Pictures at the park

I've been taking a ton of pictures lately for my photography class. The girls now cringe when they see me take the camera out. So I decided to bribe them with a trip to the park if they let me take some pictures of them while we were there.

Last weekend (Easter weekend) we took the girls bikes with us to Pittsburgh and let them ride in the park by Grandma and Papa's house. We took Brooke's 2 wheeler in hopes to get some practice in. Brooke was amazing on her bike. After just a few laps around the park she was riding on her own! No training wheels! I love this picture because you can just see on her face how proud she is :) 

Kitchen remodel

What started out to be just new countertops, has now become a semi-major kitchen remodel! The first thing to change is the range and microwave. Here's the old ones:

New range and microwave:

The next thing in will be a new sink and faucet. Here's the old one:

Here's the new one (still in box):

The counters won't be installed for about 3 more weeks. But they will eventually be Quartz in this Bamboo color shown here:

Braces

Paige has had several orthodontist appointments this year and finally yesterday they put braces on! She just has 4 on the top front teeth. They were also going to put in the palette expander yesterday, but she was quite skittish just getting the braces on so they decided to give her a few weeks to adjust and relax before taking the next step. They want this to be a fairly positive experience for her, even if it takes some extra time getting things going!

Before:

During:

After:

She was like a rockstar once she got to school with her braces. All the kids were coming up to her throughout the day to see her braces. She's either the first or second in her class to have them, but lots more will be starting the process soon as well. The orthodontist lets them pick out the color of the bands. She picked blue this week, but is already thinking of what color she'll change to at our next appointment in 3 weeks!

Busy Weekend

This weekend we tackled replacing the cold air return vent that go across the long hallway wall. Here's a picture of the old vents. They were REALLY horrible:

Here's the new vent that Justin built:

 And a close up of the screen we spray painted white and then the molding he used to frame it:

While I had the paint out, we also spruced up this old school desk we had in the basement for Brooke's room:

Paige's portfolio night

Paige had her portfolio night on Thursday, and I got to see a lot of her work.  She's doing a lot of reading comprehension activities, spelling, and is doing starting multiplication of two-digit numbers using their cool "checkerboard" device.  She says her favorite job, besides her daily journal, is her daily math practice.  She seems to be doing very well!

Happy Halloween!

This year for Halloween the girls decided to be a witch (Brooke) and a Water Fairy (Paige). Paige's costume had LED lights in the skirt that sealed the deal for her.

But first, here's the Cinderella pumpkin that mommy helped Brooke carve:

Here's Brooke after she thought it'd be funny to poke the camera with her broom:

We'll get back to Brooke in a minute. Here's Paige in her fairy costume:

It's going to take a few minutes for Brooke to compose herself (she's very sensitive):

Let's try a picture with Paige:

Paige will do a few more poses while Brooke shakes it off:

And finally, here's Brooke!:

Here they are out on the streets:

Directions

Brooke was asking if she could have a friend of hers from school come over to our house for a playdate. She told me she already gave her friend directions on how to get to our house. These are the directions she gave (excuse the chewing on hair part - that's a current battle of ours).

She's actually fairly accurate with the directions from her school to our house. It is a series of left turns.

The girls

The weather was so nice this weekend, so we did a quick little photo shoot outside.

Ella pictures

Ella has been the subject of my photography homework this week since I was sick all weekend and our evenings have been too hectic to take pictures of the girls. Hopefully I'll get a chance to practice with them soon. Plus, they lose patience with me after a few minutes! Here's a few pictures where I was playing with the Aperture to get shallow and deep Depth of Field.

You'll also notice in the first 2 pictures our new living room! The floors have been refinished, and the wallpaper was removed!

Excuse the crooked picture (not intentional), I was laying on the floor...

Photography Class

In March, our anniversary present to each other was a DSLR camera (Cannon Rebel T3i). And since I know nothing about cameras, I've only been using the Automatic setting to take pictures which seems a little like a waste.

So I signed up to take a 4 week photography class given by a local photographer. The class meets every Tuesday night from 6:30 to 8pm during September. We're halfway through the course and I've already learned a lot. Here's the results from our first photo assignment:

Slow Shutter Speed:

Fast Shutter Speed (I love her hair):
 

Shallow Aperture:


Deep Aperture:

First Day of School 2013

For a walk down memory lane, you can find previous first day of school pictures here:

2012

2011

2010

2009

This year Paige is entering 2nd grade and Brooke is in Preschool (4).

Brooke is not shy of the camera anymore!

Paige was pretty nervous for her first day today, so she was kind of shy this morning.

Until we got her laughing :)