Anna's tooth! And the photobooth....

Anna lost her first tooth!  Well...lost is a relative term.  We had it pulled.  Or as her dentist puts it "helped out".  Homegirl's tooth has always been a little off in color.  We took her to her first dentist appointment when she was two, and they told us she must have had some trauma or something.  Asked me if I remembered anything happening where she hit her face or that tooth in particular, and I couldn't think of a thing.  I mean, she was two, so she'd taken her fair share of tumbles, but something serious enough to kill a tooth.... no....  So, every time we went to the dentist they'd pay particular attention to that tooth because they were worried it might get infected or abscess.  Her gums in the area started looking a little funny recently, so we decided it was time.   

I never had a tooth pulled at the dentist (other than my wisdom teeth), so I don't know if this is normal or not, but she got so much stuff!  She got that bear she's hugging there, she got a bag filled with stickers and bracelets, she got a little tiny chest to put her tooth in, and she got a sealed letter from the tooth fairy for us to give her the next morning.  Then the tooth fairy brought her a coin, tooth brush, tooth paste, and a My Little Pony puzzle!  Oh and glitter stickers shaped like stars.  So, needless to say, she wasn't too bummed about losing the tooth. 

This weekend I put together a photobooth  for our family picnic at work.  Each division in our department was tasked with providing some sort of activity for people to do.  Some groups did a three-legged race, there was a ring toss, a tug of war, karaoke, etc.  To say I was stressed about this photobooth would be a tremendous understatement.  I never could figure out a way for people to preview their photos.  :(  I don't have a laptop, and tethering the camera to a laptop via Lightroom would be the simplest way to do it.  Maybe I'll be able to talk Josh into a laptop sometime this year...  

Anyway, I started gathering supplies and some people at work did as well, and with a little help from Pinterest I decided to use plastic tablecloths for the background.  I'd found a pretty cool looking article online where they used all sorts of different colors, so I thought I do that.  And then at the last minute I reconsidered and thought it might be better to do something red, white, and blue.  So, I set up a very small practice run two nights before the event, and HATED the results.  In hindsight, this really wasn't a fair practice run.  I set it up in the office at home, there was no natural light because it was nearly dark outside, and so I was using my flash bounced off the ceiling.  

Anna looks like she's about to run for Congress or something....And you can totally tell they are tablecloths!!!  

At this point my stress level rose to an unbearable level, but I was stuck.  There really was no time to order a large roll of seamless paper...I was going to have to make this work.  "/  So, I went back to the multicolor plan that I originally had, and decided if it looked like crap, then it looked like crap and there wasn't much I could do about it now.  

But...When we got there...something magical happened!  :)  The natural light coming in behind the super thin tablecloths looked so pretty! 

Unfortunately, my original plan of having people take their own pics with my remotes didn't work out.  I think my camera was going into a sleep mode, and the remote wouldn't wake it up.  One of my co-workers was nice enough to stand there behind the tripod and take all of the photos.  Which, in some ways was a good thing because she was able to tilt the camera down to catch little bitty kids and stuff...and I'm not sure I'd of liked the way people would have looked holding the remote.

We ended up with lots of props.  And I was honestly shocked at how popular the booth ended up being!

We set up Josh's big white tent that we use for BBQ events so I could make sure the light was diffuse the entire day.  It worked out great!

It got VERY windy, and my tableclothes pretty much created a giant sail...so I was lucky my boss remembered to bring some sandbags to hold the backdrop down and keep it from flying away.  I tethered the bottom of the tablecloths with a 1x2 which I clamped to the base of the backdrop holder.  For the most part it held, but apparently at some point a child fell into the backdrop, and it all came apart...  I was with my kids at the pony rides when this happened so I didn't get to see it, but the guys got it all put back together again.  :)  

The best thing about the wind...it kept changing the look of the backdrop!  I thought that ended up being pretty awesome.

We're a construction department, so there were a lot of hardhats and safety vests in the pics.  :)

I ended up taking all the pics as JPEGs because I was worried about space.  I forgot how annoying it is to process JPEGs though.  Never again.  And I was honestly surprised how much time I spent processing the pics.  I did a lot of cropping to get the seams from the tape that I used to make the tablecloths into curtains out of the shot.  And there was a pole nearby that kept showing up in the pics.  And after going through the pics over and over again, I decided I preferred the look of tight shots.  

I would definitely do the photobooth again!  But if I was forced to do one indoors...I'd just buy the seamless paper in a bold color I think.  In my opinion...plastic tablecloths look like crap when they aren't back-lit.  

Puppy test

This past weekend Josh and I drove the dogs to Colorado for their puppy breed test.  And yes....I realize just how crazy that sounds.  This particular breed comes with an understanding that you will run your dogs through the testing program.  It's kind of the polite thing to do for your breeder, and it also helps get your dog trained up for hunting!  It's kind of a win-win.  So, way back when Anna decided she really wanted Hilde, I knew that the day would eventually come when I would have to run her through her puppy test.  When I described this to some people at work they were under the impression that we would drop the dogs off and they would somehow be run through a series of tests by other people....I wish.  Talk about being stressed out.  The thought of having to perform with my dog in front of people made me want to throw up a little...

The puppy test (the first of three tests) for drathaars is actually supposed to be a test of their natural abilities, so in all honesty, just showing up with a halfway obedient dog is all you really need to do, but there was actually a lot more preparation that went into it for me because I was so scared Hilde would end up chasing a rabbit to the next county before she ever looked back.  For a while now I've been walking Hilde around the property letting her sniff out any game we might have (I've actually seen rabbits and quail on our place!).  She's supposed to point at birds and track rabbits.  What she tended to do was chase birds and happen upon rabbits and chase them too.  "/   With a few visits to the trainer, she started improving.  

As for the test, she didn't do too bad.  She didn't embarrass me!  That was half the battle.  Just about everyone struggled to call their dogs back when they were chasing something, but we all managed to leave Colorado with our dogs.  :)

I don't have their final scores yet, but I think Hoss might have beaten Hilde by a few points, which isn't really fair because I've been working with her way more than Josh has been working with Hoss, but it's a natural abilities test, and Hoss is a better tracker than Hilde.  "/  

Here's Josh taking Hoss out for his bird pointing evaluation.

So, I didn't get nearly as many pics as I'd of liked to.  I didn't pull my camera out until I was done with Hilde's test.  I was so stressed out and nervous.  Fortunately, she finished up a little before Hoss, so I got some pics of Josh working with him.

This was right after he finished his bird pointing.  He was still pretty excited.  :)

This is our trainer, Tammy, and her dog Diesel (Hoss and Hilde's brother)

This is Dori.  Our breeder's dog from the same litter.  Can't you see the resemblance to Hilde.  ;)

Hoss's pointing test.

For me the craziest thing about the weekend wasn't the fact that we drove our dogs all the way to northern Colorado...

It's the fact that we actually took our dogs into our hotel rooms with us!  I've never done that before.  There's something a little weird about walking through a really nice lobby with these two hunting dogs.  Haha!

So....fortunately for me Hilde was born with an under-bite.  Runs in our family.  ;)  Anyway, we went ahead and got her spayed (one of them had to be since we got litter-mates), so at this point, there's really no reason for me to continue on with her to the second test.  They become breeding qualifications.  So, the pressure is off.  She can just be easily trained into a honed pointer and bird retriever for us now, and we'll be perfectly happy with that.  

The test judges did a quick phenotypic evaluation of the dogs and confirmed her under-bite.  They, understandably looked at me in a very concerned manner, but I assured them it was no news flash.  :)  She may not be perfect, but she's the best family dog we've had in a while.  She so good with the kids, and for a puppy, she's very good around the house.  Wouldn't trade her for the world.  

The Birthday Boy!

Wallace is 3!  Well...almost.  His birthday is actually tomorrow, but it's a bit difficult to celebrate it on a Monday...so we chose Saturday instead.  :)

I know. I know.  His cake is the Leaning Tower of Pisa...  I got a little ambitious and have no engineering skills to speak of.  

I'm vain...so I snapped a pic from a more flattering angle earlier in the day.  :)  It's not as pretty as the example I'd seen online, but for a kid who LOVES icing...this was a good cake for him.

And guess what...

....the pool is finally ready for swimming!  Anna couldn't be happier!

There's no doubt this kid is my son...He is just not into water stuff yet.  He got in the pool a little after Anna had gone inside and there was no more splashing.  Pretty sure he's terrified Josh is going to just throw him in like he does Anna.  This is pretty much how I do swimming too.  If I am not laying out beside the pool, I'm laying out on a float in the pool...but only after everyone that might tip the float over has finished swimming.  

Ah....hand me downs...  You know...I actually had a Spider-man bike growing up.  Not sure who exactly I got it from since I've got 2 older sisters, but I distinctly remember asking my Dad to paint it.....glittery maroon...but it still had the yellow seat that had a black webbing design printed on it.   I wasn't really fooling anyone.  

No birthday of Wallace's would be complete without chocolate milk, a new car, and a viewing of Wall-E.

Anna was exhausted after swimming.  If you can count on anyone to get a kid to sleep it's my Mom.  They just snuggle up next to her and the next thing you know both of them are sound asleep.  :)  She's only looking at the camera because she heard the shutter clicking.  

Haha!  He's blowing out the candles, but it looks like he's yelling that it's about to fall.

Refuge Bike Ride 2015

It's that time of year again....yep....time for spandex and healthy people!  ;)  We made the trek to Gilmer for Josh's Mom's annual Refuge International charity bike ride.  

Thank goodness the rain held off until Saturday night!

Josh BBQ'd again this year.

I didn't get as many pics of the riders as I'd of liked to, but I was stationed near the food, and pictures of people eating are never very flattering.  "/

I did get some cute pics of the kiddos though!

Wallace is oozing cuteness here!!!  

Meredith danced a little with Big Momma.  Homegirl has learned to walk and wants to spend all of her time on her feet now!

Wallace was rather obsessed with the train that passes by every hour or so.  He would be in the back of the house and come running out the front door every time he heard the whistle!

He started to gather a little following...

There's a tree swing now!  After I got some pics of the twins Anna got on and posed and posed for me!  Her "pose" smile is funny...

So I know how to doctor people's eyes in Lightroom to really make them pop...yeah...that's totally not necessary with these girls.  Their eyes are amazing!

Sadie also did some gymnastics for me.  :)

Anyway...it was a great week and a everyone was there for a great cause!  Can't wait til next year!

Dallas and Maddison

A few weeks ago my nephew Dallas called me and asked if I would take some pictures of him and his new fiance Maddison.  Little did they know when they came they'd get to see a t-ball game too!  ;)

The weather wasn't perfect, but I guess if I was forced to choose between humid overcast and overly sunny for picture day, I'd choose humid overcast...

Since I've never done a shoot like this before, Maddison and I sent a bunch of example photos back and forth to each other, and we even kept our phones handy to help with posing.  :)  Haha!  That's me...all professional and holding up my phone next to them to get poses right.

Lucky for me...these 2 are pretty photogenic!  :)