The Twins again

These are a couple of pics from a session I had this morning. This is the second time these 6 year twins have come for a photo shoot. We had such a great time. Usually I'm in the studio but since I have my new lense I wanted to try something new. We took a short hike to a place where I had seen some nice light - just off our property. We had lots of company...my dog and cat joined us, much to the glee of the twins. It was so relaxed and fun. I got the best compliment as they were leaving. They said that they wanted to come back again and that they wished they could live here!

Beach Day

Usually it's not warm enough here to go to the beach until after July 4th. So we're ahead of schedule! I took my older camera today- an Olympus E500, I hardly ever use it anymore but it does have a 40-150mm zoom which I wanted to use today. My husband decided to take the sail boat out so I wanted to try and capture him sailing. While he was doing that we all went down to the little beach. Griffin has been sick so it's not the best representation of him but he was having such a great time in the sand and water...it's the first time he's really been old enought to play. I decided to convert to black and white just for something a little different. Funny how it makes it seem like it's not very sunny out. You can see by the shadows on his face though that it was bright out.

This sea gull was SO BOLD. He walked right onto our blanket and stole grapes from our tupperware! By the time we managed to get to our blanket he had dragged the whole bunch over the sand in an attempt to get one free from the vine. Unbelievable, I thought they only liked chips and sandwiches and stuff!

Here's a sailing one. It's just a little boat but it gets going really fast in a brisk wind. Lots of fun!

Creek Play

My new lense is here! Yippee! I'm really going to love it once I figure out how to use it. I got the 24-70mm L glass for my Canon. I love the way I can be so close and still get a full body in the frame. Such a difference from my 50mm. Here we are practising (well I'm practising!). I had to convince the kiddos that it would be a good idea to go for an adventure hike down the part of our creek below the waterfall. I knew this would be a good area for our little one, so he wouldn't fall down and be in total danger in the creek. The hike down was pretty wild. I haven't been down here since the forest took over and I forgot how enormous things get here very quickly. We managed to beat a path, it was worth it once we were there. I had given the girls some sparkly buttons. They pretended they were jewels, and dug them into the mud to hide the treasure from the pirates! Then they would do a search to find the treasure, dig it up and wash it off in the water. It's amazing how long they played this game! The little man...well he was just content picking up rocks and watching them splash down and of course he loves to bang sticks against the water.

I didn't have much time to edit, so these are pretty much just sharpened for web. Now that I look at them they are quite grainy. iso 1600. We didn't know it but at the time it was raining. We were protected by the canopy of trees so it was kind of a nice surprise when we got out into the open again.

Lambs ears and more

Sorry if you're getting sick of these nature shots but I just can't resist. I thought this first batch of flowers were weeds until recently when they came into bloom. They are so pretty I'm happy I didn't pull them. The second picture is of some of my favorite...lambs ears. I love the way that they are so fuzzy and soft. Tomorrow I'll try to post some people pics!

Grass

Today I got a little alone time to hike around and take some pictures. The mission I was on was to find a good "fantasy" landscape picture. I have wanted to do a fantasy fairy landscape picture for ages. I found all kinds of good trails that hopefully will work, when I get one done I will definately post it...well, only if it turns out. I saw this grass...liked the way it looked in the sunlight. It reminds me of Colorado so it made me all warm and fuzzy!

A boy in his garden

I haven't really been letting him roam in the garden. He just has no respect! He tramples right over the peppers and pulls on the zucchini leaves. But he loves it so much, I think it's the vast amounts of dirt/mud that he loves! So I let him have a gander around the garden today. Here is is actually being quite gentle with the lettuce!

Next he takes to digging under the broccoli and between the sweet peas! So much fun.

I loved the way the rain drops had gathered on this broccoli plant. I was trying to get the reflections of the girls in the drop, you can almost see them!

These little hands are the end product of planting two rows of carrots.

A little bit of nature

Aaaah, it has been so amazing here lately. I almost don't want to say it because I'll jinx it! We have had NO rain for ages! Why that's so great is...less bugs (always a good thing especially those annoying may flies that get stuck in your eyes) and no humidity. Lovely. Today I was out just snapping pics of the kids being silly in the yard when I decided to take some of our irises which are on the way out due to all the hot weather. While I was snapping the irises a lone bumble came along. It was so cool. He/she actually goes right inside to get what he's going for, completely dissapears that goes to another flower. It was hard to capture him since he kept dissapearing but here he is! I cropped a little closer so you can see him, furry legs and all!

A little bit later when the kids were supposed to be in bed we were sitting in our adirondack chairs watching our cat Belle, be a cat. She was staring at a tree so intently the way that cats do. A robin then flew down and landed on the ground...dummy! Luckily the cat did not get him but started climbing the tree. We managed to scare her down and low and behold, look what we found! Now we're just going to have to figure out a way to keep her out of there. I am really looking forward to following these little eggs. I will be so totally devistated if our cat gets at them.

This next one is a bit goofy and just for fun. Photoshop is so fun sometimes!

First Trip to Urgent Care

It always gets a little crazy around dinner time. Last night was no exception. The girls were busy running circles around the fire place when all of a sudden I heard a scream. It turns out that Madeleine had run straight into the corner of a wall. She was sitting on the floor with her hand on her forehead and all I could see was blood starting to drip. Yikes! To make a dramatic story short. She's OK! I took her to the urgent care clinic to be looked at. She had a great time! All the nurses were complimenting her clothes and shoes (which she loves)! By the time she was ready to be seen I think she had just about forgotten about her head, unbelievable but true. The doc said that even though it was quite open he thought he could fix it with glue. So luckily she did not have to have stitches, phew. She just had to be glued back together! Here she is the next morning, right as rain.

Museum day

Today we all headed out to the museum. It's not your typical type of museum but rather a living history museum, and it's all outside. There are old buildings, old relics (well from the early century) it's really all about how people in Vermont lived early on. It's so great. They have an old school house, a real blacksmith shop, an old carosel (still working much to the kids glee!) an old general store, many different kinds of gardens, a pond...you get the idea. So today I was there with new eyes...as a photographer! It was amazing. There are tons of old stone walls, old doorways, little paths leading into forests, a covered bridge...the photographic opportunities are endless. Unfortunately I didn't get much cooperation from my kids. They are just not interested in modeling for me - no surprise there. But I did manage to capture a few of Ella.

First Ever Ad

I know, I know...it's been so long since I posted. I should change the name of my blog to Image 150 or something like that! I have just been busy doing end of school year stuff and getting my business ready for summer stuff. I had a huge photo shoot with a preschool that pretty much took over my life for 3 weeks. My first ad ever just came out in a newspaper magazine type thing called Vermont Kids. It's available for free just about everywhere. Once a year they do a resource guide where just about everything you'd ever need for kids is listed. You can get listed for free but you have to pay for an add (ouch)! But these issues are held onto by people for reference, so I thought it would be a good one to be in. Here is what I had printed.

Bye bye Binky

These will hardly win any awards but this is a momentous occasion in our family. Madeleine finally gets rid of her binky's (pacifier). We said when she was two, we would take it away...didn't happen. When she was three, we said we'd take it away...didn't happen. We were too scared, this little girl can really scream! So we told her when she's 3 1/2 we'll take it away. Well, she turned 3 1/2 on June 1st. Daddy wasn't home so she didn't want to do it. So on June 2nd this brave little girl walked right up to the garbage can and spat her binky into it! The first pic is of her doing just that. The second pic is her looking to see what it landed on and thinking...hmmmm, I wonder if I can retrieve that?! She did this with about 4 of her binkys. To our immense surprise, she hardly mentioned it at all. Even when she was going to sleep, she only said once that she couldn't fall asleep without her binky. But then she did. We are in total shock. Why didn't we do this 1 1/2 years ago? Today Daddy took the garbage out. We noticed as he went down the stairs, that she was staring at it wistfully. Awwww.

Little mommies

How bad am I not posting since May 26th? Yikes! I've been so crazy busy. It's not that I'm not taking pictures, I am. It just takes such a long time to find the right one, then convert from RAW to jpeg then to edit and then post. I'll try to be better this next half of the year.
This series of shots was taken in the back yard around 6pm just when the light is getting really nice and is coming down in angles between the trees. The girls were out in their white dresses and playing the mommy game. It's so funny how girls naturally want to nurture and boys....don't. Griffin is still too young so I'm only speaking from 16 months of experience. From what I've seen already they have to touch EVERYTHING, climb EVERYTHING and bang EVERYTHING! Ha ha. It's nice to have both genders.