What I am Doing These Days...

If you start noticing some improvement in my photography over the next few weeks, there is a reason. My wonderful husband paid for me to enroll in a photography class I have been wanting to take as a Christmas gift. AND, that included child care!

I have really enjoyed it so far. My main objective was just to learn how to use the manual settings on my camera so I can start taking more pictures of the boys that are more professional quality. I have struggled with some of the concepts, but things are starting to come together. Tonight, we did a sunset shoot of the Charlotte skyline. At first I was bored, but after the sun set and I started capturing some of these cool images, I was really digging it, AND it was 26 degrees tonight!! My hands were numb after it was over! Check these images....

See the red lines...this is the result of shutter speed being super slow. The red lines are car trails....you can see them in some of the other shots too.


Then we have white trails for the headlights!


The large building in this shot is the new Duke Energy Center, which will become my new office in 2011...it was getting really dark by this time, so the shoot was almost over. BUT, the trails in this one are SUPER COOL!


And, last but certainly not least...Does this look like a magazine cover or what? I am proud of myself....I didn't know I had it in me!

Parade of PJ's...

Here are all the new pajamas we got for Christmas....

Birthday Pictures - Part II

I think Eli loves the kitchen cups as much as we like our gifts!!

This is some COOL paper!

Our friend Amy made these cute bibs for us! We didn't have much use for our cake, so they didn't get too dirty! Mommy was actually able to salvage them to use another time! Amy also embroidered our birthday shirts!!

Birthday Party - Part I

Lucas and Noah's First Birthday Party was a blast! Of course, their Mommy was a total overachiever, but we truly enjoyed entertaining all our family and friends. It was a most special occasion because of who we were celebrating, but very satisfying to Marty and I to have all our closest friends and family with us!

The theme was BLUE and GREEN! Since the boys were small, blue has always been Lucas' color and green was Noah's. That is how we kept their pacifiers separate, blankets, bottles, etc.




The boys both LOVE other children. It was so cute to see all the older kids surrounding them!

Kelci loves babies! She wanted to hold one so badly, but it made her Mom Marci a tad bit nervous!

The Night Someone Always Goes to Bed Mad!!

Wake Forest versus UNC, 7pm ESPN!

Second Stop...Krispy Kreme!

Oh Yeah! JACKPOT!!!! :)

Happy Birthday to Us!! Part I....

I still find it hard to believe my little boys actually turned 1 year old today! Such little blessings...I took the day off from work today and we did some things together. One of those was to make our first trip to Monkey Joes. It is a play area with lots of big, fun bouncy areas and slides. They have an area for mini-monkeys and Lucas and Noah played there most of the time! Daddy took them down some of the big slides...they loved it! Noah was completely fearless, and the fact that they are walking made it much easier on them! We made a trip to another special place after Monkey Joes, but those pictures can wait until tomorrow. Enjoy...