Photography 101

I finally cashed in on one of the best gifts Austin has ever gotten me. 

For mother's day he set up two photography sessions with our friend, Gerik. Today, Gerik came to our house and helped me understand the settings on my camera better as well as identify good lighting and places to take pictures around our house. He also walked me through the editing process which was SUPER helpful.

It was SO fun. I learned so much in the short time that he was here and am excited to use my new skills and understanding. 

A few tips he gave me:

"Remember to find great light and clean backgrounds. Set your metering mode to the lighting conditions you are in. And shoot with light coming in from behind. Play around with the manual settings on your camera. And have fun."

Here are some of the pictures that we came up with from the morning. 

Adelyn was a great little model for us. Tyler was asleep the whole time so he didn't get to be part of the fun. In our next session we are going to work on how to photograph food and still shots that we often do for the blog. 

There is so much to learn! 

These Two...

I love watching them start to figure each other out. 

 This one is hilarious...

His eyes say it all.

Sweet Chauncey

We've always said that our dog, Chauncey has a select few in his circle of trust but once you're in, he is the BEST. It looks like he's let little Ty-Guy in to his elite pack. 

Yesterday, I walked into the playroom to find this:

I quickly grabbed my camera and caught a few more interactions between the two.

I had to remind Chauncey to be gentle but Tyler didn't seem to mind the nuzzling from his big-dog friend.

This is my favorite.

Blogging is Hard When You Aren't Sleeping

Gosh. It's been a while since I last blogged.
Little man Ty-Guy still prefers a visit from mommy at least twice a night so I am a slave to an early bedtime which majorly cuts into my blogging time. Any little free time that I do have goes to Thriving Home blogs so this little blog gets the leftovers.

My apologies.

Where to start?

Here is a cliff notes version of our life right now:

• Adelyn is two. She is a chatterbug. Talk talk talk all day every day. 
• She learned how to swim this week (with assistance from a little floaty strapped to her). Regardless, she still kicks and paddles around the water like a little fish. I love that our child loves the water already. 
• She just spent almost a week down at "Nanakuk." Austin and I were there the first 4 days with her and left her down there to hang out with Aunt Nice and Uncle Pete for two more days. 
• Tyler is such a smiler. I LOVE it. He coos and grins with the best of them. I'm pretty sure he is going to be an extrovert. 
• Our neighbor's house caught of fire a few nights ago. Turns out it was likely arson. We also found out there has been some stolen dogs in our neighborhood as well as a break-in a few blocks away. Austin and I have beefed up security at our homestead by adding a fake ADT sign in our window as well as a "Beware of Dog" sign on our fence. Our timeline of finding a new house has possibly been moved up a bit. 
• Austin and I are currently in a friendly competition of not eating desserts for a week. If one of us caves, the other gets to choose the next three movies we watch. We are considering changing the competition to see who can go the longest. We love our desserts around here so it's been hard on both of us. 
• We have gone blueberry picking twice. Adelyn doesn't seem to mind if the berries aren't blue. :)
• Adelyn got sick two weeks ago. She turns into a major cuddle bug when she is sick. Poor thing. It took almost four days before she finally kicked the bug. 
• Nana introduced Adelyn to ice cream cones. Now she wants one with every meal. Thanks, Nana.
• We spent the fourth of July with some great friends at a really nice house in Rocheport. Event though a random rain storm blew in, we had a good time. 

I think that wraps up things for now. Here are a few random pictures from the past few weeks.