Sisters...

Had to share the outtake first this time, cause it just makes me LAUGH!!  What a classic sister moment!  Hannah was actually trying to help, but Abigail didn't quite see it that way.  And don't worry...no babies were harmed in the making of this photo.

The eyes have it...

Probably the best picture I've ever gotten of Abigail's eyes so far, tho' I wish I'd closed down one more stop.  The dof is so shallow only one eye is fully in focus.  lol.  At any rate, you can finally see the brown ring around her pupil and all the shades of blue/grey around that.  So far, her eyes most closely resemble my eye color.  Still wonder how they'll change as she gets older.  Shot this in the middle of a feeding. She's at that very distracted stage where she stops eating to turn her head toward any little sound.  lol

The end...

And that is officially the end of the Memorial Day photos!  You can say it...."yay"! There were a lot of them, because it's not often we have all 4 of them together.  I wish I had photos from when we were younger of all 4 of us.  Seems like one of us was always operating the camera, so I was happy to get these for Jenny.  I just enjoy shooting people.  It can be frustrating, because humans don't always cooperate, but I love freezing those moments when people are interacting.

Noses...

Love catching playful moments with our sweet little family!

Cutie patootie...

Do you have an editing preference?

Hannah's probably going to grow up with a superiority complex, because we're always commenting on how adorable she is...and Jenny and Nathan are wonderful parents who praise her a lot.  lol.

Funny story....  Last time I tried to cut Hannah's bangs, she was squirming all over the place, trying to avoid the scissors.  Her avoidance tactic was to say "Do you need a hug?"  lol.  A sure fire way to get Grammy to put down the scissors for a minute.  :)  After several tries, I finally managed to trim her bangs and Kara asked, "Hannah...do you know what you are?"  She was planning to say "a stinker", but Hannah looked up into Kara's face and said "bootiful".  We laughed and Kara said..."no...I was going to say..." and Hannah interrupted with "CUTE"!!  Yep....no self esteem problems here!

Because outtakes are just plain funny...

Just thought this was too funny!  Wonder what she's thinking.  She's definitely a lot more interested in Hannah these days!

And here's one of the set up shots...

Hannah is so over it...and Jenny has to keep a hand on Abigail until I'm ready to shoot or she'll roll over.  lol.  It's definitely harder to shoot two, but how much fun!

I love a candid...

I'm still going nuts with remodel prep.  Very little time for photography or the blog, but I'm going to try to keep up a little at a time.  Love, love the sweet moments I was lucky enough to capture here.  I didn't do anything but stand back and click the shutter.  Love it when it's natural and easy!

Pool play...

And she was happy any time someone was holding her.  Several times, as she was playing on the steps, she started to lose her balance when the water shifted.  She would say "I've got you...I've got you"....because that's what we said to her when we held her and she acted nervous.  Silly girl!  It will be fun to watch her warm up to swimming again this year.  Floaties are new and she'll have to get used to them.  Still working out of order on pics here.  There are several from Memorial Day that I still want to process, but very far behind since I'm spending most of my time getting the house ready.  Soon, I hope!

Wrinkled when wet...

Shot for the challenge of "saturated".  Fun wrinkly little feet!  This was her first swim of the season and she was typically hesitant, but no tears...so that was good!   She enjoyed playing with her little toys on the steps.    We'll see how much braver she is next time!

Cuddle bug...

This is out of order, but it's the picture I have ready...so here you go.  Shot for the challenge of "cuddle".  You seriously didn't think I could use anyone but Abigail, right?  This was our best "photo session" to date.  She was so engaging and flirted with me every time I poked my head out from behind the camera.  Sweet baby girl!

A face only a mother could love...

It's gross, but I can't not look!  lol.  One of the cicadas from our yard.  I hear them screeching all day long, but seldom see them. And yes, he's dead.  So, I am officially weird that I had to collect him so I could shoot him.  It always intrigues me to see the details with macro that I miss with the naked eye.  Love those stripey lines on his face and those shiny shiny eyeballs. 

Mono...

I shoot so much color, because I love it...but every once in a while I like to throw in a mono.  I love the delicate details you can see in flower petals in mono that seem to go unnoticed in color. 

In small packages...

I've been going through withdrawal from my regular photography stuff. lol. This was the first time in AGES that I've done a set up shot.  Couldn't resist a little bling for the challenge of "box".  Quote by Mae West. 

Pictured here, the ring Bob had made for me using the antique mine cut diamond I inherited from my grandmother when I turned 25, and the diamond brooch I inherited from her that same year.  Isn't it beautiful?

On the value of cheating...

At this age, it's next to impossible to get a pic of both of them looking at the same time.  So, yep...I resort to PSE to make a composite.   It doesn't always work but, If I'm lucky I can get them aligned correctly.  Technically cheating, but sometimes you do what you have to do.  Love our babies!  Had to resort to flash here.  Super cloudy day.  Just need to remember that sometimes it's worth it to go that route, instead of dealing with noisy pics and soft focus.  REALLY REALLY  need to spend some time learning how to use my hot shoe flash artfully.  If anyone knows of a good link with directions, please pass it on.  I'm almost positive it can be fired remotely, but I don't know how.  I've had it for over a year, so I reckon it's time to learn!  Would love to learn how to use it for some side light.

Warts and all...

We had a little visitor one day last week.  Unusual to see one of these!  Believe he is a toad and not a frog.  Cute little guy.

Stealthy too!

Look who's 5 months old!

Geesh!  I'm really late getting this photo up and it's out of order.  She actually turned 5 months 10 days ago.  No smiles on this day.  :(  She'd had her immunizations the day before and was very subdued.  I think she might be sitting up on her own for next month's monkey pic.  We'll see.  Hannah used to balance on her hands at this age, but this one puts her hands in her mouth and topples over!  lol

Can't get enough of that little face!

Shot for the challenge "Too much". There is no such thing as too much of Hannah!  What a cutie!  I'm always looking for new ways to get natural looking pics of her.  On this day, our neighbor was mowing his lawn and Hannah was very interested in watching.  So, I just placed her behind the tree and let her do her thing.  Love it when it works! 

Ready, set, drool...

Yep, Jenny can forget about wearing clean, dry clothes for a while.  Abigail's a regular drool machine!  lol

Love those big eyes!

He flies through the air with the greatest of ease!

While I was washing the polished silver that day, I was being entertained by this little guy.  Don't know if you can tell, but he's still kind of a baby.  He amazed me by climbing up and down our tiny Japanese Maple below the feeder.  That tree really isn't strong enough to support an animal, but he did it....swaying all the while!  It was really hilarious, because he went up and down, up and down, bobbing his head...trying to get up the courage to jump to the feeder.  And he finally made it!  (Shot for the challenge topple....tho' he was so talented, it was a long time before he toppled off!)

BTW...as always, shot through my window.  It's amazing how you can do that if you shoot wide aperture. 

Farewell to the rat tail...

Hannah has been growing a mullet since she was about 6 months old.  LOL.  It took her FOREVER to grow any hair in the front!  And that long hair in the back just kept getting LONGER.  Nathan affectionately called it her rat tail!  lol.  We've wanted to cut it, but thought it might make it harder to pull up into pigtails, so we've been waiting. Finally decided to do it yesterday!  Hannah squirms like CRAZY when I try to cut her bangs....it takes 3 people to do it, but she was great for the rat tail.  Her puppy and a dvd and snip, snip....we were done!

How do you like her new "do"?  I expect she'll still wear her pigtails a lot, but this is cute too!  She's a big girl now!

History...

I'm so far behind with everything lately, that I've had days where I haven't even taken my camera out of its case.  Hate that!  But I know it's temporary and we ARE making progress on getting the house ready for our big move and remodel.  This post is mainly for my mom.

As we pack up half our house, I'm really trying to sort through things and give away what we haven't used in a long time.  Last week I sorted through the myriad of antique linens and silver I've been given.  When I turned 25, I inherited a hodgepodge of mismatched antique silver from my grandmother.  It was the strangest collection!  I think she used to buy things at estate sales that caught her eye.  There were a million spoons (which I've kept displayed) but very few forks or knives, so not much that was actually usable.  Oddly, I think I had at least 10 pickle forks!  lol.

At any rate, among the odds and ends, there were pieces from one set of silver that I really admired.  They were long out of production, so there was little hope of ever completing a set.  But my mom remembered a friend of hers owned a set.  For YEARS, she tried to convince her friend to sell them.  Finally last year, her friend moved into assisted living and had no use for her silver.  Mom purchased it and brought it to me on her last visit.  It was all wrapped in a towel and I was so busy it just sat in a drawer.  Last week, I FINALLY bought a case for it, so I could polish it and store it without it tarnishing so quickly.  So, this is for you Mom!!!  Look how pretty when it's all organized into a set like this!  I was thrilled to see that we have at least 8 place settings (only missing one knife).  And yep...those 10 pickle forks happen to be this same silver pattern too.   Ha ha!!!

I love that some of the pieces are engraved and I sometimes wonder about the history behind them.  Who used them and for what special occasions did they grace the table?  It's like owning a little bit of history.  And now that they're clean and organized, I can actually begin using them!

Thanks Mom!!!

Forever blowing bubbles...

Love Abigail's chubby cheeks and the bubbles were an added bonus. 

Bee and his shadow...

Don't really care for shooting in full sun like this, but it was the only bee shot I got that day.  And I was diggin' the bee shadow.  Cool. 

Delicacy...

Lantana up close and personal.  Again no cropping on this and I was right on top of them with my macro.  Tiny little things and so pretty!  Love the colors, which admittedly were softened and tweaked a little in PSE.

Homage to an English garden...

No idea what this little flower is...and it's tiny as this was shot with my 105mm with no cropping.  I was probably about 18 in. away from the flowers in forefront.  At any rate, I'm thankful my sweet friend Karen lets me crawl around in her garden.  :)

Cutie Patootie!

She saves her sweetest smiles for her daddy! 

Sister love...

I've been trying to get a variation of this shot for a while now and I've finally given up on perfection.  lol.  We tried on a rainy day with high ISO...cute expressions, too noisy.  We've tried in good light and they squint or squirm or won't both open their eyes at the same time.  So, when they spontaneously held hands and looked in the general direction of the camera, we dubbed it "good enough".   At least for now!  :)

Minds of their own...

Still digging through pics from Memorial Day.  Thought this one was cute, even tho' they're not both engaging with the camera.  One of these days I hope to catch them both looking at the same time!  lol

My recital was last night.  I haven't checked for sure, but think it was my 26th.  Yikes!!!  At any rate, it's been a busy week getting ready for that and I'm far behind on my processing.  Who am I kidding?  I'm far behind on everything!  It always feels great to have the recital behind me tho'.  It was fun to see everyone's parents and I was proud of the kids.  Loved how this pic came out, even tho' the poor lighting hurt the quality some.  Just sorry Sarah Jane was sick and couldn't be with us.  I'm grateful for each of these sweet students and their families.

How did THAT happen?

When did she start looking so grown up???  Guess it was something about this pose.  When she tucked her arms behind her back she suddenly stopped looking like a baby.  Love all that fly away hair!  :)