Costumes

Posted on November 2, 2012 by Mandy

This post is intentionally not titled “Halloween”.

I have decided that I don’t like Halloween. In the past, I have enjoyed pumpkin patch pictures, carving jack-o-lanterns, pumpkin seeds, making fall treats, dressing up and trick or treating! All of the above!

This time around, though, all I’ve done is stress about candy, HFCS, dyes, gluten, soy, and how to keep all of that to a minimum. I’ve felt guilty about not feeling up to going to the pumpkin patch. We didn’t even buy a pumpkin to carve. I have had so many negative feelings about this holiday that I decided to hate it.

But that’s okay! I’m NOT going to beat myself up, because there’s always next year, and we still had fun, and not every holiday has to be perfect. That being said, I will continue to dislike Halloween in the future. Intensely.

I didn’t get many, but here are a couple SOOC pictures of my Ironman and my Cupcake.

Ronan is 3 years 8 months. Ruby is 1 year 8 months. I am 38 weeks pregnant.

Happy Halloween.

Family Portraits

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Mandy

After taking portraits for other families, it made me realize that I haven’t gotten any pictures of MY family. Since… well, since Ruby was born.

So I dressed up my family, packed up the car, and we went to the pumpkin patch. My darling mother-in-law came with and wielded the camera so I could be in a few shots too! I’d love to share a few of my favorites with you.

Do not underestimate the difficulty of getting two children to look at the camera at the same time.

My sweet cherub.

He’s so much fun!

I probably couldn’t be happier with this picture.

Me and my sweet girl!

Every one looks great!… except… oh, Ruby. Hahahahaha.

Oh… I die.

My favorite shot of the day.

Thanks for looking. <3.

Jack and Annie

Posted on October 11, 2011 by Mandy

I’m excited to share these with you!

Yesterday, I had the joy and privileged of photographing the beautiful children of my friend, Erin. Jack and Annie were amazing, and I had a great time… not to mention the wonderful company.

These are a few of my favorite shots.

Thanks so much, Erin. I loved every minute!

S’More Ruby.

Posted on August 29, 2011 by Mandy

She is my sweet model, and I can’t take too many pictures. Kinda love these a lot.

Ruby – 6 Months

Posted on August 26, 2011 by Mandy

Although we’re just a few weeks from 7 months old, here are some “6 month” pictures I took of Ruby… just because I couldn’t pass up the light!

Summer Smiles.

Posted on August 7, 2011 by Mandy

Trying to keep up with getting pictures off of my camera. That is all.

Bed head, crummy face, bug bites and all… I just love this guy.

Baby Led Weaning! BANANA FACE!!

The post-bath silly smiles. She is stunning in blue.

I love the softness of this. I think it accurately conveys his sweet nature. I want to kiss him!

World’s Best Hug. That is happiness right there.

She is this happy! All the time! We are so lucky.

Little man. Little man pants. Suddenly so grown up. Potty training at 2.5 years old.

Ruby is 6 months old, bouncing her way to crawling. Ronan is 2 years and 6 months.

I Learned.

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Mandy

Just for fun, I’m participating in a link up about how much we’ve learned since we took our cameras to manual mode.

I have learned:

I suddenly pay a lot of attention to the light.
Sometimes I’d rather adjust the aperture than the shutter speed – especially when chasing!
I set my auto focus point to the center of the frame, and then focus on eyes… then I keep my button half pressed and frame my shot – that way, no matter how I frame my shot, the eyes are always in focus.
Don’t pass up good lighting!
Sometimes a high ISO is better than a blurry shot.
I keep my camera on multi-shot. I rarely use it… but sometimes, something so wonderful happens that 3-4 of the same shot turns out the one perfect one I may have missed as I stopped to check the replay of the shots.

I took this picture just over a year ago, when I purchased my camera. It was the second day I had it, and I wanted to start out in manual mode. I played with the shutter speed, aperture and ISO for hours before trying it out on Ronan. When I captured this, I couldn’t BELIEVE how good a picture it was. I just kept on improving from there.

And this is one of the pictures I took recently of Ruby. I can probably say it’s the best picture I’ve taken yet. I naturally start to frame pictures in my mind, and can imagine how the finished product might look. It’s a process!