Today We Celebrated!

Evan has started taking steps by himself! And we finally got it recorded.

I could not decide which one I liked best so I posted them all :)







I have been reading a blog, Enjoying the Small Things, by Kelle Hampton for about a year now. I love the way she combines writing and photography in her blog. Kelle found out when she delivered her daughter, Nella, that she had down syndrome. Her writing celebrates the good and recognizes all the beauty life. She has been a real inspiration to me!

This is quote from a blog post she wrote yesterday:
"When they tell you your child will have delayed milestones, it means less that you will struggle and ache for those events to come but more that when they do come, your heart will leap, your soul will celebrate and your arms will stretch to hold and kiss the growing one that forever surprises you."

Today, we celebrated Evan learning to walking and we are so very proud of him!

Tuesday

Here are some pictures I took from today!

I found this cute garden kit at Walmart and just had to pick it up. Evan and I planted some cucumbers and tomatoes... fingers crossed I don't kill'em!

Evan has been getting his eye teeth or as Dan likes to call them his vampire teeth :) So... he has been a little on the winy side this week. To keep his mind off those darn teeth we have been spending a lot of time outside.


Today Evan drew with crayons for the first time! Evan got these really cool TaDoodles Crayon Buddies for his birthday. They are perfect to help him in developing his gross to fine motor skills. Plus they are really FUN!

Hope everyone is having a great week!

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!