Christmas Cards Pictures

I am still thinking about those black and whites for my house in the meantime my studio was up so we did our Christmas card picture and I offered up my studio to my friends this year. Here is the final picture we choose for our Christmas card.

A very close contender for our Christmas card was this image. One of the only reasons I didn't choose it is because last year for our Christmas card I had a leaning picture of the boys which was extremely cute and I didn't want a repeat of the same thing.

So some of you might be wondering how I got these images with the boys looking natural and all in focus. A couple of tricks and the main one is that I used a tripod. I prefocused on my husband who was sitting in place. Then I set my camera to a high F-stop so everyone was sure to be in focus. I didn't have a remote so I took the pictures with a timer and we could see the light blinking. So as we got ready to take the picture the entire family would say something funny or just pose for the picture. We knew the precise moment it was being taken. As for why my boys look so natural, I have no clue. They get photographed all the time and had been in my studio already so they are use to it I guess. Whatever happened, we just got a lot of good pictures of our family this year. I will say I timed these pictures after dinner when everyone was in a good mood and happy so there were no cranky meltdown. Oh and we bribed the 3-year-old with candy.

Here are a few photos I took of my friends. The first was a bit of a challenge because my friend's 3-year-old daughter did not want to have her picture taken and was just making faces the entire time. I think she just wanted to play with the boys and was being a pain so we would stop.

The next friend I photographed I really liked how she dressed the girls. One of the girls was wearing a dress and the other was wearing a skirt of the same print. Unfortunately since most of the pictures I take are 1/2 body we really couldn't see the skirt most of the time.

  

On my own

I take care of my kids each and every day. I love it, I wouldn't trade it for the world, but I will admit it is trying at time and at the end of the day when daddy gets home to help share in the responsibility I relish that time and get a few minutes where I am not the only one in charge. It is a good feeling no matter how short lived it is until tomorrow.

This last weekend Carl was asked to be the godfather for some good friends of ours in Chicago. In the interest of saving money I just sent Carl on this trip and stayed home with the kids. This trip has been planned for a couple months now. In addition, Carl started a new job a couple months ago that is keeping him busy. A couple weeks ago, he realized right after this trip to Chicago he had to leave for a four-day Las Vegas work trip with only one day inbetween to give me a break. To say he felt guilty was an understatement, he is a good dad, but sometimes there is no guilt involved you have to do what needs to be done.

I am trying to stay strong and in time like this I would usually keep busy with all of our friends and family and that was the plan for the weekend. As luck would have it, Erik started coming down with a cold right before Carl left on his trip and then Elliot got sick on Sunday so we have been stuck at home with colds and not able to distract ourselves with friends and entertainment.

So I am going a little loony here stuck at home with two winey kids and trying to provide them with entertainment. I don't like my children watching tv, more than 30-60 minutes a day. At most they watch 2 hours a day, but since I am strict on that it leaves me with lots of time to fill.

So here is how we spent the weekend. On Saturday Elliot wasn't sick and Erik was starting to have breathing problems so he was no longer snotty. We had two birthday parties planned for that day, but sick kids stopped that in its tracks. I decided a quick trip to the park was in order just to burn off some energy and be around other kids.

Right after the park we met uncle Glenn and Aunt Annie for some dim sum and to say good-bye to cousin Laurie since he is leaving to Taiwan this week. I didn't take pictures because it is too crazy to control both my kids close to nap time and take pictures. We did take a few outside the restaurant, but it was on someone else's camera.

That night Erik had, what I learned was an asthma attack. He has always had breathing treatments when he is sick and we use the nebulizer every couple of hours on him. This particular night the nebulizer wasn't working and my poor little guy could barely breath. There is nothing worse than being a mother and watching your child suffer and be helpless about it. In the middle of the night I am not the most patient person either. On that particular night Erik was up every hour hysterical so I got very little sleep. Unfortunately on Sunday we had plans to travel down to Orange County and see my good friend Christine and her son Enzo. With now, two sick kids, we had to cancel and find other ways to entertain ourselves.

Since Erik was having breathing problems the night before going out in public was no longer an issue and I am not sure I could have done with without a nap. So that morning we stayed home being sick and just cuddled for hours. That afternoon Erik was ready to join in the world again so we decided to drop by his Aunt and Uncle's house to see if they were home and look at their Christmas tree. I am very lucky that my brother only lives 2 miles from my house and loves for us to just surprise visit.

We caught him hanging the lights on his house. It was about to rain so he did it very quickly, but the boys still found it fascinating and were happy to be away from the house.

They invited us to stay for diner and we ordered pizza so my SIL could actually eat a gluten product without feeling guilty about it. Elliot is getting to the stage where is trying on our shoes. So he was walking around the house putting on my shoe. Absolutely adorable!

Uncle Glenn even started a fire for us in the fireplace and Erik was complete fascinated by the process, but careful not to get too close.

Then daddy came home for one day and was off again. On Tuesday morning I knew the boys were grumpy because they were sick and they barely got to see daddy so I decided an excursion to our favorite baseball field would be a perfect place. They could run to burn off energy, but not contaminate other kids because they were both super snotty. I totally forgot about the rain on Sunday and that would mean puddles at the baseball field. I was unprepared with changes of clothes or wipes, but there was little I could do to stop this from happening. So I just let go and let them have fun with it. (pictures taken with my iPhone)

Studio Photography

I am blessed to live in a house where I can easily set up my studio and take pictures of whomever I want whenever I want. I actually have an idea of creating a series of black and white images for wall art. I want individual shots of each of the boys and then a family shot, but I need to work up the courage to create these images; my kids are tough subjects. I bought a new shutter remote so maybe in a couple weeks when Carl is home again I'll finally get these images created. In the meantime here are a few of the out take of of the boys.

So the day I shot these pictures was the very first day my studio was set up. Having a canvas set up does something to a child's mind especially when they have a sibling to push them. So instead of getting my boys to sit nicely, say cheese and create beautiful images, I got wrestle mania. I found it amusing and decided to stop trying to get what I want and just shoot so what if I had to replace the paper. Also I learned after this that my kids look better with clothes on.

Sometimes if you give restless kids a prop they will settle down, but I wasn't entirely sure if I wanted these sunglasses in my final picture.

After my 19 month old went down for a nap my three year old who was actually excited and wanted to take pictures that day. I quickly decided a shirt was probably a better image. Erik isn't fat, but he look better with his shirt on than off. Experiment and take no risks and you'll not find something rewarding.

Deck the Halls

I have always loved Christmas. It reminds me so much of the happiest moments of my childhood and it is chalked full of tradition that I just can't help, but love it. When I was married and it was only Carl and I at our new house I was excited to decorate my house, find beautiful furnishings and show off my house to the max in all its Christmas glory.

Now that I have children the holidays take on a brand new meaning. Carl and I each have our own traditions that we want to share with our children, yet it is fun and exciting to create new traditions unique to our family. The first tradition that started the moment Erik was born is the weekend after Thanksgiving our house gets decorated. This is the last year of our artificial tree so it went up as well.

It was so exciting to watch my 3-year-old explore all the Christmas decoration and realize that it was Christmas time. I think he was a bit confused and thought Christmas was the next day, but eventually he got the idea that was a ways away and we were just decorating.

The first thing we took out were all the Christmas books and Christmas hats. The boys had so much fun trying them on and a santa hat is sitting in my car as a result. As many times as Erik wore the Christmas antlers I just couldn't get him to sit still long enough for a picture.

Then the fun began and we trimmed the Christmas tree. Erik who is three got the concept immediately and was so excited and happy to put ornaments on the Christmas tree. We had to teach him that it was only one ornament per branch. At least he coordinated.

Elliot on the other hand was just kind of going with it, but presented his own unique set of challenges. He is only 19 months old so doesn't really get the concept of Christmas yet. Also he wants to do everything his brother does and is very independent so tried to hang ornaments on the tree, but wouldn't accept help. Finally he gave up and played with them instead.

Here are a few of my traditions, some old and some new that goes on when we are decorating our house. The first is the hearth with the stocking stuck with care. Under a flat screen that you can't hide anyway. Carl gets upset because I hang family stockings instead of the one from his childhood, but sometimes you just need to let go...

This is a collection of Christmas houses that I painted when I was 16 years old. I was thinking this year of painting a new one to add to the collection. I loved to paint ceramics when I was a kid and that was a tradition in my family, we painted and made our own hand made ornaments.

Our final Christmas tree with its new shattered proof ornaments, and a few old ornaments saved from when Carl was a little boy. One of his traditions.

I have taught my husband well. He has a good eye for composition in photography, but none of the technical ability or interest. So I taught him to put the camera on the "green box" and he can take any picture he wants without all my complicated settings getting in the way. Here are a few of his pictures.

Also a note about how I photographed this scene and my equipment. Lately I have found myself using my 24-70 mm lens a lot more. Once I figured out how to control my focus I am getting the exact results I want from it with 0 blur; this use to be a challenge for me. Manually metering all my scenes instead of using AV mode has really changed my photography because I am 100% sure now when the light is off and my shutter speed is too low creating blur. Since most of this was taken at night and this room in my house has very very poor indoor lighting I had to use my flash. Instead of using straight flash I bounced it off my white ceiling and used a reflector card for catch light in the eyes. I barely modified these images  since flash photography is not that interesting to me, but I liked capturing the moment. Gotta have good images for those scrapbook!