Bowling Fun

Saturday afternoon we headed off to the bowling alley with some friends. It's so much fun to watch the kids bowl and see their different techniques and varying degrees of competitiveness.









And the agony of a gutter ball.



Adam helps David and they wait for the ball to reach the pins.



Abby plays with the air on the ball return. I love this shot.



Abby checking out the score.



And the rare picture of me... (and since this was taken Abby has lost another top tooth--that's 4 in a row missing).

Great Light Friday Night

It seems as though we were really busy this past week, but I don't really know what we did. I do know that we all just wanted to be at home Friday night and enjoy some time outside. The boys, as usual, were playing basketball and Abby was playing with bubbles and drawing with sidewalk chalk. The weather was wonderful and the light was great.

I decided to attempt silhouettes for the first time. They're not perfect, but I was pretty pleased with the results.









And I just liked these of Abby.

Wordless Wednesday - Poppy Style + Honeysuckle

Beauty Unexpected

Rebecca at beloved the M family journal has a post called Beauty Unexpected and she's asking others to link up with photos of beauty they've found in unexpected places. Last month when Adam and I were at the botanical gardens, I found this spiderweb in the corner of one of the older buildings. I really like the little bit of architecture, the wonder of a spider web (I'm amazed at how those little creatures create such a beautiful piece of art), the rust on the building and the bokeh.

Day at the Park

Today we went to the park with some friends. Adam and Abby had been to this park before but Andrew and I had not. This was no ordinary park. Along with the usual playground, it had a carousel, miniature golf, a train, gem mining and a couple of other things that we didn't get to see because of the rain. Our plan for the day was to meet at the park for a picnic lunch and then let the kids play. Just as lunch was finishing the rain began to fall. And boy did it rain. A few of us were soaked by the time we made it back to the cars, but we waited it out. I'm glad we did, because the rest of the afternoon was really fun.

I think by far the gem mining was the most popular event of the day.







Trying to figure out what types of gems we had found.



After we were finished mining our buckets, we discovered that you could purchase buckets to mine for shark teeth. I think that Adam could have done this for hours.



Andrew and Abby had some fun on the monkey bars.







I'll leave you with my self portrait from today...

Happenings

I've been pretty busy lately. Actually, the kids always keep me busy, but I've had a few personal things in the works as well. I had my first "paid" shoot on Saturday. I was both excited AND nervous. I learned a lot and realized that I really have a lot more to learn. It was really fun though, and I did enjoy myself. Here are a couple of shots from that day.

This little girl is seriously cute and loved being in front of the camera. She also informed me that her hair is auburn. Love that!







This little boy was so much fun...right up until the point that he announced he was ready to go home and then he was done.





And he has twin 18 month old sisters. They were dressed when they came, but quickly got wet in a fountain and their mom stripped them down. LOVE the cheeks!







And then there was this family. The mom is my good work friend (actually she's one of the people I work for) and she graciously set up the shoot for me.



One of the major things I learned was that 4 separate sets of kids to shoot is too much for me in one morning. It was a ton of fun, but I was EXHAUSTED after it was over.

In addition to that major happening in my life, I've also been asked to participate in a silent auction to benefit a local charity and that happens tomorrow night. I was asked to donate a photography session. I'm seriously nervous about that. I ordered my first gallery wrap to be put on display at the auction and it arrived yesterday. Very Cool! If you think about it, please say a prayer that someone actually bids on the session.

Hats

The theme this month over at WPT is Hats. I was planning to sit this month out because my kids, for the most part, only wear hats with a purpose in mind, meaning my kids don't wear hats for fashion. Ha! But then while I was looking through some past images I found these and thought I'd post them. I know there is such a contrast to everyone else's spring-like posts, but hey, it's what I have.

We don't get a lot of snow here in the Charlotte area and this early March snow started in the evening. Andrew's hat definitely has "purpose" in this shot. Not only is it keeping his head warm, it's also keeping it dry. Click on the image to enlarge it and notice the ice that has formed on the corner of his hat.

I really prefer that my pictures "tell" a story and aren't so posed. I think this last one really does that. There cannot be snow without a snowball fight, especially when you have boys. It also explains why Abby chose to go in early, eat popcorn and watch a movie. Unfortunately for Andrew, he was on the losing end of this fight.

Head on over to WPT and jump back into spring with the other moms and the wonderful pictures of their kids.

What Would You Do

What would you do if it had rained A LOT and you wanted to play basketball without getting your hands wet?





Would it occur to you to wear rubber gloves while you play?

Week in Review

I didn't have my camera out much last week which results in not much blogging for me.

Early last week I took Adam and Abby to have their hair cut. Andrew wanted to know if he was going to get his hair cut too. As you can imagine, after cutting his own hair and looking like this immediately after, I opted out of the hair cut for him at this time. His hair is starting to grow and he's now looking like this. You can almost see some hair in the front.



Andrew also loves his basketball t-shirt, and he's thrilled that there are several floating around the house. He wore one to school on Monday. On Tuesday, he comes out dressed and wearing what appears to be the same t-shirt. When I questioned him about wearing the same shirt he wore on Monday, he replied with, "Yesterday I had a 1 on my back, today I have 10." I'm quite certain that everyone noticed the subtle difference a Zero can make.

One morning last week when we arrived at daycare I noticed that Andrew had a chocolate milk smile. He tried to rub it off himself and it just wasn't coming off. I started to help him by giving him a dreaded spit bath. He shook his head no and said, "Here use mine" while sticking out his tongue. So I did.

Abby was invited to a birthday party Friday afternoon at a local indoor waterpark. I took some time of work, and we all went. We had never been there before, and we really had a good time.



Neither Abby nor Adam had any interest in the big slide. Andrew said he'd go down it with me (big surprise), but you have to be 48" tall and he's not quite there yet.



Abby in the Vortex. This was really fun...until Andrew climbed in on his own without a life jacket. He was fine until he came to the break in the wall and realized the water was moving too fast for him, that he couldn't stand up and that he couldn't reach the other side of the wall. Thankfully an older boy rescued him.







I like how the boys look so much alike in this picture--the way they are standing--their hair...they are becoming more and more like two peas in a pod.



Please Mom, can you give a girl a hand?

On Saturday, we attempted to participate in the community yard sale. I'm not quite sure what happened, but there was basically no turn out. We were quite disappointed after the turn out last year (when we didn't participate). To entertain themselves the kids decided to get out some bubbles.



I've always thought of bubbles as calm, sweet, innocent fun. After Saturday, I have a different view. Unfortunately, I didn't capture any pictures of my boys shooting bubbles with their Nerf guns.