T-Ball

I can't believe it's already here!  Anna's playing t-ball!  T-ball is hilarious.  And there's just no sense in being competitive.  The kids are so unpredictable.  At one point during their game today 2 of our boys playing 2nd base and shortstop, just started racing each other out to the left field fence.  Haha!  They've had two practices so far, and it's amazing how quickly they improve.  Day one it was all about here's how you put on your glove, here's 1st base, here's a ball, try to throw it.  

For Anna's second at-bat, she was actually tagged out on her way to 1st, but it's so non-competitive that when she didn't leave the base to go back to the dugout, they let her just stay in and "run" the bases.  She was actually tagged out 4 times in all as she made her way around, but she never seemed to notice.  :)  

Warm-up with Dad.

It's kind of a nasty day, and she didn't like how the ball was getting dirty...

She's getting pretty good at fielding grounders!

Her first at-bat!  OMG!  Please just hit the ball and run to first.....!

It may look like she's walking here as she's headed to second.  That's because she WAS WALKING!  Haha!

At least she looks like she knows what she's doing!  :)  

Meredith was squirmy as usual.  I think everyone took turns holding her.  It's exhausting to hold her!

And by everyone...I mean EVERYONE!  Anna had quite the crowd for her first t-ball game!  You'd of thought she was a first grand-baby or something. :)  11 people there, including me  That's a heck of a turnout!

Wallace is a typical younger sibling around the ball park. 

Just running around like a crazy person.  Josh bought him a glove, but most of the time he'd rather pick flowers...as would Anna.  :)

Cascarone Time!

Easter with Josh's family has developed into a day of getting smashed on the head with cascarones.  :)  The kids love this.  I think Josh brought a couple of dozen a few years ago, and now every one of the kids gets their own personal dozen eggs.  It's funny to see how some, like Anna, horde their eggs until everyone else is done, and how others, like Tanner, use up their dozen in less than 30 seconds.  Ha!  Usually the kids refrain from getting me, but even I was a target this year!  Confetti was everywhere...and I mean everywhere...

Anna has this pouring technique that she likes to use.

Poor Tanner.  He brings this on himself really.   :)

Haha!  They're not for everyone...

Poor Cy...he really seems to hate the cascarone thing.  "/

No one is safe from the cascarones.

No one....

Anna was so sweet.  She'd wipe Meredith's head off every now and then.

Aside from the cascarones, the kids had a great time playing with the puppies Leah's got leftover from the last litter.  Anna was especially fond of this fluffy little guy.

Wouldn't leave him alone all day....

And there was also the egg hunt.  :)

And the candy sorting...

Anna (who's suddenly decided she doesn't like candy) was super pleased to find a couple of dollars!

After a little coaxing, Meredith decided she likes kitkats.  :)

Aruba...

So....Josh and I never go anywhere together these days.  It's sad to say, but I think it's probably fairly normal for couples with young children to stay relatively close to home.  So, when he called to tell me he'd managed to snag a trip to Aruba, it didn't take much convincing to get me on board.  We only had about 2 weeks to get everything in order before we flew out, but fortunately between my Mom, Josh's sister, and our dog trainer, we got all of our affairs in order and took off last Wednesday.  

Contrary to what the resorts would have you believe, Aruba is actually quite arid!  I saw more cactus there than I've ever seen anywhere...and that's saying a lot considering I did a long stretch of field work in south Texas.  

I only took a handful of resort photos, and I think I'll refrain from posting them on here since 99% of the island is not artificially tropical.  After looking high and low I did manage to find a few small cactus beds at the Hyatt, so I guess they referenced the native landscape, but it wasn't the right cactus.  

Aside from the cactus...which I think was saguaro, I'd say this was the tree you'd see the most of.  The wind constantly blows so much from the south that all of these trees tend to grow in a northerly fashion.  

And depending on which coast you are visiting, you either have tranquil seas with sandy beaches....

...or powerful crashing waves with rocks.  Yep...that's me attempting to pose and look cool.  :)  I know...I'm just exuding coolness.

I found myself much more inspired to take pictures on this coast.  :)

How many pictures of pretty, blue water can one person take?  Hundreds, apparently...

Having the Caribbean as a constant backdrop made me realize just how much I tend to lean when I take pictures...  "/  I think I only got 2 that didn't need straightening out.

Josh is typically looking caught off-guard in my pics (because I catch him off-guard) or he just isn't looking at the camera because he doesn't know I'm taking pics of him.  He hates taking pictures.  So, I finally get him to sit for a picture, and what do I do?...manage to screw up the focus.  It's close enough though.  A good pic of Josh looking at the camera and smiling!  Hallelujah! 

There are caves on Aruba too!  I got to test out all sorts of new places to take pictures. 

We initially thought Aruba had some weird rock stacking cult following thing going on....

Turns out the tourists have a strange habit of stacking rocks while they're on vacation there, and the natives have no idea why...but they've embraced it.

We did a whole lot of this...

And we went down in this submarine.  It got us down to about 140' below!

It's not easy taking pictures through a porthole.  But I got a keeper!  :)

And lastly...we paid a visit to the elusive donkey sanctuary.  Took forever for us to find it on this tiny island.

Donkeys are funny...  

So, I know I said I wouldn't put any resort pics on here, but I found it comical how hard it is to actually escape America!  :)

And that's it.  We missed the kids so much we picked them up from my Mom's at 10:30 once our flight landed Sunday night.  Woke Meredith from a deep sleep and really upset her, but it was worth it.  :)  

The Redbud

I think it's funny how when you move into a new house you don't really know what all trees you have until the spring rolls around and they start flowering.  I remember being pleasantly surprised by a mountain laurel at our old house.  We'd moved in in August, and I walked by it every day until February and never noticed it.  Then one day the beautiful purple blooms were out and made it impossible to miss!  

The same thing happened again.  We managed to move in August a second time!  Which is crazy because it's a thousand degrees here in August!  This time it was a redbud tree.  Had no idea it was there.  Redbuds are the neatest trees.  All of their blooms come out before the leaves, so it's just gorgeous!  When Rachael came over to help out with the cake smash last weekend she actually pointed the tree out to me.  With how our house is arranged on the property I hadn't even seen it yet because I never really see the front of the house when I come home every day.  She told me I should be sure to get some pics of it because it was just so breathtaking.  Redbuds hold a special place in her heart because she was married under one when it was blooming.  :)  I bet that was a beautiful ceremony!  

I'm not really into vegetation photography, but this tree is seriously amazing right now!

And then I got a little artsy fartsy.  

Sure would be nice to have a macro lens for stuff like this.  :)  I made do with my 85mm.  

I'm so glad she suggested I take pictures of this thing.  I think these pics will make a great cover for the 2015 family photo album!  :)

My Baby is One Today!

Little Miss Meredith is one...  My baby isn't a baby anymore.  "/ 

A couple of weeks ago I was texting with my girlfriends who are both fabulous cake decorators, and was lamenting that they both live in Alaska and couldn't be here to make a cake for Meredith.  I'd decided I wanted to do a smash cake photo session with Meredith, and I wanted something that would look pretty in the pictures.  They both told me I could easily put a pretty cake together and not to worry.  Sent me recipes and honestly made me feel like I would be able to pull this off.  

This stupid cake was damn near the end of me!  I thought I'd get all creative with some decorators tips and do some simple flowers...maybe have a little purple and pink.  It came out pretty hideous.  In fact it was so bad that I scraped all of the icing off and started over...  Then I redid it thinking maybe the pink flowers were what was throwing it off....no...it still looked like crap with just the purple, and I was super bummed about it.  But, it was 11:00pm, and I was exhausted, so I went to bed and told Josh I might just go buy a cake in the morning.  I literally lost sleep over it.  I laid there thinking of ways I could fix the cake.  I had an epiphany around 2:00am while I was feeding Meredith who had decided it was her birthday and she was going to be up!  So, in the morning, I scraped all of the icing off AGAIN!  And voila!

Not too bad....Just think of all this poor little cake had been through.  It went from being white, to white and pink and purple, to white and purple, to just purple.  Good grief.  Talk about an identity crisis...

Weeks ago I started buying all of the stuff I'd need for this photo session.  Got a backdrop holder, some seamless paper, stuff to make the bunting, stuff to make the tutu.  I was really making so much more of this than I needed to, and it was stressing me out.  I kept thinking it was all going to flop.   I even bought a little lighting kit that I didn't end up using once I realized that enough light was coming through our living room windows.

In the past week I'd really started to doubt my choice of a white background...I'd seen a lot of adorable photos of little girls with bold purple backgrounds and got all jealous, but I think I'm pretty happy with the white.  :)

It took her a while, but she finally got hands on with it.

She never really sank her gums in (she's yet to get her first tooth), but she had a good time playing in it.  :)

Sarah Faye got her these bloomers ages ago.  I'm so glad they still fit!

I'm so stoked with how awesome the pics turned out!  :)

I thought I'd pay it forward and show a little of the behind the scenes stuff.  I've been doing a lot of googling this week, and really appreciated when people would offer up tips.

I bought a Polaroid backdrop stand that was only about $80.  The seamless paper was around $30 I think, and I got the 53" wide one.  I made the bunting from card stock and ribbon.  I hot glued it together.  I actually ended up pulling the paper out about 10 feet and taping it to the floor, but I didn't get a pic of that.

I used a Nikon D7000 with my 35mm f/1.8 lens.  I also used my cheapo SB400 speedlight.  I should stop slamming it.  It's a pretty nifty little flash.  :)

Anna sat for me while Meredith was napping and let me get adjusted to the setup.  Notice the edges.  I cropped nearly every pic of Meredith.  I thought the 53" paper would be enough, and I guess it was, but I missed a few shots because she was moving around so much that I couldn't get the shots because the background wasn't wide enough.  (side note...check out the bob!  Her new 'do is awesome!)

It wouldn't have be possible without my baby-wrangler, Rachael.  Poor Rachael, I know this had to have exhausted her.  It was like a very intense 15-minute workout.  :)  And my Mom was on-hand to keep our sons corralled. 

And that's about it for the smash cake.  Other than that I tried to get some photos of Meredith throughout the day, but she ended up taking a 3-hour nap.  

On Wallace's first birthday I got a pic of him right after he woke up, still in his crib...

Look at that cutie!

Yeah...Meredith is not a morning person...  ;)

Bitch stole my look!

hum....how can I drive my sister crazy?  Oh I know!  I'll pull all of her precious stickers off her wall....  

Hommie put all of the wasted icing to good use.  :)

And that's about it.  :)  Can't believe she's already a year old!  Meredith was the biggest surprise of my life, and she's been the most tremendous blessing!  And now...I'm exhausted and going to bed!  :)  Peace out.