New Niece and New Camera

How lucky am I am. I finally decided to take the plunge and buy a full frame camera and two days after it arrives my first niece is born. Its been a perfect way to test out my camera in different settings and under different lighting conditions with different lenses. I am so excited.

More importantly I am getting to photograph my first niece or nephew. My brother and his wife gave birth April 24 and 10:15 pm to a beautiful baby girl who was only 5 lbs, 10 oz and 18 3/4 inches long. I have to admit as much as I have seen these two with my own kids it is shocking to see them with one of their own. So far they are great parents and excited to be in this stage of their life, but a bit overwhelmed. They have some idea of what to expect since they watched me go through it twice, but nothing can prepare you for parenthood and the exhaustion. I can just see in my brothers and Annie's eyes how tired they are, but they have a new baby. As my brother has said to me several times today, "why are you even thinking of having three Heather, one is just so hard." I just chuckle and say, "I know."

So the first opportunity to photograph my new niece was at the hospital. I told Glenn and Annie I probably wouldn't visit them there, but I couldn't resist myself. The day after she was born I raced from my kindergarten orientation meeting and headed to the hospital. It was 7:30 at night and the room was very poorly lit. This made photographing the couple very challenging. I cranked up my ISO to 1600 and just tested it out. Might as well go for it first thing right? This is one of the reasons I went full frame.

The results were gorgeous! I couldn't believe the lack of noise and how crystal clear the images were coming out. It made me wonder why I never converted sooner. I knew my pictures would be clearer, its just amazing to see the camera at work with your own art.

Here are several pictures of Lydia Claire with her mom and dad at the hospital.

 

Then today at only 5 days old I of course headed over to the new parent's house to try and get her newborn portraits. I need to read the newborn handbook or watch a newborn photographers in action. I seriously don't know how they get the naked on the belly, sleeping shots. I have tried this now twice, with my friend Christine and with Lydia and I failed both times. At one point we got Lydia undressed and sleeping and then she woke up and rolled over?! My kid didn't roll over until 3 months, but this 5 lbs little girl is doing it already. So I did my best, but she wanted to nurse and all the pictures overstimulated her many times over. Not entirely happy with what I got, but its workable,. I need more practice with this whole newborn thing I completely admit it.

Oh and the blanket we used, Annie made specifically for Lydia so I thought it would be sweet and sentimental to use in her portraits.

I don't know why, but today I only happen to get Lydia lying on Glenn's chest although she was with mommy a lot. I'll work on that next time. I seriously can't believe my brother is a father. We also joked that Lydia refuses to keep her arms in the swaddle just like Erik did as a baby. Must be a Gotlieb trait since Erik definitely takes after me more.

Wheels and Strawberries

This week is a very busy one for us. We're getting a new roof on our house, almost finished today, and as luck would have it we had two very big events to keep us out of the house most of the afternoon and away from the roofers.

Here are the boys watching the conveyor belt as they moved the roofing supplies to the roof. They were fascinated, but at a safe distance. When they were outside watching they got scared.

Later that day we went to the annual wheel-a-thon at Erik's preschool. I was thinking about this event and it really isn't a big deal for the M/W/F crowd as most of the kids are leaving the school this next year. Erik definitely won't be there again. We still have two more years through Elliot so I asked for donations and went with full enthusiasm.

This event is organized chaos and as luck would have it, this week is very hot, and so was this event. It didn't stop the bike riders. Red faced, huffing, hungry, they kept on biking. Poor Elliot had to sit with me most of the time and looked longily at the bikes. He REALLY wanted to ride a bike in the wheel-a-thon.

Gearing up for the big race everyone was excited and Erik could hardly contain himself he wanted to ride his bike at school very badly.

Then they were off and riding in circles at school. In the meantime Elliot and I bought pizza and drinks and ate them watching Erik. He had enough kids to talk to and play around with to be happy for a limited time. Once he spotted the bounce house upstairs I couldn't keep him around anymore.

 

Snow cones were perfect for a hot day of riding bikes.

Erik's medal for participating. Unfortunately we lost it that day, but luckily Erik has completely forgotten about it. Better not show him this picture!!

As if the wheel-a-thon wasn't enough excitement, the very next day Erik's mommy & me school had a field trip to Underwood Farms to go on a tractor ride and pick strawberries. I was thinking, leading up to this, how perfect an activity this is for Elliot who is fruit and animal obsessed and how it wouldn't be that big of a hit for Erik. I was right on the money. Erik went along with it and by the end was sitting by me crying in exhaustion, but Elliot could have kept on going all day if I let him.

So while we were waiting for all the parents and kids to arrive we played on hay, climbed hills and looked at animals. A perfect way to start. Unfortunately Elliot fell running the down the hill and got a bloody nose and I had no wipes for the dried blood. Excuse his nose in the strawberry pictures.

 

 

Then we took a tractor ride to pick strawberries. My only lens I brought didn't work on the tractor so only a iPhone photo which I posted on Facebook.  The boys got really into picking strawberries. We had three baskets to fill and the boys were very picky about finding the reddest strawberries and filling their and my basket. Seriously, I have to do this again, they LOVED it a ton.

 

 

Then back on the tractor I let them eat a strawberry. Elliot chose to hold his and Erik chose to have a taste.

Then we had lunch before heading off to look at all the animals and the other amenities that Underwood offers. There are a lot and it costs a lot of money. Its only $3 to get it, but they get you other ways.

This picture is fun for me because everytime we are here I take a picture of each boy in this window. We haven't been here in about 1.5 years so here is our updated picture.

We mostly wandered around the farm looking at the features but it was SUPER hot, like almost 90 degrees hot, so we were miserable. I didn't want to wait in line for anything and the boys weren't super pushy about wanting any rides. Eventually they did ask to ride the tractors. Elliot as usual quit and hated it and Erik rode it but without enthusiasm. Basically they were over the farm quickly. Erik was so tired by noon he was almost hysterically in tears and begging to go home, but Elliot was having too much fun in the train to leave. When I finally got them in the car Erik was asleep in mer minutes which is unusual for him these day. Definitely a hot day at Underwood.