I have all my equipment now, and purchased a bat bag to carry it all. I’ll post some shots with the different lenses when I get a chance. I’ll probably take a ton of extraneous photos since I can only keep the rental equipment until the 8th. I’ll find an excuse to use the 3 extra lenses.

Here are some photo picks from the last few weeks. Oh and in case you haven’t noticed there is a new link to the left. Click on it and you’ll be taken to an album of our latest 120 photos.

My children are addicted to their blankets. If we fail to bring them with us in the car they whine for them. If we fail to bring them anywhere with us, the girls have a harder time. For example, I was at a sewing group at a friends house. I figured the girls would be so distracted and busy with toys and other kids that they would not need them. They were both cranky and whiny and hard to settle. I left early and once we were home with their blankies they were fine! I can’t even wash my 2 year old’s blankets without her getting upset. Once upon a time she only had one blanket. Nana was smart enough to buy spares of the same one. I was stupid enough to allow her to have one of the spares along with her regular blankie. She refused to let me take it away, and when I finally snuck it away she was upset because she couldn’t find “other blanket.” So, we have been a 2 blanket family with Sophia for almost a year. I tried to wash them today, because they go everywhere with us and can get pretty gross, but she grabbed them off the laundry room floor and ran away with them yelling “NO” as if she were saving them from mortal danger. I have stolen them before to wash them but each time she gets upset and worried when she can’t find them. I explain they are being washed and she gets even more upset and whines. I have even pulled still damp blankies out of the dryer to pacify her. I guess there is comfort in knowing they are always there and accessible for her.

Phoebe is also quite attached to her blankie. She is my thumb sucker and all she has to do is touch her blanket, whether she is tired or not, and will suck her thumb right away. It is as if her thumb in her mouth and her blanket went hand in hand. Time will tell if she will become like Sophia, however, we know to avoid a 2nd blanket. I don’t think I can handle 4 blankets along with the diaper bag, sippy cups and toys!! Too much!

Most of the server from the Dark Age of Camelot days actually banded back together to play. The game is really fun and far less time consuming and difficult to just jump in and play as DAoC or even WoW. You can level exclusively through PVP, and it actually works and is probably the fastest way to level.

Anyway, due to the fact that I can have a better experience playing for 15 minutes in Warhammer than playing for 2 hours in DAoC, I went ahead and picked up the game, on the pretense that I would temper my obsession to a reasonable degree.

If you want to try it out, I’m on the Iron Rock Server - Destruction side. My character’s name is Yoritomo.

Lots to say about Sophia. Her communication skills have blossomed over the last few weeks and she is retaining so much of what she hears and learns. She always seems to have something interesting (or silly) to say. Here is just a sample of what we have experienced:

Mama: Sophia, go get Phoebe’s blanket out of her crib for me please.
Sophia: No I can’t. I’m too heavy.

While coloring a picture…..”Behold!”

Sophia: Mama!
Mama: What?!
Sophia: I don’t know……

Watching Curious George, Sophia: It’s George!
Mama: What is George? (expecting her to say monkey)
Sophia: Curious!

She has been getting mixed up when she wants to tell us of she likes something or not. So when we offer her food, that she apparently doesn’t want, she shakes her head no and says in a rough voice “I like it!”

I am busy talking to someone at the door and Sophia wanted BJ to get her something. She walks up to him and tells him “Get off bum daddy!” BJ had been sitting in the living room playing a videogame…….

A nickname BJ and I have for Phoebe is ‘Chubbs’. Totally inappropriate, I know, considering she is not chubby, fat, or chunky in any way. But we like it and so it is here to stay. Sophia has never repeated it until recently. She will repeat most of my commands to Phoebe to “not touch this” or “don’t do that” but added Chubbs at the end.

Sophia is obsessed with tractors. Whenever we drive anywhere she is on the lookout for them and gets excited when she sees one. We have so much construction in our area right now and along the roads we travel it is pretty hard to never see one when we go out. She will yell, “Look mama look! A tractor, I see it, I see it!” OR “A tractor! Oh my goodness.”

After playing with her Optimus Prime transforming robot (a cheapo thing she got in a Happy meal), and calling it a “robot”, she calls him a “beat boxer”. He continues to be a “beat boxer” and not a robot for the rest of the night.

Sophia is playing in the bath, we hear a loud crash followed by a splash. I was in the process of getting up to check on her, but I wasn’t overly concerned because there was no yelling or crying, when she calls out in a very matter of fact voice “I’M OKAY!!!!” I hadn’t asked yet, but good to know!

Speaking of the bath, she has discovered having her head, but not her face, underwater makes everything sound different. She can often be found laying in the bath with just her little face poking out. She seems so relaxed.

She is back to sleeping with her night table light on, much to my dissatisfaction. That is what her big flower night light was for! It gets her to fall asleep and I just sneak in later and turn it off. We don’t know what started this up again but hope she regains her confidence and feeling of safety back.

Sophia is also quite the mini-mama right now. She wants to look at and/or do all the things I am doing. If I have a pony tail and she has one too she will say, “Just like mama!” She wants to put on make up like me, cook dinner like me, etc.

She also tries to ‘parent’ Phoebe all the time. “Don’t do that Phoebe.” “Let go Phoebe.” “No touch Phoebe!” and on and on. Pretty much any scolding we have said to Phoebe Sophia will repeat. It has been hard explaining to Sophia why it is okay for BJ and I to say those things but not her. Really we are trying to teach her roles in the family and that we are parents and she is a child. Not easy to do on a 2 1/2 year old!

We had heavy rain and some wind due to Hurricane Ike. Sophia was desperate to go outside (luckily we had no lightning and thunder) and look at the rain. She has become really fascinated with rain and wanting to be out in it ever since daddy took her out that first time to collect water in her bucket. It was POURING, but I was tired of her whining and figured it wouldn’t hurt. We let her play out there for what ended up being half an hour. Phoebe couldn’t resist being a part of it too and joined us. Sophia was cold and sopping wet (but happy) by the time we brought her in.

Phoebe’s turn! Oh, what can I say about that little piece of deliciousness! She is almost running and really has to just to keep up with her sister. In fact, if she is doing something she shouldn’t or we tell her to stop doing something and get up to go get her she starts to run away.

She has quite the temper and doesn’t like Sophia touching on her too much. I think she has just had too many bad experiences in her life up to now of Sophia touching her in mean ways—hitting, pushing, kicking, biting, etc.—that she doesn’t want her touching at all. Admittedly, when Sophia touches her it is usually negative even to this day. She always seems to be taking something from her or pushing her hand away from something Sophia THINKS she shouldn’t be touching or simply does not want her to. As a result of all this Phoebe lashes out by trying to bite. She started this a couple months ago but it sure has gotten worse! Biting at Sophia is her first reaction. She has 3 areas on Sophia she will ‘target’–her hands, arms, or torso. And if Sophia was too quick and pulled away Phoebe will bite her own hand or wrist. (Jenn, I am sure you are totally laughing right now!) The thing is, she still only has 2 teeth so no real damage is done. You can see where some other teeth are about to cut through, but it is taking forever!

Phoebe has discovered frothing her spit and drooling it out. She mashes her lips around to get the spit all bubbly and of course, it eventually drools all down herself.

Her hair is coming in more and more curly. If we don’t brush it after a bath it tweaks out all over the place. It sure is cute. Her hair really is a lot like mine was as a child. Blond and wavy/curly.

She has discovered the trash can. We have the kind that you have to tap the top for the lid to open, but it still has the main part of it that you open when you want to change the bag. She can lift that part very easily. I have scooped countless items out of the trash. I think she saw me open the trash like that one day and has been hooked ever since.

Her speech is coming along nicely too. She said “thank you mama” one day that completely shocked BJ and I. She makes all sorts of sounds and you can totally tell she is saying something, but she just isn’t precise enough yet for us to understand.

If you ask her to give you a hug she will lay her head on your chest and snuggle. She hasn’t figured out the wrapping the arms part yet.

She is proficient in climbing and, just like her big sister, can be found climbing the furniture, stools, chairs, etc all the time.

It focuses really close and get wide enough for my need when I’m taking shots of the girls. It’s now my default short portrait lens, and luckily I got one that is really sharp wide open and has no focus issues, which are common problems with off-brand lenses. Here’s the test shots I took. Stuffed animal for sharpness, close up of sleeping daughter for focus, and a shot of phoebe to see how the bokeh looks.

My light stands should be coming in today. The radio triggers will probably be another week. I’ll have some two light shots when the stands come in and then try and incorporate 3 when I get the triggers in as well.

I already won one Nikon sb28 off an ebay auction, now I just need to win one more.

Now they want us, and I mean Heather and I, to shoot their wedding. Not to air the personal dealings amongst family here on the website, but I have to share my own personal thoughts. People shouldn’t photograph weddings for their family. I’ll list a reason. If you shoot for other people you get to shoot, post process, deliver and pick out some of the best ones for your portfolio. In a normal situation you don’t have to analyze those pics again after they’ve been shot and delivered to the client. If you shoot for family, the wedding album they make out of your photos and the digital prints you deliver them will be there every time you visit. I’ll be a better photographer in 2 years than I am now. Knowing those limitation I have about a month to prepare and work harder in a single day than I will work in any other time in my life… because it’s family.

Because of this I have to go all out. There’s equipment I need to get shots to create those moments in time that will be remembered by Cindy, Blake, their children, their grandchildren, and since she’s family, probably my children, grandchildren, etc…

To put this in perspective, just my post processing style has changed at least 5 times since I bought that little camera 5 months ago. I’ve only recently begun to start framing shots outside of the subject-center snapshot style that everyone who pics up a camera does.

So here’s what’s happening. I’m going to document what I’m doing to prepare for the most important shoot I’ll probably ever do.

Immediately after I agreed to shoot their wedding I ordered another ebay trigger and receiver, along with 3 more receivers. This gives me 2 transmitters and 5 receivers. Yes that gives me an extra transmitter and 2 receivers but with those little eBay pieces of comparative junk you can’t be too secure in your need to have backups. I had to order them now because the shipping from hong kong will probably take about 3 weeks. The alternative costs 180 bucks a pop. I’m not there yet.

I e-mailed Shig immediately to see what equipment I could borrow from him. He’s got at least a lens that will really help, and if he’s not shooting that weekend he’ll be able to spare a few more items: Wide angle zoom, flash, and the 50mm 1.4 prime. Awesome.

Today I reserved rental equipment. The 60 mm 2.8 af-s Micro, Sigma 10-20 HSM wide angle zoom, and an extra battery for the d50 which I’ll be borrowing from my father in order to have a second camera and backup at the Wedding.

After our credit card payment goes through I’ll be sending another one in, cause BH is getting a decent sized order. 2 impact stands, 2 more umbrellas, 2 sunpak 383s, and a Tamron 28-75 2.8.

Finally comes study time. I need to learn from people who do this for a living. Not just wedding photographers, but wedding photographers who capture the feelings and emotion in such an event. Heather will be my idea person and shoot director during the wedding, so together we’ll be taking long hard looks at two photographers I think are really amazing.

Ed Pingol

JWLphotography

Both photographers capture the fun that a wedding day should be, but also seem to exhibit a calm harmony in one of the greatest days in peoples lives.

I did something a little out of the ordinary this week. On one of the days working for my mom I had to go to the post office to mail a 25lb box. It was 2pm and I had not eaten lunch and was starving and feeling sick. My plan had been to go get lunch after the mail, and I knew I needed to hurry back to Granny’s to a hungry little Sophia. So, I am hot, hungry, tired, in a rush and there is a long line at the post office and only one person working. Another lady was kind of coming in and out but not helping yet. This man walks in after me, clearly physically and mentally handicapped. His mouth is hanging open and he is drooling on himself. After what seems like forever I get called on by a 2nd worker that finally came out and the man gets called by the lady next to me. He is speaking through an open mouth and is almost impossible to understand. The employee is clearly not understanding him and doesn’t seem to want to try. I can sort of tell by what he had on the counter what he wants so I just butt right in and tell her what I think he wants, he acknowledges that I am correct. I had to write 2 addresses down, get his ID card to get his return address, and figure out the spelling he had someone else write on a piece of paper. I surprisingly understood his grunts and attempts at letters. (Hindsight: I realized it wasn’t luck that I understood him. I have a 2 and 1 year old at home! I can understand all sorts of random chatter and noise!) The postwoman was so thankful and I am sure a lot of frustration and stress was alleviated by my interference. I was also hoping that an example of kindness helped the others in line, that were clearly agitated at the wait, soften a little and calm down.

So you might be thinking, “What happened to Heather’s forehead?!” I actually chose to do this to myself. I had a burst capillary on my forehead since I was a teenager that caused red splotchy mark. I remember my sister, Tiffany, teasing me that it looked like a pimple. I always covered it with makeup but I got real tired of that and couldn’t see doing that for the rest of my life. I had it lasered away but it left this nasty purple bruise. BJ told me it looked like a big mole. Other friends have teased that they wondered if I was changing cultures/religion. I’ll just be glad when the bruising goes away and I don’t have a red mark to look at!

Sophia has started enjoying being naked, well, at least a diaper on. I will find her at our house or Granny’s suddenly without a shirt or pants or both. I am pretty much okay with it until we were at a store recently and she took her shirt off when my back was turned. I hope this unclothed phase will pass soon.

Phoebe is definitely down to only one nap a day. I am kind of sad the 2 nap a day life is over because only having one child conscious is a lot easier. However, it has allowed for me to go out more and do stuff knowing she won’t have to take a nap until later in the afternoon. Sophia, is becoming hit and miss in the nap department as well. She had 3 days in a row with no nap but it caught up with her! I am not ready for her to have no naps yet!!!! I will have to see how this progresses.

Sophia got invited to a birthday party this week and Phoebe got to tag along with us. We enjoyed making visors and playing with friends and toys. Phoebe was just happy to be there with so many other kids and new toys. This gives me more hope she will transition to nursery at Church fairly easily. Sophia got a goody bag to take home. In it were Disney Princess stampers with an ink pad. I discovered the first go around that the ink was not kid friendly and would not come off her fingers. No big deal, so I let her play with it the next day. I walk out of the room for 5 minutes and come back to this. It was on her face for almost 3 days.

Sophia has also taken to cutting paper. She has these kid safe scissors in an art set Granny gave her. She spends lots of time just sitting there cutting the edges of the pages of her coloring books.

BJ and I got a children’s plastic table from Ikea for the girls. I got rid of her highchair at the table so she can eat, paint, color, whatever at this table and I can care less if it gets stained or scratched. Both girls have fallen in love with it and Phoebe really enjoys sitting with her big sister sharing snacks and watching her color.

Whenever Sophia has hurt herself or fallen we immediately ask her if she is okay. She will respond with either “I’m fine, “I’m okay”, or “yeah.” That has all been bypassed now. Before we even have a chance to open our mouths she is saying “I’m okay” when she gets injured or falls. We find this very sweet and funny.

She has also taken to having little conversations with herself. If we don’t say your welcome after she tells us thank you she will say it for us. Or other times she will ask questions or make comments about something and then answer with a follow up. It amazes me how much her talking and conversation skills have come along in just about 2 weeks!

Wonderful progress with potty training! Nana and Poppy recommended giving her an M&M treat every time she sat on the potty regardless of any result. She has gone in the potty more times this week than she ever has before. She even told me a couple times beforehand that she had to go. We bought our last box of diapers for her and our next trip to Costco we will be coming back with training pants!

I have a ton of Braum’s paper bags in the house. I decided to cut out some holes for Sophia’s arms and head and make her a ‘robot’. She was so thrilled with it, and I have made more paper bag robots this week than I care to think about.

In the middle of sacrament meeting Sophia, somewhat loudly, asks me to “draw boobies” on the Dora I had just sketched on her magnadoodle.

Phoebe is really trying with her vocabulary. At times she sounds like she is almost repeating things we are saying like “that” and “yes”.

Phoebe has started a naughty little habit of pinching. She has made many small injuries to her parents’ faces and arms to pinching. She has a much stronger grip than one would think by looking at her. She also grabs her own cheeks too. Not sure what that is all about other than her cheeks are quite chunky and pinchable!

BJ had sharing time at church this week. For those of our friends not sure of what that is, it is basically a 15 minute interactive lesson to a group of about 30 kids ages 7 to 11. He has a great lesson planned on baptism. Halfway through it an older boy commented to BJ that his “older brother wanted to get baptized in a swimming pool so afterwards he could swim in his sins.” BJ almost died laughing, I think, and the sharing time was quite hard to finish because he and some other teachers couldn’t compose themselves.

The girls are really impressing me. Sophia is showing more patience with Phoebe and a willingness to interact. She actually will try and call Phoebe over to her to play with her or tell her what to play with and what to do with it. They hold hands in the car between the car seats and Sophia gets worried when Phoebe drops her blanket in the car too. I find a reason every day to smile at their blossoming relationship.

I have finished at least 2 of my projects that I started the couple weeks before. I finished cleaning and re-organizing the master bathroom and finished painting and decorating Phoebe’s letters for her name board. It will be a couple months before I put the letters together with the material and board and will post pics then. Now onto finishing the master bedroom!

I went to Enrichment Night where we made a pillow, which the pattern and color happened to go wonderfully with my couches, and a tote bag, which I was unable to finish due to time. Once I finish the tote I will post a picture of it too. I have done little sewing projects in the past before, but after this week I think I want to get more serious about sewing. I went ahead and joined the sewing group in my church and can’t wait to sew more items.

Sophia LOVES ketchup and will eat it over any food she is having with it. I turned around for a few minutes to do dishes and I turn around to see she has smeared ketchup all over her face!! It was as if she was giving herself a ketchup facial. I hate that I didn’t get a picture of it because it was quite the sight!

If she loves ketchup, no surprise she loves tomatoes! I had about 15 grape tomatoes stored in one of her bowls on the counter. She comes to me in the living room with a line of tomato seeds down her shirt. I ask BJ if he gave her tomatoes for dinner. He has no idea what I am talking about and we discover what happened. She grabbed the bowl on her own and sat at the kitchen table and ate all those tomatoes one after the other. Needless to say we did not feed her anything else for dinner that night, her tummy looked so big!

Sophia got a cowgirl hat! She put it on right away and was so proud of herself. She got right on her bounce horse and jumped saying “I’m a cowgirl! Yeehaw!”

Sophia has started a very girly habit…..twirling her hair.

Sophia hurt her finger pretty bad this week. She stuck her finger in a hole in BJ’s weight bench. I couldn’t get it out so I desperately called BJ in to help. With a lot of pulling he got it out. However, the INSIDE of the hole is rough and it pulled skin off in a pattern that makes it look as though she were bit on her finger. She freaks out if she doesn’t have a Dora band aid on her finger, but it also doesn’t allow her skin to breath and therefore not to scab over. We have had quite the band aid battle in our house this week.

Sophia has been obsessed with Blue’s Clues the last several weeks. Sophia has started to talk like Blue and will walk around the house going “bowbabow.” Silly, silly girl.

Wow, a lot about Sophia this week. What can I say about Phoebe? She is small, cute, and fun to kiss on! By observing the girls and their interactions we have come to the conclusion (the small fights and stealing toys aside) that Phoebe enjoys Sophia’s presence and friendship more than Sophia does right now. I know once Phoebe can talk more and have more structured play things will only get better for these sisters.

I managed to get Phoebe’s hair in pigtails! She was so adorable. She surprisingly didn’t seem irritated by them either. I can’t wait for her hair to get longer and do even more pigtails, but there sure is something sweet about tiny, 1 inch piggies!

Phoebe has really taken to copying her big sister. Noises, gestures, things she does with her toys, etc. At times it is very sweet and endearing, and other times just darn annoying. It has really nailed into my mind what an example an older sibling is and needs to be to younger siblings. Now I just have to be sure Sophia does what is right.

New Haircut