Tag: pictures

P-p-p-pictures!

So I tackled the memory card issue today, in addition to getting a haircut. I have pictures of our Christmas celebration, and pictures of my brother’s ordination!

Here are photos of our Christmas:
<a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/101119887511887245332/Christmas2011"https://picasaweb.google.com/101119887511887245332/Christmas2011

And here are some really nice pictures of my brother’s ordination. It was an experience that merits its own blog post – we’ll see if that ever happens!
https://picasaweb.google.com/101119887511887245332/MattsOrdination

My camera says I live a rich and full life

This weekend I tackled the gargantuan task of emptying both of my cameras of their memories. (This was a downside I had not anticipated of getting a “nice” camera. I still use my point and shoot, so I’ve basically doubled my work!) As a result, I now present you with a complete grab bag of pictures. These include:

– Biking
– Buying a new car
– Easter
– My brother’s graduation
– The carnival that came to town
– Camping
– Our adventure walk

June 2011 (Picasa)

Enjoy!

Twenty bookes, clad in black or red

It’s been a while since I last gave you an update about what my boys were doing. Now that they’re both out of the “monthly” mode (and heck, my BLOG is practically at a monthly update level. I can’t tell you how much I miss writing more frequently!) it’s more challenging to highlight their growth.

With Grey, the big news is how big and capable he’s getting. I suppose there are a thousand steps on the road towards self-sufficiency, but each one is thrilling to a parent. For example, Grey has successfully:
– Gotten out bowls for he and his brother
– Gotten out cereal
– Poured the cereal in the bowls (without spilling)
– Gotten the milk out of the fridge
– Poured the milk on the cereal (without spilling)
– Gotten out spoons
– Brought spoons and cereal bowls over to the living room where the boys break their fast
If I could teach him to put the milk BACK, and combined with his terrifyingly acute control of the television apparatus, I might finally be able to sleep in on Saturday mornings!

The greatest new development for Grey, though, is around books. He had a great day today. He graduated levels in swimming class, ably making his way around the pool with limited bouyantical aid. He tested for his next belt in aikido, competently demonstrating Kata-tori Kokyu-nage, among other techniques. So I decided, while obtaining the requisite present for a birthday party tomorrow, I’d get him a new book. I hesitated, among the scant options in Target. The picture books all seemed a little simple. He’s been doing a great job reading lately. So instead, I picked up a simple chapter book The Magic Treehouse: Dinosaurs Before Dark. As we headed to the airport to drop grandma off (Bye grandma!), Grey set aside his DS in order to read.

An hour ago, sitting at my feet as I blogged, he finished the book, face flush with enjoyment and pride. He had read the last several chapters to himself, only the pace of page-turning a clue that every single word was getting its due. He really read it. Himself. It was his first full chapter book. I have a sneaking hunch that it will not be his last. (Possibly because he went to his room, pulled out about three other books, and read his favorite parts of them.)

A real reader! I have a real reader! We can read together! YAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!!!!

I fondly remember when my brother (who, by the way, will be graduating from Princeton Seminary this spring. If anyone’s looking for a nice Presbyterian Minister, let me know) began to read. I remember the conversation we older ones had, jealously laying out the wonderful books he would be able to read for the first time.

Grey, reading a Scooby Doo coloring book. It’s Dr. Jekyl, by the way!

My youngest son has been no slouch in the “fun” department either. He loves books deeply. Unlike his brother, he’s willing to sometimes be in a different room than we’re in. I’ve seen him spend a good 45 minutes alone in his room, going through all his books. (Which usually leads to a several inch deep carpet of books in his room… the prices you pay!) Thane’s absolute favorite books in the entire world are the “How Do Dinosaurs…” series. This particularly excellent set of books doesn’t have generic, badly researched dinosaurs like so many of kiddo dino books do. Nor does it happily stop with the oligarchy of Tyrannosaurus Rex, Stegosaurus, Brontosaurus like the rest of them do. No, there’s some new ones in these books…. Comsognathus, Pachycephalusaurus, Tapejara. And Thane, although not yet potty trained, has complete mastery over this entire pantheon.

I think he likes to categorize things — to know the names and be able to identify things. Or maybe he just likes dinosaurs. He has finally mastered his letters and numbers. But I’ll be honest: I think he got the dinosaurs first.

As he plops his bottom down onto my lap, beloved “How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You” in hand for the 9,234th time (demanding I identify each and every dinosaur on each and every page before reading the text – as if he doesn’t know), I admit that I’m caught between the desire for him to be an early reader too… and the desire to have many long year before me of “Mom, can you read this?”

Thane, reviewing his dinosaurs. Dilphosaurus, Protoceratops, Carnosaurus, Dilophosaurus, Velociraptor, Apatosaurus….

A full set of pictures

Follow ups

Well, my fellow New Englanders, I did my best. I figured writing about the impending snow storm would make it, in the spirit of New England storms, become a non-event. Last night, as the hour for its arrival passed with a few errant snowflakes, I hoped.

It was not to be. Now, I try really hard not to complain about snow in New England in winter. (Or 100 degrees with 90% humidity in summer.) At least, no more than the standard complaints. But really. This is unacceptable. My husband I each put over two hours in shovelling our driveway out again. We had to carry snow across the street from the first shovelsful. It would’ve been a significant snowfall if it was the first of the year — maybe a little over a foot. But coming on top of existing berms, it was brutal. And you know, I consider that in the modern life, there are very tasks jobs where my gender matters. Hardly any really. But when the snow piles are 5 feet high, it turns out upper body strength is at a premium. I simply could not get the snow high enough for most of the locations, so I had to walk a long, long way carrying heavy snow to clear it.

I did, however, sneak in 5 minutes of pictures to show just how bad it was today. I was hoping to get all artistic and try out camera settings etc, but there was just Too. Much. Snow. As it was, I made it to work at the crack of 11 this morning. The only saving grace was that everyone else has to deal with the same snow.

Also, Grey has been successfully signed up for Kindergarten. It was rather anticlimactic. The woman at the front desk seemed very surprised that I’d actually read the web site, filled out the appropriate paperwork and had the needed documents already copied. Hopefully she favorably remembers me forever from now. Or at least for the, er, 7 years she and I will be BFFs.

(Takes a look at her camera memory card.) Hey, there are some other arty pictures here too, with me trying to figure out my camera. Fun! (OK, I admit it. I’m not feeling too hot. I have the uneasy sense that this blog post doesn’t have any coherence. That’s a classic combination for a picture post!)

Perry the Platypus wears a hat.
Perry the Platypus wears a hat.
Date night. I won this round on behalf of the Allies.
This is the capability that made me really want a new camera. You can't do this with a point-and-shoot. At least not mine.
We played a game called Arimaa. My husband won. Then he spent a week reading up on strategy.
I love this chess set.
They spent hours with this "house" they built
It's so hard to take pictures of lots of snow.
It's so hard to take pictures of lots of snow.
Where would you put this snow?
Where would you put this snow?
Snow shoveling is a neighborhood activity. We were all out today, and the kids played while we shoveled.
Snow shoveling is a neighborhood activity. We were all out today, and the kids played while we shoveled.
Where we do put the snow. Those are stairs, if you can't tell.
Where we do put the snow. Those are stairs, if you can't tell.

Here are all the pictures

All I want for Christmas is a digital SLR

This, my friends, is a perfect Christmas. We’re at my mother-in-law’s house… which is to say we’re completely spoiled. The place is all Christmasy. She has, at least count, six Christmas trees up, two full size and several smaller ones. She has about 6 batches of baked goods and every possible treat you can imagine. She also bought out several toy and clothing stores to outfit us. She told us not to pack anything… she had everything – and she does!

I spent this lovely hour today: my husband was watching Tron, the boys were down pretending to nap, the Christmas music was on, the fireplace was roaring and in an extremely unexpected turn of events, it was snowing. I sat on the couch, quiet, and read “The Dark is Rising”, which is my favorite Christmas book. It was an astonishingly lovely moment.

Anyway, for Christmas Santa Husband bought me a Digital SLR camera. I bought a photography book a while back and read it through. This permitted me to know exactly what my point and shoot could or could not do. It can actually do a lot. I use ISO all the time and I think it immeasurably improved my pictures. But there were things I couldn’t do: anything with detachable lenses and most importantly f-stops. I thought about it for about two years. But I decided: I wanted a real camera. So I told my husband and left him to do all the research on which one was best yadda yadda. My new camera is a Pentak DAL 18-55 mm F3.5 – 5.6 AL.

It’s my first non-point-and-shoot, so I’m probably not well qualified to review it. But I have spent, oh, about 24 hours with it now and taken over 300 pictures. It’s a leap of faith to record Christmas morning on your brand new camera (do you know how to take the lens cap off?) but we did it. Here are all the pictures, but let me call some out:

This here explains why I needed this camera. In a point in shoot, usually, most of the picture in the camera is sharp. That’s great – it means Aunt Agnes isn’t a blur (or everything is) – but it also leads to flatter pictures. Snapshots. Nothing wrong with that, but I wanted more. So here is a “non flat” set of the same pictures:

Rear focus - front blurred
Rear focus - front blurred

Forward focus - blurred back
Forward focus - blurred back

And for your viewing pleasure, here’s a full set of Christmas pictures!.

PS – I have totally not figured out how to work my camera! But I’m looking forward to doing so!

Mocksgiving and other pictures

It’s Christmas card time of year. I usually do ridiculously complicated Christmas cards. In recent years, my cards have involved:
1) Hand-stamped return address
2) Hand-stamped stamp in corner of envelope
3) Hand-addressed
4) Christmas card with personal note
5) Christmas letter (sometimes with personal signature)
6) Lovely family portrait picture

(I usually do about 80 of these)

There’s a chance that I might not live up to that this year. Let’s take, for example, the family portrait. It’s already pretty late to get one taken. And it requires planning. Money. And a time when we are free and no one is guaranteed to be hungry, tired, cranky, or demanding “red car! red car! red car!!!!”. Yeah. So then I wen through my 2010 pictures looking for that great picture where both my boys are looking at the camera and smiling. Now, I’ve taken a lot of pictures this year. Probably over a thousand. You’d think that there would, you know, be that picture. But you would not be the mother of a 2 and a 5 year old. There are few enough pictures where they’re both looking at the camera.

So a month ago, I decided to set this up. I found some scenic locations, and asked the boys to stand together, arms around each other, looking filial. HA!

I’m thinking this might be a good year to skip the family portrait. Still! Here are my attempts, along with Mocksgiving pictures (some great ones there!) and a bonus video of Thane at the Museum of Dinosaurs Science, talking about his favorite dinosaurs. (Tapejara, Neovenator, etc. You know. The classics.)

Livin’ ain’t easy

Two or three times a year, I get stuck in a funk. It’s usually around March. (Heck, it usually IS all of March.) September isn’t my standard time for murky thoughts — I like it too much. But I’m in a sort of gap at work (our new organizational structure gets announced Friday — my projects are going without much intervention, it makes no sense for me to ask my old boss for work and my new boss is too busy to delegate until I actually report to them). I hate being bored at work. Hate it. I complain about it when I’m working hard and barely have time to check my email, never mind craft long-winded blog posts on long-winded books. But I actually greatly prefer that to “looking busy”. I hate looking busy. I like BEING busy, as long as I get to go home at the end of the day.

Anyway, that’s the only external factor to my funkosity. (Well, that and the small hurts of life that young boys accumulate. Thane currently has a heck of a shiner, and Grey has a minor issue that I’m not going into on the internet.) Life as a young parent is hard. I’m sure it’s always been hard. Every time I go to complain, I read the Economist about childhood malnutrition rates, or catch the news about the violence happening 10 miles south of here, or read Herodotus with all the uncertainty and violence they experienced. I’m never unaware of how extremely and supremely lucky I am — joyfully married, two fantastic and healthy kids, two great jobs, a house with minute but existing positive equity that we really like, great neighbors, and excellent church that isn’t doing the horrible political blowups you sometimes witness, good health. Really. I know I have it all. (And I’ve read enough medieval literature to know that when you’re at the top of the Wheel of Fate, there’s only one direction to go. Fortunately, I’m not King yet.) But it’s still hard sometimes. (And yes, mom, I am getting exercise. I ran two miles yesterday and worked out on Monday too. So I’m bummed AND sore.)

A similar parent on my blog roll was writing this week about the tradeoffs of being a working parent, and it’s true. There’s a constant negotiation. There’s a constant option to feel like you are shortchanging someone. Most of the time I keep my balance, like a woodsman balancing on a log in the water, constantly running to stand still. Every once in a while I miss my footing, fall in, and have to climb back out again. I say this as a statement of fact. Not as a plea for help, or an excuse. That’s just where I am and what it feels like. I don’t know yet if it gets easier when you (they) get older. I’ve heard it doesn’t — that you trade food-throwing and tantrums for soccer practice and tantrums. I prefer not accept the conventional wisdom on older children. My husband and I were both pretty good teens (I’d say very good but there were about 6 months of my youth that were a touch rocky). Why should we necessarily assume our kids will be tougher than we were? Both our sets of parents either have amnesia, or seemed to rather enjoy being our parents. We can hope the same will be true for us.

Anyway, to sum up, I’m blue. I anticipate ceasing being blue next week, when I will resume being busy.

To get you out of the depressive slump I’ve just put you in, I offer Camp Gramp portraits! The pictures this year were done by the talented Coelynn McIninch. I’d like to commend her work and professionalism. She did a great job with the kids (no easy task) including the two big kids who are really hard to get to sit down for pictures (yes, I am speaking of my parents). If you’re in Massachusetts, I’d wholeheartedly recommend her for your portrait/wedding/baby needs!

Sating your car-related curiosity

I’m sure you’ll all be super-relieved to hear the outcome to our car woes. Well, at least part of hit. After three weeks of attempting to fix the fact that driving Brunhilde bore an uncanny resemblance to riding a bucking bronco, she is finally fixed! The transmission place replaced a solenoid and now it’s happy. I don’t know what a solenoid is, but I do know that getting ANYTHING fixed on a car for $275 calls for a celebration. So now she’s had all sorts of codes fixed by Midas, which, um, I’m sure will be great AND she’s stopped lurching around. Huzzah! Now to bring the other car in for the $500 missing trim…. really soon. I swear. Then again, duct tape is attractive….

In other completely fascinating and expensive news, we’re bringing in a contractor to work on the rotting wood on our window frames. You know, I knew that owning a home would involve expensive maintenance, but I’d never guessed just how BORING the expensive maintenance would be. I imagined, you know, redoing the bathroom. Or something. Not window frames. Ah well.

So now that you’ve suffered through reading about my car and house woes, I reward you with pictures! Of cute kids! Only some of whom are mine! (And a bok choy.)

http://picasaweb.google.com/fairoriana/September2010#