Lighting Class

Today I went to an indoor lighting class that was being offered by Houston Camera Exchange.  It was great they had 3 rooms set up with different lightkits and models.  They also had representatives from Canon, Nikon and Sony that brought along camera bodies and lens and they let us borrow them!  It was great I got to try a couple lens that I had been wanting to try and let me just say.. they are still on my wishlist!  One of the biggest things I learn was how to use my light meter!  I was excited about that I have had it since I bought the lightkit at the beginning of the year but I didn't know how exactly to use but now I do!  I also talked to a lot of different photographers that had a wide range of experience and knowledge.  It was great to talk with them and learn from them.  I can't wait to try out everything that I learned today so if you are interested in getting some indoor photos done let me know because I need some practice!  Here are some of the photos I took today....PS...I did no editing (except for the frame around the photo)

Thanks Tim for giving me a Saturday to go and learn more about my hobby!

Twins.. aren't they sweet

Last weekend I got the opportunity to take pictures of twins!  I have known their mommy since she was just a little girl so I was excited to get to do this for her.  These twins were 5 months old but they both just got out of the hospital within the last month.  They started out life 16 weeks too early!  But as I said before they are now out of the hospital and doing well, thank goodness!   So remember the tutu's I told you we made?  Well here is where we used them! 

Then it was time for something new.. so they got all dressed up in a little dress and tights with little ballerina shoes.. how cute!

Then we decided that we needed to do a few for daddy.. he hunts and fishes and poor guy now is very outnumbered in the house.. so we decided to make the girls pretty but put something for dad..

It was great to get to meet these sweet girls and take their pictures.

Baby Sean

This past weekend was lucky enough to take 1st pictures for a sweet little boy.. he may look a little familar to you since his brother, Steven has been on here a few times.  Baby Sean was so sweet and so cute!  I was so glad to finally get to meet him and see his mommy, daddy and brother.  This is the pictures I took of him and we did do some family photos as that I hope to put on here soon.  Thanks Martha & Ronnie for letting me take these special photos for you.. I enjoyed seeing all of you!!

I can't just put all Sean photos!  I have to put a picture of big brother!

tae kwon do - Leadership seminar

This weekend Zach's Tae Kwon Do school had their 4th anniversary party, as part of that they had a few seminars with a 5th degree black belt name Mr. Pino.  They had one class for future leaders and it was by invitation only.  They told the kids that if they worked hard they could have a chance to get an invitation... well Tuesday at the end of class Zach teacher asked him and one other little girl to come up...they invited him to the seminar!  He was SO EXCITED.. he had be talking about it and hoping he would get invited.  So Saturday we woke up early and Zach would ask like every few minutes is it time?  Finally it was time so we went and he had a blast!  He taught them a portion of a routine and taught them to kick better.  He was really great with them and in the end he showed them a small routine and when he jumped in the air he got up so high!  It was a great experience for Zach and we were glad he got invited.  After the seminar was over they had a bounce house, food, dunk tank and cotton candy for all of the kids from the school to celebrate their 4 years.

Zach & daddy makes mommy a jewerly box

Zachary and Tim left out early this morning to do some errands, Zach was super excited to be going with his daddy especially when his daddy told him they were going to Lowe's!  Can you believe it starts this early?  He told Tim that he wanted to get some tools so he could work.  Tim said that they would look and see what they could find.  So they were off to do boys stuff.  Well when they finally got home Zach had his tools and a little thing they were going to make for me.  His case had everything and what Tim didn't realize was it was really a little junior set.  Zach told me that he was going to make me a jewerly box so I could put my necklace, earrings and rings in.. isn't he sweet!  So they got to work and Zach told me he was working hard.. he was sweating..

That is a real working drill that was in his kit.

The finished product!  Zach is wanting to decorate it so I'm not using it yet but I can't wait.  They both did a great job on it!

Hope y'all had a great weekend!

Tutu's

So in a couple of weeks I will be taking photos of two little girls who decided like Zachary that they were ready to see their mommy and daddy early.  They were actually born at the end of February instead of the beginning of June!  One got out of the hospital last week (the baby) and the oldest will be hopefully getting out this week.  Their mommy is a friend of Debbie and mine, I have actually known her since she was a little girl.  She had saw the pictures of Tara and asked if I would mind doing her little ones once they got out of the hospital.  I of coarse told her yes!  Debbie has decided to be my assistant during the shoot.  It is funny we will drive home some days and she will say I saw this picture today..she is actually looking at baby photos too looking for ideas.. it is cute!  So today I had to pick up Zach from her house and I asked her if she wanted to go eat lunch and then go look for ideas of things we could put the babies on and in.. and we went to this one store with Tutu's and they had a really cute one that we liked but I didn't want to spend $30 for just one (esp if I needed two!) so we saw another one and this one was a no sew loop one and she goes that is easy to make and I said yes it would.... well the mommy had already told me she wanted a B&W with color photo so we were walking to the next store and I told Deb let's make it.. it would be prefect for the B&W with color.. we will do all pink.. (mommy loves pink) so we went to Hobby Lobby and got all the stuff (and more we have a few new props).  We came back to our house and look what we came up with!!  (one twin is a little bigger then the other so you will notice these are a little different).

Now we needed something to measure them up against and make sure they looked right so we got our the old Cabbage Patch Dolls!  We laughed about it but it worked and that was what mattered! 

We can't wait to use them!

Happy Birthday America!

Hope everyone had a great Fourth of July!  We are hanging out at the house today.  Tim smoked us some ribs so we will be eating them for supper tonight (I can't wait!  He makes the best! - Thanks Deachi for introducing us to Head Country Rub so many years ago!  We are still buying it by the pickle jar size!)  So we will be eating that tonight watching the fireworks on TV... 

So why do we celebrate this day?  It was surprising to me to hear that some Americans don't even know who we fought against to become our own country so looking around the internet I found this poem and thought that it explained the holiday well.

Why Do We Celebrate the 4th of July?

By: Kim Moon

Most people in the United States celebrate the 4th of July, but do you know exactly why the holiday is so important to our country? Imagine how you would feel if someone older than you (maybe an older sister or brother) kept telling you what to do all of the time and kept taking more and more of your allowance. That is how the colonists felt in the years leading up to 1776. Great Britain kept trying to make the colonists follow more rules and pay higher taxes. People started getting mad and began making plans to be able to make their own rules. They no longer wanted Great Britain to be able to tell them what to do, so they decided to tell Great Britain that they were becoming an independent country. (To be independent means to take care of yourself, making your own rules and providing for your own needs.)

The Congress met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and they appointed a committee (a group of people working together to do a specific job) to write a formal document that would tell Great Britain that the Americans had decided to govern themselves. The committee asked Thomas Jefferson to write a draft (first try) of the document, so he worked for days, in absolute secret, until he had written a document that he thought said everything important that the committee had discussed. On June 28, 1776, the committee met to read Jefferson's "fair" copy (he put his best ideas together and wrote them neatly.) They revised (made some changes) the document and declared their independence on July 2, 1776. They officially adopted it (made it theirs) on July 4, 1776. That is why we call it "Independence Day." Congress ordered that all members must sign the Declaration of Independence and they all began signing the "official" copy on August 2, 1776. In January of the next year, Congress sent signed copies to all of the states.

The Declaration of Independence is more than just a piece of paper. It is a symbol of our country's independence and commitment to certain ideas. A symbol is something that stands for something else. Most people can look at a certain little "swoosh" and know that it stands for "Nike." Well, the signers of the Declaration of Independence wanted the citizens of the United States to have a document that spelled out what was important to our leaders and citizens. They wanted us to be able to look at the Declaration of Independence and immediately think of the goals we should always be working for, and about the people who have fought so hard to make these ideas possible. The people who signed the Declaration risked being hanged for treason by the leaders in Great Britain. They had to be very brave to sign something that would be considered a crime! So every time we look at the Declaration of Independence, we should think about all of the effort and ideas that went into the document, and about the courage it took for these people to stand up for what they knew was right -- independence!

I apprecicate all that the colonist did back then and what all the soldiers in the past, present and the future will do (have done) for us! 

Happy Birthday America!