Catching up…

Finally, I feel like I can breathe.

The last month has been such a whirl­wind in our lives, but a won­der­ful one.  When I look back at the last few weeks, I won­der how we sur­vived, but we did, thank God, and we’re all set­tling in.  We couldn’t have done it with­out the help of our fam­ily.  We hired some amaz­ing movers as well to help.  If you are in need of a mov­ing com­pany, I highly rec­om­mend Two Men and a Truck.  They were A M A Z I N G.  The best money we ever spent.

We offi­cially moved into our new house on the 26th.  It’s been a lit­tle over a week, but now it’s begin­ng­ing to feel like we’ve been there MUCH longer than that.  I drive by Tyne Lane every day and won­der how our cute first house is doing.  I’m sure the new own­ers are lov­ing it, but part of me does miss it just a little.

We also had an awful deci­sion to make about a week before our move.  Our dog, Zeus, was 9 years old (that’s senior for a Dober­man) and his health had been declin­ing pretty quickly over the last few weeks.  We knew the time was com­ing, as hor­ri­ble of a deci­sion as it was, we made the choice to put him to sleep and let him cross the Rain­bow Bridge.  It was a very sad day for our fam­ily, but we knew in the long run, it was the right deci­sion. 

We’re now get­ting set­tled into our new home.  I have been tak­ing a few pics here and there, but it’s been such a mess with boxes and unpack­ing, that I’ve been hold­ing out on tak­ing too many until it’s all pret­tied up.   So, when it’s all nice and pretty for B’s party this week­end, I’ll be sure to take some new ones.

Speak­ing of The Princess, can you believe she’s turn­ing ONE on Sun­day?  I know I sure can’t!!  We took her one year pho­tos on Sun­day and did a cake smash.  Stay tuned for those, but here’s one of my faves of her laugh­ing at her brother.  And I LOVE my new nat­ural light stu­dio in the house!!  I can’t wait to use it over the com­ing years!!

While I’m on the sub­ject of photography…I’m hav­ing an amaz­ingly fun con­test over at the Ten Tiny Toes Blog.  Def­i­nitely go and check it out and I’d love to have you join in the fun!

We’re here and alive…

It’s been a WHIRLWIND the last week and a half.  Lots of ups and downs to say the least, but I’m happy to report that we’re all moved and get­ting set­tled into our new house.  Pic­tures are com­ing soon, I promise!!  My poor cam­era has been neglected lately, but I’ll be mak­ing up for that big time in the next few weeks

We LOVE the house though.  I feel like we’re liv­ing in a hotel and will be going back “home” in a few days to our old house though! LOL  The kids are adjust­ing well and life is get­ting back to a some­what nor­mal rou­tine again.

We’re excited for the weather to warm out so we can get out and get to know our new neigh­bors and get to the park down the street!

Now…we have to get ready for the big FIRST BIRTHDAY in just a week and a half!  Can’t wait!

Project 52: Week 6

We haven’t been see­ing much of this stuff this year, now have we?

Here are a few macro shots of the gor­geous giant flakes we had the other morn­ing.  These were on the win­dows of my truck (since I can no longer park in the garage!)

Project 52: Week 4

Whew, I almost didn’t get one in this week!  We started doing some pretty hefty pack­ing this week­end.  Hope­fully I can share more details about all of that VERY soon!  It’s GOOD NEWS *we think*.

Here’s week 4, I thought it was very fit­ting and prob­a­bly will be for the next lit­tle while.

Are you ready?

I *think* we’re ready.  At least I hope we are!  All that’s left for me to do is order the gro­ceries (I’m doing this online and then going to pick them up on Wednes­day I think).  All of the presents have been pur­chased and wrapped and I can­not wait to GIVE all of our gifts this year.  It’s def­i­nitely more fun than receiving!

Last Fri­day Tyson had his lit­tle Christ­mas pro­gram at preschool.  While the pro­gram con­sisted mostly of a local choir singing some songs, at the end, the kids got to join them and sing a few songs.  they were SO cute!  And Tyson did great and knew most all of the words to the songs (and I could even hear his cute lit­tle voice singing).

Here’s a lit­tle snip­pet of Rudolph the Red Nosed Rein­deer.  He get’s VERY into it about 1/3 of the way in.

Last night I was play­ing with a fun lit­tle tech­nique on how to get “shaped” bokeh.  This was a good learn­ing expe­ri­ence for me because for the first time ever, I had to man­u­ally focus.  But it was SO cool!  I’m try­ing to fig­ure out what other shapes I could do…

This was just a star­burst sort of shape

This was my attempt at a snowflake shape, but clearly, I need to work on my snowflake cut­ting skills…maybe Tyson can help me!

And last, but not least, Christ­mas tree bokeh!

So, what do you think?