Opposites Day Twelve: Slow

So Neil and I had WAY too much fun with this assignment. We were supposed to bump our shutter speeds clear up to a few seconds and experiment with light. I wanted to take some cool scenes of a city with car lights, but my kids were in bed and I don't really live in a picturesque city, so I had to come up with something else. I started by making designs in the air with a flashlight, and it kind of evolved from there.... All photos are ISO 200, f/11, 10 sec

To get colors, we put tissue paper over our flashlights

I like how this one lights up the bedroom a little and makes it look like we've hung neon signs

Opposites Day Eleven: Fast

For today's assignment, we were supposed to focus on action shots. If you bump up your shutter speed, you can capture all the little details of motion. I also had fun playing with the continuous servo, which is when you hold down the shutter and the camera takes successive pictures. It's fun to watch flipbook-type images when you do that! I had my kids do all sorts of fun outside things, and I tried to catch them mid-action. Some of them worked pretty well!

ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/1250

ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/400

ISO 100, f/9, 1/500

ISO 100, f/10, 1/320

This one should probably go under tomorrow's "slow" theme because my shutter speed was only 1/5, but I like that the panning effect conveys a fast feel. ISO 200, f/36, 1/5

Easter

We had a lot of fun on Easter this year, and as always, it was filled with lots of things to do! I started off the day by trying to get a picture of my kids before they got their clothes dirty, hair messy, etc. Unfortunately, it was quite cold outside and they didn't appreciate it one bit!

After church we went to Grandma's for an easter egg hunt. It was a nice enough day that we got to hunt for the eggs outside, and the kids had a blast! Daphne got it right away and ended up with a whole sack full of eggs. Zachary had to stop and open each egg to look at/eat the candy inside, so he didn't get nearly as many :)

I think she has the sweetest expression in this picture (just ignore the huge scar on her forehead!)

Of course his basket had to be hidden behind the tiller...

Then we went over to Grandpa's for dinner. The food was delicious and we had a fun afternoon, but I didn't get any pictures except for this really cute one of Daphne eating a Creamie. She ate the whole thing!!!

Opposites Day Ten: Far

For this assignment, I'm going to cheat and use a picture I took a few weeks ago. While we were hiking Angels Landing, we met a lady at the top that was looking at her husband through binoculars. He was on the other side of the canyon rock climbing with his friend. Since we had our telephoto lens with us, we were able to take some pictures of him and send them to her! Here is as close up as I could get: (if you click on the picture it will enlarge and you can see a person)

And a zoomed out picture gives you a little more perspective!

Easter Eggs

I ended up slacking a little on our Easter all Week, partially because Zachary couldn't understand a lot of it, and partially because we've been pretty busy this week. We did have the chance to do Easter Eggs today, and Zachary had a blast! I haven't colored eggs with him before, and he did really well. I love that he's getting older and able to do more things. :)

Getting ready to go....

I LOVE this picture!

Zachary colored, painted, and stickered his eggs

Daphne enjoyed marshmallows

and then Neil gave into her screaming and gave her an egg that he had broken

She held it, smashed it, and then dropped it on the floor...

Here are the finished products!

Opposites Day Nine: Near

Since I got my new camera and learned how to use aperture, I have loved taking pictures with one thing in focus and everything else blurry. Thus, the assignment for Near was a lot of fun! At the moment, I am in love with the 99 red tulips in my front yard. Tulips are by far my favorite flower, so I may or may not have a billion pictures of them in all stages of growth.... Anyway, here is my near shot!

55-300 mm lens, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/320

ISO 1600 (apparently I forgot to change it), f/22, 1/160

Opposites Day Eight: Light

I'm way behind on my opposites class, mostly because there hasn't been any sun to do my assignments!! For this one, we were supposed to use spot metering with backlight so that our subject's face wasn't in shadow. For the first two I didn't use spot metering but still got the effect that I was going for, and in the last one the spot metering did make Zachary's face brighter. Cool!

ISO 100, f/8, 1/160

ISO 100, f/8, 1/200

ISO 100, f/22, 1/20

Easter Week

Neil's sister gave us a binder with ideas for celebrating Easter all week long. Each day, we read a scripture about what Christ did in the week before he was crucified and resurrected, and then there are activities to go along with it. The Sunday before Easter is Palm Sunday. We played pin the tail on the donkey because Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. (In future years when my kids are a little older we'll do other activities). Zachary LOVED wearing the blindfold and trying to stick the tail on. That was the first thing he wanted to do this morning when he woke up too.

On Monday, Jesus cleansed the temple. We went and walked around the temple grounds for FHE. It was a little chilly, but it was fun and Zachary thought it was cool that Mommy and Daddy got married in that temple. Oh, and can I say that I love my new camera?!?

First Words

Here's a fun video we took of Daphne last night. She's just starting to say a few "words." She says "uh-oh" whenever she drops something, and now says "mo mo mo" when she wants more. So cute!!

Garden

Ever since I got married and had a yard to work with, I have absolutely loved gardening. Our first few years were successes, but the last two years have been complete failures. Our soil at this house is awful, and the garden only got sun for like 3 hours every day. Oh, and Zachary pulled everything off before it was ready.... Needless to say, I think we've only gotten a handful of produce in the last 2 years. This year is all going to be different, though!! We added 2 truckloads of compost to our dirt, and the huge tree that was blocking our sun has been cut down. We have carefully planned out where to plant things, and about half of our garden is planted. Neil also put a lot of work into a watering system on a timer just for the garden so that I don't forget to water it. :) Here are some pictures of what it looks like now, and hopefully it will grow well and I can post some awesome pictures in a few months!

We planted peas and lettuce from seed about a month ago, and they're finally growing :)

If you have Walls of Water you can plant tomatoes up to a month early. Here's hoping they survive!

See the nice rows and the cool sprinkler system

Theoretically our grapes will grow up this trellis, but they are another thing that hasn't grown, so here's hoping again!

Our strawberries seem to be doing really well this year, and one of my absolute favorite things is fresh strawberries. Yum!