practicing with my camera... again

this time we headed down town rock hill after school for me to get some more practice. we had a fun time romping around and ended our time with a trip to the library. my pictures still aren't turning out perfect, but i keep telling myself to keep practicing and surely they'll get better. one of the things i'm really focusing on right now is how to achieve the nice fuzzy back grounds (known as bokeh in the photography world). i'm ending up with too much brightness and pictures a little washed out... but it's practice, right? i find i still love pictures of my children even if the pictures are far from perfect.

i realize these are really sad faces mary scott has... she had fallen down... but sad faces are a part of real life therefore worth capturing

learning how to use my manual settings on my camera

i'm finally diving into the experience of learning how to use the manual settings on my camera. i decided after putting it off for so many months, i needed to just dive in and see if i could at least begin to grasp what all the different settings mean and how they effect the outcome of a picture. this particular afternoon, i and the kids headed out to give it a whirl. they were kind and patient little subjects. and as i practiced, i captured a number of shots that i liked. i still have a far way to go but this is the beginning of chipping away at the world of shooting in manual mode.... we'll wait and see where it takes me!

Judd family Thanksgiving

We were glad to get to celebrate Thanksgiving (a little early) with the whole Judd family this year. We enjoyed a feast indeed and had plenty of family to catch up with... ended up being about 50 people. Scott and Cathy did a lovely job hosting. I was amazed at how completely calm Cathy stayed the whole time. All the children had a great time playing together, and Grandmother Judd seemed to immensely enjoy having all her children, grandchildren and beyond together.

the whole crowd... about to dig into our feast

mary scott putting something in her pocket... cute little bootie

grandmother judd

scott

anderson

cousins playing

mary scott with remnants of chocolate cake all around her mouth

a little popa time

the children always enjoy hanging out with popa. while we were visiting, he took the children on a golf cart ride and made a fire for them one night.... so fun watching them enjoy each other. catherine even cleaned up popa's work space in his shop.

time with dear friends in macon

i know that planning ahead is often the best way to approach situations, but i love the way last minute plans can fall into place beautifully. it was just such an occurrence with some of our dearest friends in macon. brian, i and the kiddos were literally in route to macon when i began calling friends to see if we could all get together for lunch on saturday. and much to my amazement, everybody had the time free so we planned a get-together. we picked up lunch from chick-fil-a then headed over to this great little park down the street. to top off our fun, we arrived at the park to discover they were having an event with rock climbing and pony rides... all free. we couldn't have planned a more fun afternoon had we started months in advance. the children had a blast although we missed maryscott joining in with us. she woke up that morning with a nasty cough and fever so she stayed at home with Nanna to rest. benjamin commented at one point in the car as we were driving to the park that it sure was quiet without mary scott in the car and that he missed her being there. so sweet, and we did indeed miss her. while at the park, benjamin and catherine especially liked the rock wall. i think benjamin must have climbed it at least 10 times. by the end, he had us timing him to see how fast he could make it to the top. brian and i thoroughly enjoyed having a little while to catch up with our friends while the kids had a great time romping around together.

enrichment clusters

One of the things Benjamin and Catherine are really enjoying at their school are enrichment clusters. The last hour of every Friday, they go to their chosen cluster where they participate with children from other classes to learn about different areas of interest they have. For their first cluster, Benjamin participated in CSI (crime scene investigation) and Catherine did Creative Stitching. They both enjoyed learning each week, and I got to go to their end of semester celebration where they shared about what they learned.

benjamin sharing about what he'd learned

catherine's creative stitching friends and teachers

catherine's beautiful work is the one on the left

catherine and maggie, one of her best friends at school

Hallelujah instead of halloween

Realizing how behind I am on blogging as I'm looking back through my pictures. So a few short posts are in order to attempt at getting caught up. We had a great weekend at the end of October with Aunt Peggy and Cathy/Nanna coming up for a visit. We got to spend a little time with cousin Jessica, too. We ate lots of yummy food, did a little shopping and enjoyed getting the kids all dressed up to walk around our neighborhood on Saturday night... in spite of the rain. As we do each year on October 31st, we shared with our children from our hearts about the hope we have in Christ... hallelujah. And encouraged them as we walked through our neighborhood and interacted with others, that we share the love and hope of Christ through our words and our countenance. We had 2 little fairy princesses, a fall princess (created entirely by Catherine's own imagination) and a pioneer.