Party Party!

Mom, Dad and Matt and Kelsey hosted a wonderful joint 30th birthday party for Brian and me on Saturday night. I turned 30 on January 3rd and Brian will turn 30 on February 17 so we split the difference and had a 30 + 30 on 30 party.

And what a party it was!

My family really knows how to throw a party. So many special people were there to help us celebrate. We were especially thankful for our family who came in from out of town. It meant so much to us to have them there. So if you were there, thank you for coming. We had a excellent time and hope you did, too!

The party was at times ten cellars so we had great wine and great food, too. Mom put together picture boards for us with pictures from our individual babyhoods to recent family photos with Andrew. I loved looking at Brian as an adorable toddler and thinking about what Andrew's going to look like in a year or two.

It was also cool to see pictures from when Brian and I first started dating in 2001. It wasn't that long ago, but we looked so young. Really? We looked like that? I have to say, I think we look better now at 30 than we did at 21. I think we look much more, ahem, mature, but it seems to fit us. I don't think I'll be saying the same thing at 40. :)

Mom brought her camera, but I left mine at home. The only problem with having a big dSLR camera is that it's a pain to carry it around so it stayed behind last night. I'll try to share some pictures from the party when she shares them with me.

Since I don't have any pictures from the party, here are some cute Andrew pictures instead.










When do they stop trying to put everything in their mouths?

Hope y'all had a great weekend!

Photo Lessons

I've been fiddling with Photoshop Elements and Lightroom 2 trying to teach myself layer masks and filters and other exciting actions. Turns out there's lots and lots of information about these things on the Internet....who would have thought it? :)






It also turns out I really like to edit photos.

Here's the original:



It was okay, but I like what I did with it, too. I think the last one is my favorite.

I still have so much to learn about photography and post-processing, but I think if I could get my subject to sit still for more than two seconds at a time I'd be better right away.

Visitors

Brian, Andrew and I went to the mall yesterday afternoon. We had a few things to exchange from Christmas and I wanted to do some shoe shopping, and take a quick look at some lightweight sweaters, and maybe a scarf of two. It's really hard to run to Nordstrom and not shop more than you'd planned to.

Anyway, Andrew stayed pretty happy in his stroller even though he hates to be strapped down these days. Brian kept him entertained while I was trying on shoes and as long as we kept moving he was fine to look around at all the people.



So when I was finished with my shopping and Brian just had one more stop I decided to go ahead and take Andrew out of the stroller to let him move around a bit. He of course wanted down immediately, and he was off.

The people we ran into in Dillard's thought he was hysterical. He walked up and down the aisle in his new squeaky shoes like he owned the place. There was a group of people standing around at the end of the isle and Andrew walked right up to them and waved and gave them his biggest grin like they were his long lost best friends.

But then it was time to go home, and I didn't want to try to strap him back in to the stroller because I knew he'd freak out. So we got to carry him all the way back to the car. That was a long walk.

He took a quick nap, Brian ran to the grocery store and I started cooking because Mimi and Papa Jack (a.k.a. - my parents) were coming over for dinner.

They brought Wrigley with them, and Andrew was really excited to have two dogs in the house. He pointed and squealed at Wrigley all night.



Andrew went to bed and the adults sat down to a great dinner. We had pork tenderloin, tomatoes and mozzarella, and The Pioneer Woman's Perfect Potatoes au Gratin. They were soooo good - there's a reason she calls them Perfect.



I think Andrew was sad when he woke up this morning and discovered that there was only one dog left in the house. Ha!

10 Months!

Andrew turned 10 months old on Saturday. I can hardly believe he's only two months away from his first birthday. The time has just flown by.


"Hey Mama, the camera - again?"


"Okay, I'll play along."


"But only for a little bit. I've got to get going."



It is so difficult to get a cute picture of Andrew these days. He never sits still. But I promise he's adorable even when he's in motion.





So, what is Andrew up to these days?

He's walking! Everywhere! I have a hard time keeping up with him. In fact, I bought some squeaky shoes today so that I can always find him in the house. He took a few tentative steps while we were on the cruise, but never more than 3 or 4 at a time. The day after we got home he was up to 10 or 12 steps, and he hasn't looked back.

He's sleeping really well. He goes to bed about 8:00 and usually sleeps until 7:00. Every once in a while he'll wake up during the night, but usually he goes right back to sleep after I feed him.

He's been taking 2 naps - one in the morning and one in the afternoon. But sometimes he skips the afternoon nap and he does okay without it. I hope he's not ready to drop a nap. Even if it's only 45 minutes or an hour it's nice to have that time to get some work done.

He's a great eater! I've pretty much given up feeding him baby purees with a spoon. He just spits them out when I try. So I've found foods that he can feed to himself. He has 6 teeth and he's really good at eating so it's not too hard.

He loves blueberries, bananas, green peas, crackers, waffles, black beans, plums, avocados, turkey, cereal bars and sweet potatoes. I try to feed him things that are good finger foods and not a choking hazard. And he's hungry. He eats a lot!

He loves music and dancing. He starts swaying side to side when he hears music on the radio or a commercial on TV. It's adorable. And he loves it when we sing to him, and he laughs at my dancing.

I am so, so blessed!

Caribbean Cruise

Here are some of my favorite trip pics. The cruise left out of Ft. Lauderdale and went to The Bahamas, Aruba, Curacao and back to Florida. We had three days at sea and, I really enjoyed the boat. It was fun to be on a big cruise ship!

I loved Aruba and would definitely go back there. We camped out at beach by the Hyatt for a few hours, and I told Brian we should look into coming back there for a vacation. It was really nice.


At the Hyatt.

Andrew loved the sliding doors out to the balcony.



Papa Jack in the New Year hat was a big hit!





The New Year hat all on its own was a big hit!

Aruba.



Because he points at everything!

What a beautiful day!

Christmas in Pictures

Welcome 2010! Is it twenty-ten or two thousand ten?

It's always stressful when I haven't blogged in a long time because where am I supposed to start? So much has happened. We had three wonderful Christmas celebrations and then spent a week on a Caribbean cruise. Andrew started walking, I turned 30 and the Cowboys are going to a playoff game. Whew...I'm tired just thinking about it all.

So I'll start with some of my favorite pictures from Christmas. There's lots, so I'll come back and share some of my favorite vacation photos later.

Enjoy!

My Camera Bag

I bought my first dSLR, a Canon XSi, in July 2009 shortly after my son Andrew was born. I had no idea what I was doing and started out shooting in the full-auto mode. But I soon realized I could take really beautiful photos if I put the time in to learning my camera and what it could do.

I invested in some great lenses and then upgraded my camera body to a Canon 7d in September 2010.

So here is what's in my beautiful Ketti camera bag:

My Camera:
Canon 7d

My Favorite Lenses:
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II  - was replaced by the 50mm 1.4 in July '10.
Tamron AF 18-75mm f/2.8
Canon EF 35mm f/2.0 II - this is a great lens, but it's not really very wide on a crop sensor.

My Flash:
Canon 430EX Speedlite

My Software:
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2
Adobe Photoshop Elements

I'd love to hear from you if you're thinking of buying a camera or have any questions about my gear.