Quick Update

Last weekend Dan ran in the Gasperilla race. This was his first 15K. He finished the 9.3 miles in just under 2 hours! He got a medal for completing the race. I am very proud of him. The race started at 7:05 am and he had to be there an hour early. Since it was so early, Evan and I opted to cheer from home. Dan is looking forward to training for his next race... a half marathon!

Our family has been really enjoying the beautiful weather. We decided to renew our Lowery Zoo passes this year. So we woke up Saturday morning, had a lazy start to the day and then headed over to the zoo. Evan loved seeing the monkeys and fish.



Evan has been working hard on his walking and can take about 4-5 steps now! He wants to walk so much and tries to every chance he gets. :) We are so proud of him!



Hope y'all have a great week!

Challenge 5

This weeks photography challenge is about composition...

1. Keep it simple - I eliminate wasted space in this photo to fill the frame.

Original shot

Cropped in Photoshop

2. Apply the rule of thirds


3. Keep an eye on the horizon

I positioned the horizon about 1/3 of the way up on the photo to focus on the sky.

I placed the horizon about 2/3 of the way up on the photo to keep the focus on the water.

4. Frame your subject- this is a picture taken back in November. But it is a good example for this exercise :)

Valentine's Day and the JOY of Love (Days 6-12)

I love Valentine's Day...

Evan and I went to a playdate at Mikayla, Brianna and Joshua's house. At night Dan and I celebrated with a quiet night at home. Dan normally cooks Valentine's Day dinner for me, but this year I cooked. I made us lasagna with homemade crepes instead of pasta and garlic bread. It was amazingly good, if I do say so :) After dinner we watched a movie. We started this tradition of making dinner and watching a movie together when we were dating. We ended the night with delicious homemade chocolate dipped strawberries and pink champagne.

6. Who they love- Evan loves his Aunt Rachel!


7. Generations- My parents, sister, me, and Evan... 3 generations :)


8. Gift from the Heart- Dan gave me this beautiful ring for Christmas 2009.


9. Passions and Hobbies- This picture represents Dan's love of basketball and the Celtics :)


10. Space – where they are comfortable- Evan is so happy and relaxed when he is in his swing :)


11. Dreams- Evan fell asleep in his highchair while I was getting his dinner ready!


12. The Eyes- I love this picture!! His eye lashes are so beautiful.

Sunday with Friends and Challenge 4 Completed

Are you ready for some football! We got together with some good friends and family for the big game at our house.

We ate pizza, had a friendly bet on the game, cheered loudly and had a great time!

Steve is wearing a cheese hat he made... hehe!

I made the cutest BBQ themed cupcakes for dessert. The "kabobs" are cut gummy bears and carmels skewered on a toothpick, "steaks" are hand-formed carmels with piped black frosting. I got this idea from Kelle Hampton's blog. They were a hit!


For this weeks photography challenge I tried to use filled flash to eliminate dark shadows on Dan's face. I am still going to have to play around with this... I think I will have better luck when I try this technique for sunset beach pictures of Evan.

the JOY of love! (Days 1-5)

I am doing a 28 day photography class called "the JOY of love" through the Willette Photography and More. Class participants received daily email photo assignments with some tutorial/instruction built into the daily email lesson. Thank you Jessica for telling me about this!!

Here are the first 5 days...

1. What they do- Finger paint! It is messy and fun!! Here is Evan making Valentine's Day cards.


2. How they look- I love pictures of Evan's beautiful smile. However, I also love capturing his content and peaceful expressions like the one here while we were on a walk in his wagon.


3. Then and now- Evan as a newborn and then at 2 years old. It is amazing to see how much he as changed.


4. What they wear- Evan loves wearing his raincoat. Alittle rain doesn't scare this kid!


5. What you love to hate about them- Ok well, I don't really hate this... but it drives me crazy when Dan is going to be home from work late and he calls to ask me to keep Evan up past his bedtime so he can see him before he goes to bed. Evan loves it though and gets so excited! So it is worth getting him off his schedule every once in a while :)

Dan's 30th Birthday & Challenge 3

Dan wished his 20's good bye! He had a great birthday weekend. On Friday his coworkers through him a happy hour after work. Then Saturday we met up with all his friends at Sushi Tsu's for dinner and then we headed over to Bobalouie's for karaoke. It was nice to spend time with good friends!!


On Sunday we ended Dan's 30th birthday celebration at Islands of Adventure with Melissa and Steve.


Since we had such a crazy busy weekend Dan decided to take Monday off so we could relax. We spent a lazy morning lounging around the house and playing with Evan. Dan put Evan's new bike seat on Dan's bike and we all went for a bike ride. Evan really like it! I used the picture I took of him and Dan on the bike for my photography challenge. This weeks challenge was about experimenting with white balance. Part of the challenge was to experiment with white balance settings such as bright versus the cloudy setting.

The second part of the challenge was to photograph an object in my house the way I typically would, using the auto white balance setting. (Top) Then I selected the tungsten white balance setting and took the photo again. (Middle) Lastly, I took a picture using custom white balance. (Bottom)


The next challenge will be about experimenting with flash!

Lotsa Pictures of Evan :)

I have been busy posting about the photography challenges I have been working on, but I've missed posting some really cute pictures of our boy! So here are some of my favorites from the last few weeks.

Challenge 2 Completed and a Fun Weekend Retreat

The challenge is to learn when I should use a fast shutter speed. For this challenge I put a glass in the kitchen sink to obstruct the water flowing from the faucet. I set my shutter speed to 1/80th of a second and turned on the water to take the first picture. As you can tell in the picture on the left, a slow shutter speed does not visually stop the flow of water. For the next picture I wanted to set my shutter really high (around 1/1000 of a second). By doing this I was able to stop the water in motion. I am really happy with how the pictures came out!

Next week the challenge is all about light... can't wait!

Dan and I had a wonderful weekend. We spend the weekend at my parents condo in Indian Shores and it was just what we needed.


It was so relaxing and I loved having some one-on-one time with my hubby. Evan had a great weekend too... he was at my parents getting spoiled rotten!

12 Weeks to Better Photos: Challenge 1

The first lesson in the 12 Weeks to Better Photos is about aperture. The weekly challenge is to see how much of your photo you want to be in focus and to practice using the aperture priority setting.

1. In this photo I used the lowest setting my camera will go, f/5.6. Very little outside the focus point is in focus. (you can tell by looking at how the rocks and grass are blurry)


2. In this photo I used a f/8. This is my favorite. I like the background blur that separates the subject from the background elements.


3. In this photo I moved my aperture setting to the highest setting it will go, f/32. Pretty much everything is in focus. (It is easiest to see the difference between photo 2 and 3)


My next challenge will be about ISO and Shutter Speed. Yay!

Great Start to 2011

We celebrated Evan's 2nd birthday last weekend at Gymboree. What an amazing day! I loved celebrating my son's birthday with so many of our family and friends. Evan is a very loved little boy! A friend of mine is photographer and took some pictures at the birthday party. I can't wait to see them. I will post some of them soon!

Celebrating the little things...

We are so excited that Evan is starting to work on some of his fine motor skills. He started to put his pacifier in his mouth this week! Dan and I are so proud of our little guy. Check out the video we took to show Aunt Rachel. We miss her like crazy now that she is back in Jax!




Evan has also learned to move around in his walker at my parents. He was going forward, backwards, and even turning corners!! Go Evan Go :)



Dan and I took Evan to his very first concert today! We went to see Jack Hartmann. Dan insists Evan's first concert was the Ludacris concert we went to while I was pregnant... umm I think I will stick with Jack Hartmann for the baby book ;) Jack Hartmann sings children's songs. Evan was introduced to his music by his early interventionist. He was so cute at the concert. He loved watching Jack Hartmann sing and watching the kids dance around. His favorite songs were Alligator Chomp and 5 Little Fish.

Dan and Evan enjoying the show.

Jack Hartmann being silly during his hip hop song!

On a separate note... I am looking forward to starting 12 Weeks to Better Photos (http://sites.google.com/site/biowbiow002/twopeas_12week) I have been wanting to do this for some time. Being able to capture photographs of my son is such a passion of mine. I like to think of how grateful I will be when I am older to have these pictures of my boy. I want to remember every sweet stage he goes through. Taking pictures of toddlers is quite a challenge! Evan does not sit still and patiently wait for me to get the perfect lighting and camera settings. I currently take a lot of pictures, but I want to increase the quality of these pictures and make them better. So I am not going to put if off any longer. I am going to start these 12 weeks lessons. Every week I will post the weekly assignment on my blog to hopefully keep myself accountable. Anyone who wants to join me let me know!

So I will end with this cute picture of Evan I took while he was busy watching his Baby Signing Time DVD :)