My Photo Class Adventure

My photo classes have begun and I’m so excited!!!

My online photo class through Jessica Sprague started us off with shutter speeds. Here is my first assignment. I got the shutter speeds correct, but my composition and camera shake need lots of work!!  I need to work on looking at the photo opportunity and filling the frame. My first picture would have been better as a vertical shot, with Jillian and the bubbles filling the entire frame. My second picture shows my camera shake! haha I thought I was showing motion but I wasn’t really. For this picture to be a success the background needed to be sharp as well. I’ll be practicing this a little more!

fast and slow shutter assignment

This picture below is an example of my panning practice. I still need a lot of work!

Here is some practice with my telephoto lens 🙂

I can’t wait to show you more as I get better!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

We had a wonderful St. Patrick’s Day!

Olivia our Little Leprechaun

Jillian started the day with her music class. Then the girls , my mom, and I went out for sushi. Yum!

When we got home I showed Jillian how to finger paint! She had a blast! it got all over her clothes. haha I don’t even know why I bothered with the apron!

Here she is painting away

For dinner I cooked an Irish beef and cabbage stew. I also made Irish Soda Bread. Mmmm it was delicious! We also had a Green salad that had lettuce, cucumbers, green bell peppers, and avocados.  To drink I made fresh squeezed limeade. My wrist still hurts from juicing 12 limes. For dessert Jillian and I made rainbow cupcakes!! They were so amazing, I’m going to make them every year!!

Rainbow cupcakes

I hope you had a bit of Irish Luck!!

Some examples

So I’m finally posting some of my work with my new camera. I hope that they get better after my photo class!!

Super Excited!

I’ve been taking classes from JessicaSprague.com for all my digital scrapbook things. It is such a great resource! Well, any ways, One of the classes is a photography class with limited seats. Registration opened at 9pm eastern time, so I was on at 6 pm and right when I refresh the site goes down! Aghh I was freaking out, but I got in!! I was checking the site’s forum and only 25 people made it into the class. They said that the server crashed 6 times within 15 minutes. Everyone wanted to get in and I did WHOOO! haha I hope it is worth it! I’m ready to learn how to take great pictures with my new toy.

It would be nice

It would have been nice if the contractor let us know that the Hot Mop was no longer going to happen today! I stayed away from the house all day and came home to a untouched floor. He said he’ll be back tomorrow but I don’t want to spend another day out of the house 🙁 It’s a little difficult with 2 babies!

The March and other things :)

Yesterday I joined a few friends in LA to march for Education! We were a little scared when we showed up because there were some crazy people that came out of the woodworks. It was an experience I’m glad I had! It was interesting to see all the different types of people that joined the rally. We saw this group dressed in Native American dance outfits, feathers galore! We also saw strange performing arts people dancing down the street. The rally ended up in front of the state building in downtown LA with a line of speakers. There were some strange radical groups that started getting rowdy so we decided it was time to leave.

We wore our signs to and from Lacey’s place. One of the signs said, “cuts hurt kids.”  A police car pulled up next to us and the cop in the passenger side pointed to a band-aid and said, “I got cut.” haha I love being a girl. After the march we had Shabu Shabu for dinner. It was delicious and worth the wait! We hung out until about 10:30 ish. I was sure I would make it home in no time at all! LA traffic decided otherwise! It was awful, I hate being stuck in traffic. I didn’t make it home until midnight and I walked in on a starving baby, poor Adrian. Olivia didn’t make it easy for him.

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Today was a pretty easy day at home. I took Jillian around the block in her little push car. She loves riding around in it and it is so much easier now that we have a handle! Jillian has also discovered that she loves coloring with chalk! We played outside today chalking up the driveway. She’s very cute because she asks me to draw very specific things. It’s usually Elmo, a dog, and a cat.

Jillian has begun to be interested in the potty so I bought her a little one. She’ll sit and play on it but up until this point she hasn’t really let us know when she’s going to go. However tonight we had a breakthrough! While Adrian was giving her a bath she said, “poo poo.” Adrian looked in the tub and for a second mistook a brown bathtub crayon for a floater. When his initial relief wore off he ran into action. He whisked Jillian out of the tub and placed her on the potty. He made her sit there and “go.” Haha. So today she officially pooped in the potty. WHOO! It was so cute though, she was a little embarrassed by it. Adrian called me over to come see and Jillian closed the door on me and said, “no.” We made a big deal of cheering for her and telling her what a good girl she it. I hope she’ll feel more confident next time.

The Construction has begun!

Monday marked day one of construction. My parents are closing off our vaulted ceiling and putting in a loft space as well as an upstairs laundry room.  I’m super excited about the laundry room!! Monday was demolition day and building of the support beams. It was really scary walking out there not having a banister. The first day was so noisy! My mom, the girls and I fled to Huntington Beach. We played at the park and then had lunch with Adrian, my dad, and Jason.

The house was so dusty that we decided it was not a good environment for the girls. We stayed over at my aunt’s house. It’s so great having a wonderful family! It was a rough night however since their guest bed is only a double. We had the bassinet for Olivia and a sleeping bag for Jillian, but we ended up having all 4 of us in the bed. Adrian and I both woke up with soar necks!

On Tuesday they completed the floor. It looks so different! It is really neat having so much room upstairs. The dust wasn’t as bad on Tuesday so we decided just to stay in our own bed. We also had a good night putting Jillian to bed! We’ve been sleep training and last night was very mellow. She was quiet in her room playing, this is much better than screaming! It only took her about 30 minutes to fall asleep. YAY!

Today I took both girls to music class. Jillian is the wild child there haha! She is so comfortable there! I’m going to sign her up for a mommy and me princess ballet class through the city. I think she’ll have fun since she likes to dance. But it will be new so she may not be as outgoing as she is in music.

We had our one month check up today for Olivia. I can’t believe it’s already been a month!!! Time just flies! I’m glad I don’t have to go back to work in 2 weeks that would just be awful to have to leave my babies!! Any whoo… I’ve come to find that the insurance department at the district is totally LAME! They didn’t turn in my paperwork to Blue Cross! We had to reschedule our doctor’s appointment, it would have cost us $145 just to see the doctor!!! I’m so frustrated! I have to talk to the insurance department tomorrow and figure out what to do! UGH!

Tomorrow is the March for California’s Education. The march begins in LA and ends in Sacramento. I’m doing my part in LA 🙂 http://www.fight4cafuture.com

“Teeth”

Jillian loves to brush her teeth. She often runs to the bathroom saying teeth. However, she is only content when we smear the brush with her toothpaste. I think it’s candy to her haha. (Flouride Free toothpaste by the way). We broke out her new toothbrush today. She was very excited. Her Elmo brush was getting a little tattered. We have moved onto a Snoopy brush. She loves dogs, so it was okay to stray away from Elmo.

New Toy

We bought a digital SLR camera today!  We got a Canon Rebel XSI. I’m really excited!! I’m going to try to take a class at Saddleback so that I can master my camera. I’m hoping that this will solve my photographer issues.

I’ll post some pictures later. Right now we’re just playing with it.

Adventures in Digital Scrapbooking

I’ve been digitally scrapbooking now for almost a year 🙂 Yay me! Recently I’ve become more and more interested in making my own things rather than only using other people’s materials. Here is my first attempt in making a paper pack. If anyone out there is into Photoshop and using fun “paper” you are welcome to download my pack. It’s a freebie, whoo!

DOWNLOAD BY CLICKING HERE