Springtime

Spring is generally my least favorite time of year. I have pretty severe allergies and they are the worst in March and April.

However, I do enjoy the beauty of spring! I love how everything is fresh and new. There's a sudden explosion of color that just isn't there any other time of year.

So, I pop another allergy pill, take a couple puffs of my inhaler and put some eye drops in my eyes and go out to capture the colorful beauty that is springtime!

This is one of my favorite trees ever. It's called a "Ballerina Magnolia". Doesn't it totally remind you of a ballerina?

Improvement!

I feel like all the photography reading I've done in the last 10 days has been worth it. Looking at the pics I took in the first part of last week and comparing them to the ones I took today, I think there is a marked difference in the quality. This is exciting to me! I'm glad my family will have photos they will be proud to show their friends. Here's my fave pic of today...

Taylor lost his first tooth!

My baby lost his first tooth! He was so proud of himself. When Ethan had his first loose tooth, he wouldn't let me touch it. Taylor was the oposite. He wanted me to pull it out! I tried, but was unsuccessful, until Sunday afternoon. He was thrilled when it actually came out, and showed everyone the new window in his mouth.

Sillouettes

Eric had a concert on Sunday. They sang at a really beautiful church over by the Lloyd Center. While the choir was warming up and going over last minute instructions, I spotted these wonderful windows in the church's balcolny. I took the kids over and made them pose for me so I could practice some sillouette techniques I'd read about. These are the best pictures I shot.

Singing in the Rain

More playing with my new camera... it's just so fast and the pics are so clear! I've had a lot of fun capturing some life moments into such clarity!

Today the boys were making me nuts, so when they asked to play outside, I gave them my whole-hearted permission - dispite the rain! Once they were out there, I decided I wanted to play too... but with my camera.

I stood on the doorstep and shot what I could from there. (didnt' want to get the new toy wet!) These are a couple of the moments I caught.

My new toy

I've been telling my husband for a long time that I wanted a new camera... a "fancy" camera. He bought me a Nikon D5000 on Sunday! I'm so excited about it!

I've spent the last several days pouring over the user's manual and learning some of the fun things I can do with my new camera.

Yesterday I took the boys on the MAX to downtown Portland so we could play with my new toy in a different setting. We had a pretty good time. Ethan was a little tired of being told where to sit/stand, but he still enjoyed most of it. Here are some of the pics I took on our little field trip.

Knitting Olympics

Our knitting group decided to have our own olympic challenge during the winter games this year. We had to choose a project that would enable us to learn a new and challenging skill. We were to start our project during the opening ceremonies and it needed to be done by the closing ceremonies. Then everyone who finished their projects gets their name put into a drawing for some fun prizes we donated to the prize bin.

I chose a cute tote bag that came in a nice kit on one of my favorite knitting websites. I would be learning several new skills with this project.

I got a late start because I was feverishly trying to finish my great aunt's birthday afghan. But I started the day after the opening ceremonies, so I wasn't too far behind. The knitting part went really well. It took me a long time, but it turned out really cute.

Then came the hard part... I had to block it... dun, dun, DUN!!! I had never done such a thing before, and it was traumitizing. (Well not really, but I like to be dramatic.) (Blocking is when you get your project wet and pin it to cardboard and let it dry, so it retains the shape you want.) I used over 400 straight pins to get it to the right size! But my biggest challenge still lay ahead. I had to sew a lining into this bag. I am not a seamstress. I called on my good friend Donna, who helped me figure out how to accomplish this. The problem was that the instructions for this bag didn't give you a pattern for the lining... they simply said, "sew in the lining." Thanks for the detailed instructions, right? Donna figured it out, and after about two hours of fussing over this stupid thing, we got it all sewed!

Last I took it all home and put it together (Sewn together by hand). It's a cute bag and I am having fun using it, but I'll never use the pattern again. Well, at least not for a long, LONG time! (We wrote down everything we did so we don't run into the same problem next time.) I truly feel like I've competed in an olympic event. I hope I win a prize for all my hard work!