One of these days I'd like to get a fancy camera and learn Photoshop. But for now, I'll just work with what I have!

Photography Project: RED

By Amy

Here is my first installment of the Rainbow Photography Project. Let me first warn you that the images below are not very exciting. Some are nice but some are just down right boring. For each image I took between 10 to 20 pictures. I fiddled with my camera, playing around with shutter speed, aperture and other settings to try and get the best picture possible. I didn't photo shop any of these. I learned that natural light is the best light. Always. Unless you are in a super market in the produce section. For some reason that light was awesome. You will see what I mean. Ok without further delay....here they are.

This was the first one I took. Kind of boring but clear.

These curtains were taken at my mom's in the evening. No natural light at all. That's why the walls are kind of pinkish and the curtains are a little orangy. Not really happy with this one. But there wasn't a whole lot I could do.

Will you just look at these peppers?!? Look at how shiny they are! I really liked this one.

Just had to include all my red books.

I had high hopes for this one. Very cool subject. But it turned out dull and boring. Not sure what I should have done differently.

I liked this one. Perfect light coming in through my kitchen window. Yum.

I cheated here. I took this way before I even started this project. But how can I have a project about red things without including something Husker?

Not much to say about this one. Boring but nice.

This one is without a doubt my favorite. Gorgeous light. Gorgeous subject.

I took about 30 pictures of this stupid stop sign. And never got the look I really wanted.

So that's it for my first color. I actually learned alot playing with my camera. I also learned that just because you have a fancy camera doesn't mean you are a great photographer. I have a long ways to go! Next up: ORANGE.

Another Loss

By Amy & Angela

We don't feel like blogging today. We lost our Uncle to cancer yesterday morning. Our Grandma lost another child. Our dad lost his brother. Our cousins lost there father. This weekend we will remember and comfort and cry and hope. See you on Monday.

Where to Start

by Ang

I don't scrapbook anymore. Not like I used to. It's time consuming when you don't have an entire room to dedicate to the hobby (where you can shut the door so your cats don't jump up on the table and ruin your pages-in-progress). It's a lot of work to drag all of your supplies out if you only have 1 or 2 hours a week to dedicate to it.

About a year ago though, I came up with a new way of scrapbooking. Well, I'm sure it's not NEW (some other genius probably thought of it before I did) but it was new to me. I decided to give it a try with my pictures from Costa Rica 3 years ago.

I bought a cute photo album that looked sort of island-y, with 4 places for photos per open-page spread.


For each open-page spread, I would place 2-3 pictures in the slots, then leave the remaining slot(s) open. The open slot is the one I would 'scrapbook' with patterned paper, stickers, stamps, flowers, journaling, etc. It was sooooo much easier than the traditional scrapbook and I loved how it turned out.

I've never been a big fan of busy pages with just one photo on them. The focus of the book should be the pictures, not the embellishments on the page.

So from here on out, this is how I'm going to do it. But now comes the task of paring down my mounds of supplies. With my newfound way of simplifying my photo albums, I'm not going to need all of THIS:

I'm not getting rid of everything though. I love patterned paper and flowers, so I'll be keeping a lot of that. But I'll be selling a lot of my tools. I don't want to drag all of this to New Mexico with me. I'm going to start going through it this week and hopefully will make a lot of progress by the weekend.

Less is more!

P.S. - Costa Rica is AWESOME.