One Day at a Time

July 8, 2007 ~ Baby Alex...

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This is my adorable nephew, Alex. He is such a good little boy. He has the cutest reddish blonde hair...I could just eat him up! :)

June 13, 2007 ~ More Sydney!! LOTS of pictures...

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Thanks Jay and Greg for letting me come over for my very first official "photo shoot"! I had a blast!

June 8, 2007 ~ Babies, Babies EVERYWHERE!!

2007-06-08T22:09:00.000-05:00

Well, I shared some pictures of my new nephew so now I thought I'd share some of my cousin's new baby. This is Sydney, my cousin Greg and his wife, Jessie's 2 week old baby girl. Isn't she a doll too?!? How great is it that I now have two babies to take pictures of...SO fun!

Lots of pictures...Happy "Birth" Day ALEX!!

2007-06-07T00:35:00.000-05:00

I have a new nephew...meet Alex. Born on 6/6/07. Weighing in at 8 pounds, 8 ounces. Here are a TON of pictures...

May 2, 2007 ~ Spring!

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Spring is finally here! We spent some time outside today after school. My daughter loves to swing. My son just loves to be outside. I'm just happy it is finally warm enough to be outside!

April 28, 2007 ~ True Love

2007-04-28T20:38:00.000-05:00

First of all...Happy Birthday Bee! I hope you got our message and had a fantastic day!!

Today's picture is of my son Nolan and my dog, Michael. Our dog sleeps in our bedroom. Last week I heard him get up in the middle of the night and walk out to the hall. He came back in and let out one quick bark which fully awakened both my husband and I. After that, he walked out to the hall again. My husband followed him and there, sitting on the top of the stairs, was my son Nolan who had gotten up and plopped himself on the top step (and was still asleep!). Michael made sure my husband got Nolan back into bed and then, finally, fell back to sleep for the rest of the night at the foot of our bed...What a good doggie!!

This is how I found them a little after the first photo was taken..

April 21, 2007 ~ The Hike

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We went on a hike on Saturday up near our local reservoir. It was cut a bit short due to the a skinned knee. My daughter, who was having a blast, tripped and fell on the gravel path. I took this picture as we were walking back to the car. She was very sad at this moment! Like the wings?!?

April 17, 2007 ~ Dark and Moody

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One of my co-workers has a son that is a student at Virginia Tech. I literally felt my heart drop to my stomach when I turned on the news yesterday. I knew that her son was not only a student there but also an engineering major. He is fine. He was in the building right next to the one where all those innocent people died. I can't imagine how he is feeling right now. I can't imagine how his parents felt yesterday. They unfortunately heard about it on the news before they got in touch with him. Luckily they did not have to wait too long to hear he was safe. It is events like these that make me want to wrap my kids up in a big bubble and never let them out...impossible, I know! Let's all say a prayer for everyone involved in this terrible tragedy...

I took the following pictures yesterday morning before I heard the news. We had a big snowstorm and I liked how I could see our church's steeple through the snow covered trees, so I snapped a few with the Nikon 70-200 2.8 lens I rented and played around with my focus points(I took these through my front window). I thought that they would make good pictures to post with this entry.

April 16, 2007 ~ I'M BACK!!!

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Okay...so I took a little break :) Okay, so it wasn't so little!! My dad is a big fan of my blog (Hi Dad!) and has been teasing me about my lack of posts. Well today, beacuse of the Nor' easter, we have yet another snow day and I am home to post. Because I am a teacher it's great because I get to stay home with my kids on snow days, but because I am a teacher I am sitting here wondering how/when the district is going to have up make up this day as we have already used up all of our allotted snow days. Can they take Memorial Day away? Will we still be in session in July? Yikes...both thoughts are frightening! The following are pictures I took of my daughter about a week ago. She is trying to "catch" a falling snowflake...it's great to be a kid!! :)

March 6, 2007 ~ Words, lines and angles...

2007-03-06T20:04:00.000-05:00

Someone on the board I visit at Babycenter posted a creative shooting challenge and this is what I came up with. The idea was to take photographs of different things in order to "represent" a word. You could take a picture of an object that begins with the letter you want to represent or find the shape of the letter in everyday things. I obviously chose to use lines and angles to represent the letters. It was really fun to walk around my house looking for things that looked like the letter I wanted. I would recommend this challenge to anyone looking for a way to see things in a different way!! I had the hardest time with the letters "e" and "m"...so, can you read my words? This is worth trying out sometime!!

March 4, 2007 ~ Is it March Already?!?!?

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Oops...I missed a week again! I need to get motivated again! I took a couple of my son today and liked how this one came out, so I will share. I promise to attempt to get a picture up every day this week...

February 27, 2007 ~ Tutu Time!

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Well...a lot of you have already seen these pictures (I posted them on both ILP AND Babycenter!) I like how they came back but wish my daughter was more cooperative when it came to taking pictures. The first picture was the shot I had in mind from the start but unfortunately I only got her to look at me once and the shot was a bit blurry. I did my best to pp it but will not be able to print it very big because it is so processed! Oh well...I'll try again soon!

February 23, 2007 ~ Rainbow Tutu!!

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1/60" F/1.8 Aperture priority ISO=200 Bounced flash
Well my son had a birthday party and a play date with his cousins today so my daughter and I stayed home and made a new tutu! She loves rainbows so we went with a rainbow theme. Hopefully tomorrow I can get some pictures of her in it on my white backdrop. That is my plan anyway. I am actually amazed that she is looking at my camera in these. She HATES my camera and usually starts whining when I take it out! Do you think I photograph her too much?!??! I am actually pretty proud of this picture because aside from the crop and frame, it is straight out of the camera. Check it out full sized...not too bad! Can you tell I used my external flash?

February 23, 2007 ~ Two Little Monkeys...

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JUMPING ON THE BED!
My kids had a little fun today in my daughter's bedroom. I took all of these with my 28mm lens. Settings were SS=1/200, ISO=125, f/4.5, external flash bounced off the ceiling. We have been so cooped up with all the snow for so long that it was good to let loose in the house. Needless to say, they had a blast. Their new favorite game is to go up there, turn on the cd player and play "Dance Party"... someday, I'm sure my son will be terribly embarrassed to know he once enjoyed this! I put the picture with dog in to show you all that the bed is really low to the ground (it is actually the bottom part to a trundle bed) so you didn't have to worry about my kids falling off and getting injured :) Have a great weekend everyone!

February 22, 2007 ~ Bath Time

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Wow, it is getting harder and harder to get on here at night. I actually took these yesterday and had every intention of posting them last night. But then I put my son to be and fell asleep right beside him. Needless to say I did not get back on the computer last night!! I am actually off to bed right now...I am exhausted!

Edited to add...Just wanted you all to know that you can click on any picture and it will enlarge!!

February 20, 2007 ~ More Snow

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Okay, although it warmed up drastically today (how pathetic that I consider 40 degrees warm!!!), I thought I'd show another snow picture. This was taken at my parents' house. It is of the small slide leading into their pool. They live on a lake so they tend to get mre snow than others in the area. I thought the way the snow drifted was pretty! This was not taken today but I still wanted to share it!

February 19, 2007~ I'm BAAAACK!!

2007-02-19T20:49:00.000-05:00

Oh dear...I missed a WHOLE week! I am very sorry! Sometimes life just gets in the way. Last Tuesday was my birthday so I went out and celebrated with my husband, Wednesday was Valentines Day so my hubby and I had a nice quiet dinner at home, and I spent Thursday night packing for my "Girls Weekend" (which, by the way, was a lot of fun!!). So those are my excuses :) I am going back at it full force now! Today's pictures ore of my kids out sledding. Did I mention that we have a TON of snow here? We got hammered with it last week and are expecting more tomorrow! YIKES! Oh, and I haven't forgotten that I have been tagged...I'll try to get to that tomorrow!

February 11, 2007 ~ High Key

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I attempted a high key photo shoot today. I have NO other equipment other than my camera and external flash so I used a rather large piece of white marine vinyl I bought at Joanne's as a backdrop and my big window in the front of my house for my lights. I kind of like how they came out...aside from the goofy looks from my son! Unfortunately, my fun was cut short so my son could have some fun. A bunch of his friends came over to ice-skate. They had an absolute BLAST! (Skating is WAY more fun than a photo shoot...especially if you are 5!!) After skating, we went over to my parents' house for dinner. They had a little birthday party for me...my birthday is on Tuesday. My parents bought me a portable lighting studio...how cool is that? I can't wait to try it out! It was a fun night...actually it was a great day altogether!

I wanted to share this one too. A poster on ILP posted instructions on how to change out colors in Photoshop...VERY fun and addicting! These are what I came up with...

February 9, 2007 ~ Friendships...

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I am so lucky that all of my close friends have children close in age to my own. We had another snow day today and decided to get all the kids together at our local Armory for a play date. It was great!! We were the only ones there and the kids ran around and had a blast!!! Afterwards, we all loaded up and went to Pizza Hut for their lunch buffet. It was so funny to look around the table at all of our kids interacting and having fun together. It makes me feel good that our kids will grow up together...they will always have each other...how great is that??

This is my good friend Jacque's daughter, Molly hugging my niece Anna. Molly and my son have spent a lot of time together because they went to the same babysitter before starting school. Jacque and I teach together (how lucky am I to be able to work with all my good friends?!?) We like to tease them by talking about their future proms, wedding, etc...

This is baby Joey...my friend Angie's youngest. Isn't he the cutest baby EVER?? I just want to squeeze him!

January 8, 2007 ~ Chutes and Ladders

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Well, the kids and I played a rousing game of Chutes and Ladders. All was going well until my son, who was way ahead, landed on a chute and stormed off because he was no longer winning!! My daughter was having a ball...she especially like spinning the spinner. Every time it was her turn she would simply move the arrow until it was pointing four with her little fingers, call out "FOUR" and then move her game piece while counting like this, "one, two...seven, eight, nine, TEN!!!!" She did this EVERY time it was her turn! What a riot!

February 7, 2007 ~ Lollipop!

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The focus on this one is off but I still love it!!

Well, these were actually taken yesterday but I still wanted to post them. I did take some pictures today but wasn't real happy with any of them so I m going with these today instead! We had a snow day yesterday. It was so cold that we all thought it would be a great day to keep our PJ's on all day! My son came across these lollipops from Christmas in the pantry and I thought it was a perfect day to crack them open...they enjoyed every minute of them!

February 6, 2007 ~ Snowed In!

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I did not take these pictures today...my dad did, with his d80. My parents live about 10 minutes away from us on a lake. They had a bit of snow last night...

The snow drift reaches the top of a very tall fence in the back. It is hard to believe but there is an in ground swimming pool under all that snow.

What they saw when they opened their garage doors...

A look out their front door...

We had snow here too but not like that. The schools were closed though. When you live in an area that is used to snow, it takes a lot to close down the schools. I think the fact that it has been so cold helped make the decision today. Of course, last night my hubby was supposed to fly in from Colombus...right in the middle of many snow warnings and high winds (at least in our town). When he called me from the airport, I went in to freak out mode and pretty much insisted he give up his flight and spend the night so he could avoid the bad weather. I don't think he was too happy with me...especially since he had to be questioned by airport security when he let them know he wouldn't be taking his scheduled flight and would like to purchase a one way ticket to the same destination the following day...I guess that seemed suspicious to them! Poor guy! He should have just told them to call his hysterical wife...they would have understood immediately...

February 5, 2007 ~ I can't believe it...

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Even my dog hides from the camera!!! :)
I swear he learned this from my children!! :)

Truth be told...I am feeling a bit uninspired lately! I can't imagine finding something to photograph for the next 11 months! I am going to try though! I think part of the problem is the season we are in here in central New York. It has been SO cold and SO snowy...It's hard to get outside and there are only so many things I can photograph inside my house!! Actually the weekend after this coming one I am going out of town for a "girls weekend" with my friends from college. Three of us have birthdays in February so we like to celebrate together every couple of years! I can't wait to go...I feel like I have been looking forward to it forever!! Maybe I'll find some inspiration there...well at least I'll find someone who doesn't cover their face when I hold up a camera!!!

February 3, 2007 ~ Best Buddies

2007-02-03T22:38:00.000-05:00

1/60 F/4 ISO=200 50mm External flash

Today my son went to his "best friend's" 6th birthday party. Steven and Nolan have known each other since birth. They always have a great time together because they have so much in common. His mother, Angie is one of my best friends. We were pregnant together, went to Lamaze together and we work together. I love being friends with Ang. Like our sons, we also have a great time together. I always hate when she is not at work because I look forward to going in to her classroom and chatting. She makes my day more enjoyable! I'm glad my son and I have such good friends in our lives...Happy Birthday Steven!

Oh, and in case you are wondering...In the top picture, Steven is holding up a stuffed groundhog...He was born on February 2nd...Groundhog's Day!!

BEST BUDS!!

February 2, 2007 ~ Tiny Toes...

2007-02-02T20:16:00.000-05:00

1/40 F/2.5 ISO=200 50mm

Well the Picture of the Day challenge on ILP for today was TINY. The very first thing I thought of when I read that post was my daughter's toes. They are not tiny like a newborn baby's but they are the tiniest in my house. I want to be able to capture things during this year that I will look back on and say "Oh, remember when..." Now this picture will always remind me of when her toes were oh so small!!

Edited to add...Oops, the challenge was small, not tiny. Same thing...right??