Gettin' Down with Mother Goose!

This evening Anna had a program up at school.  Her first evening program.  It was pretty cute.  The kinders and 1st graders put on the performance.  It was basically 6 songs, but they had some choreographed dancing!  I was impressed.  It wasn't anything too challenging, but there were like 100 kids up there, and they did pretty good!

I don't know how she snagged this front row spot, but she was loving it!

She's so sassy.

Her little group did a new rendition of Jack Be Nimble...again on the front row!  Lucky me!

There was a part where she had to "dance" with a boy.  He didn't look too sure about it.  ;)  Anna told me about this part yesterday when I asked her what they were going to be singing for us.  She was all "Don't tell Dad....but I dance with a boy!"

There was a lot of jumping too, but when you don't capture their feet they just look kind of up tight and not so much like they are jumping. .

Anyway.  The program was adorable.  So glad we hired a sitter so we could enjoy it and take pictures without chasing Meredith all over the cafeteria/auditorium.  

Flash Work

Well, after the random success I had with the direct flash when the kids were playing with smoke balls, I decided to try to recreate that today.  Josh was working on cleaning out the garage, and so I figured we should all be outside with him anyway.  He ended up putting me to work, so my picture time was cut short.  Oh well.  I think the sun was a little too high anyway. 

This was the only really good one that I kept in color.  I don't know.  I'm slightly annoyed by the shadows from her fingers on her neck.  But other than that, if I'd tried this without flash I'd of needed to move to the other side of her to get a picture.  

You might be wondering why she has a pen in her mouth.  Well, Anna's an interesting bird.  For no reason whatsoever, she decided to bring a pen and paper, and of all things, a hamper to write on.  She proceeded to ask me what all of my favorite things were one subject at a time and wrote them down.   But I had to spell them out for her.  "What's your favorite animal?" "What's your favorite thing to do?"  "What's your favorite flower?"  

Until I took my little 4-week photography class a couple of years ago, I didn't realize that the shutter speed on the camera maxes out at 1/250 when you have your flash on.  I don't really understand this.  It creates issues when you're trying to use it as fill flash on a bright day because you can't get much of a bokeh.  I've noticed I have my aperture way up around f/9 when I'm using it outside.  I'm sort of a f/1.8 kind of girl. I love a blurry background and foreground.  So, I decided to see what happens if I put it on f/1.8 and 1/250.  As expected, it was all blown out.  So, I calmed it down in Lightroom and converted it to B&W.  I guess maybe I need a filter.  I have been anti-filter so far.  I don't really know why though. 

I ended up converting nearly all of my keepers to black and white this time.  I think the flash looks kind of interesting in B&W.

Ha!  I know this isn't the most flattering pic of Anna, but it cracked me up.  She looks so grungy and tough.  And she was posing for me.  She makes funny faces and does stuff like this now a days for the camera.

Shadows...blah.  Maybe I should just stay farther away.  

He was farther away here...can't really see any shadows!  Wallace likes to give me a lot of this side lately. 

Valentine's

Last year I saw this super cute idea on Pinterest for Valentine's, and I've pretty much decided this might just be what I do every year.  It's so easy!...as long as Meredith doesn't grab half of them when you step away for a second and rip them apart.  "/  Homegirl must have been jealous or something.  

Anna's got this down.  As I was putting them all together tonight she even helped me thread the tootsie roll pops into a few of them!

I was surprised Wallace's turned out as good as they did!  It was quite the process getting him to pose.  There were a bunch of outtakes.  

Holding your arms up can get tough.

I'll just caption how the how the photo shoot went down with what I was saying to him...

"Bud!  Bud!  Look up.  Bud!"  ...me making silly noises....

"no son...hold your arm out!"  "Can you hear me?"

"Okay...not in front of your face!"

"no no.  Not behind your back."

"no Bud...other arm."

"Smile son!"

"*sigh*"

:)  I'm pleased. He came up with this 2 arm thing all on his own!  He was feeling extra generous. 

Smoke Balls and Fill Flash

So, we're still working our way through our New Years fire works.  Today Anna set off the remainder of the smoke balls.  She did it all by herself.  Lit the matches and everything.  So, I took pictures!  

Haha!  She was trying to walk toward me over some pokey grass.  And she was dressed a bit crazy. It's Saturday...completely appropriate to still be in your pajama top at five in the afternoon.

The littles were funny.  They'd run away as soon as she got a match lit, but then they come running right back once the smoke started coming out of the balls.

About half way through the smoke balls I decided to try some direct flash.  I was sitting pretty far away and figured it was worth a shot since the sun was behind the kids.  I'd say about 30 percent of the shots looked to me like they had obvious flash (which is super annoying to me), but the rest looked fabulous!

Eeeeek!  I've been trying to figure this out FOREVER!  Fantastic lighting even in a back-lit scenario...  

I still get pretty excited when all 3 kids are together in a picture...even if it's not really the most composed shot.

This one cracks me up.  Wallace is all mid stride.

It ended up being super smokey.  And smoke ball smoke really smells more like sulfur than anything.

Haha!  She was so grossed out.

Well... All we have left are the crappy sparklers, and I just might throw them away since the kids don't even like to hold them...as they are basically torches and not very sparkly. 

Pigtails!!

Finally!  Little Miss Meredith has just enough hair that I can get it into pigtails!  Homegirl is 22 months old!  The only trimming I've done was to snip off the weird little rat-tail she had on one side in the back a couple of months ago.  The pigtails are pretty thin, but they're pigtails nonetheless!  I was just a little excited.  Texted a lot of people about it.  Ha!  So, I figured it was a fancy-camera-worthy moment.  :)

Ha!  She was running by and noticed Anna's door was open for a split second!  Anna has a pretty strict no siblings allowed rule.

This was much later in the day.  She didn't pull them out!

For New Years I bought the kids some fireworks, just sparklers and snakes and smoke bombs, but I was bummed that the sparklers I got were so crappy I didn't have time to light them, pick up my camera, and take a picture.  They were literally 8-second-sparklers.  "/  So, I'd asked Josh to pick up bigger sparklers on his way home the next day (January 1st).  Apparently they were already all sold out of the bigger sparklers, so I didn't manage to get a cute pic of any of the kids holding one.  :(  Boo!  

But while he was there, Josh picked up some fancier fireworks!  I knew these were going to scare the littles, and sure enough they did.  Wallace and Meredith darted for the house.  I coaxed them back out and got them to sit in my car so they could still watch.  I watched many fireworks displays out the back window of my Mom's car as a child.  

Anyway, I tried just getting pictures of the fireworks, but this is apparently a difficult art to master.  Still, They were pretty fun!

Ha!  I was so focused on using a long exposure and high aperture that I forgot to attempt to focus....which, how the heck are you supposed to focus on something up in the air, in the dark, before it happens???  

I ended up guessing that these were flying up about 50 feet, which is about how far away Josh's truck was from us, so I set the focus off that and of course none were centered again.  Lessons learned, use the wider lens, get away from all the trees (which you can't see in the dark!!), and haul out the tripod.  I was resting the camera on the ground and tilting it by propping it against my shoe.  :)

It only took us 17 days to getting around to lighting these fireworks.  Ha!  I'm sure our neighbors were understanding.