Mental Health Day

Adam needed a break from his 70 hour work weeks and decided to take the day off.  Two years ago that would have meant Adam and I laying on the couch eating take out and watching movies all day.  Today that means sweet little boys wanting to play at 6:30 am.  I was super nice and decided to let Zack think Adam was at work...I hoped he was able to sleep in...but we aren't all that quiet.  We took the boys to the Museum of Life and Science in Durham.  It's super expensive and Zack is still a bit young but they have farm animals and trains...not to mention elevators and stairs (seriously what kid sees a space ship and runs over to ride the elevator?  Oh yeah mine...but I have to say he is very well behaved on the elevator...presses the button only once...waits for it to unload...walks to the back and turns around and waits until it gets to the correct floor before running out and waiting for mommy).
I was really excited to practice taking pictures on manual mode outside on a beautiful day.  Halfway there I realized my battery was blinking so I spent the morning trying to decide if the moment was worth turning the camera on and taking the shot...when the moment was battery worthy I quickly took a couple pictures and hoped I had the correct settings.
We played indoors...

We (of coarse  rode the train...I will never get tired of Zack's excitement over trains "choo choo choo choo".  What made his "choo's" cuter was the "ho ho ho" that he threw in every once and a while because our train driver had a beard.

We played on the playground... (I forgot to change the white balance setting so some of my outdoor pictures are blueish...again if I had enough battery to to look and see and adjust my pictures would have been much better)

We saw some animals...

here is where I realized my "blue" issue

I am so glad Adam surprised us with a random day off.  Actually the random days are my favorite because we have no plan or obligation...we just get to enjoy each other.  I love that we had such a fun day and still have a whole weekend together!

can you tell he loves his brother

Indoor Lighting On a Blustery Day

As you can tell I am really excited to use my new camera skills... unfortunately the weather hasn't been great for a fun park photo shoot.

I am all of a sudden obsessed with "looking out the window" photos 

Hunter sure knows how to spend a day

I love the up close picture...seriously why do my boys have such long thick lashes...they will never appreciate them. 

Even though it kind of drives me crazy that Zack feels like all the crayons need to be dumped on the ground in order to be of any use...this results in missing and broken crayons [cringe].  How do I teach him that it is much easier (and better) to organize crayons by color and shade and to use them to keep the tip pointy as long as possible?  Anyway I digress...

I've been working on focusing from different angles...this picture would have gotten an A in my high school photography class (we worked on creating "triangles" a lot)

I love that you can see Hunter playing in the background

how cute that he crosses his legs like this????

Zack kept trying to get Hunter to color with him...(Hunter I don't blame you he is kind of controlling when it comes to what color you should use...and it's never the right color!)

look at that sweet face

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Thank goodness for plain white paper...Zack has really been into me writing his name and pointing out the letters...we would think that he is learning his letters but he reads letters as "b ah b ah...".

Before bed Zack drinks his milk (yes my almost 2 year old uses a bottle...don't judge...I am not willing to mess with sleep time and he us not willing to drink milk from any other cup...trust me I've tried) and watches either a segment of Clifford or Mickey Mouse Club House.

not only can he not drink milk from anything but a bottle but he can't dink milk without "tay tay" (blanket) 

I made the feet focused on purpose.

Manual Mode

I've had this really nice camera for several years...I know it takes much better pictures than a point and shoot but the camera can do so much more than I know. On Saturday I took a moms with cameras photography class. I don't want to be a professional I just want to take really awesome pictures of my kids. I feel like I take pretty great outside running around pictures but my biggest problem was indoor pictures and what angle to take pictures of Hunter from so that he looks just as cute in photos as he does in real life.
Today I opened the blinds in the bedroom and just went for it...

I should have taken pictures in the morning when the sun was brighter but we had friends over.  The afternoon was a little overcast but I think the pictures still look better then the ones I used to take inside.

One of my favorites!

So I didn't clean our bedroom or put a neutral blanket on the bed to stage the pictures a little better...there is a lot of color and pattern going on in these pictures but I still like them.  I especially love the pictures of my boys little hands.

yes...that is my i-phone...with a broken otter box (the otter box couldn't survive Zack and I) 

Zack made a loud noise and Hunters arms went out...Zack likes to make this happen on purpose 

love the face

I was standing over them so Zack had to stand on the bed...but I like Hunter in the background 

The up close pictures are great!  

 Hunter having a little tummy time

and obviously over the whole photo shoot thing...

or maybe just over Zack laying on him.

One thing I took from my class is to embrace the sillyness because you usually get a really great picture when it's over.

Me...I love the sillyness...Zack is doing something weird while looking out the window.

 I really wasn't sure what he was doing/trying to do...

 and there it is...

Obviously the light in our living room wasn't the best but I got a couple keepers.

Zack is obsessed with writing with a "be" on "bay" (pen on paper)

playing peek a boo...cute even with the boogers.

Then Zack decided to climb on the couch...he had a major wipe out and mother of the year over here took pictures rather than see if he was OK...

This was the face I got when he stood up.

We instantly had a new game...Zack fell...I said "oh no" and he stood up and laughed...20 min later it was dinner time.

The last three were done in automatic mode.  I wanted to see the difference and the flash made the background black...where as on manual without a flash I was able to make it blurry.