What's Going On

Hello and Happy Sunday night

Hope everyone enjoyed their long Thanksgiving weekend.  We got some snow today.  Nothing that stuck though.  Kids go back to school tomorrow, but have a 1/2 day on Tues and Thurs due to parent/teacher conferences.  Don't the teachers know we have a lot of Christmas shopping to do! :-)

We put up the tree today.  The kids had fun with that.. I took lots of pictures BUT.. we're experiencing technical difficulties and Jeff is working on some software we need to get RAW files off of my camera.  Nope, JPGs aren't good enough, we need the RAW data :-)

So I"ll hopefully post some pics of the Christmas tree decorating tomorrow.

Oh, in other news.  I'm officially a photojournalist...  I sent a very long article, complete with picture and title to the local paper (Dutchess County paper).  The woman who owns the gym at Steph's gymnastics asked me to do this.  Jeff technically took the picture that we used, so he gets some credit too.  But the article I wrote was long, included all the girls' names, scores, awards, etc...  and I wrote "feel free to edit as necessary".  Well, when we opened the Gazette Advertiser yesterday, there was a huge half page article and picture... word for word what I sent him (other than where it said "Story by Joe Schmoe"...!!).  Steph was excited to see her name and scores in the paper.

Well, that's it for tonight.. hopefully some pics tomorrow. Have a great week and don't forget to open the first door on your Advent Calendar tomorrow!  That reminds me, I better put the kids' treat in their first door of the advent calendar!

Mikey and Christmas

Gota love this picture of Mikey!

   

He also ran in his first race on Thanksgiving:

 

Congratulations Mikey!

 

Today we traveled home after a fun few days with Nana and Papa.

Chris is the altar server at Mass tomorrow morning so we had to head back home.

We got an early jump (well not that early considering Monday is Dec 1st!!!) on Christmas decorations.  Jeff brought everything down out of the attic.  I got some of the Christmas stuff out and about.  Chris and Steph and I have our Santa hats on and we're listening to James Taylor's semi-new Christmas album.  AND Jeff made dinner, yay Jeff!  He made a great pasta dish with veggies, sausage and shrimp.  Tomorrow the tree goes up.

 

 

Happy Christmas shopping!

Thanksgiving

We had a great thanksgiving at Nana and Papa's house.  Dinner was terrific... other than the cheese sauce that Uncle Richie spilled on the table.. that would have been good I'm sure :-)

After dinner Chris announced he wanted to go to the park to shoot baskets.. sounded like a good thing to do after being stuffed, so we did that for an hour or so.

Then when we got back, Aunt Edie, Uncle Bob and gang came over for dessert.  Matthew, Chris and Stephanie had a GREAT time together!

Today, Friday, we took the kids to Dave and Busters for their good report cards... they won lots of tickets and had lots of fun.

Back to Rhinebeck tomorrow..

Chrisie, Alex and kids went to Indiana for Thanksgiving.. I hear they were out in a field with a bon fire at one point..  so I'm sure there will be some good stories.

Hope everyone had a terrific Thanksgiving!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos

Playing with my camera today.

Working on depth of focus.. getting the foreground and background both in focus.

If you click on any of the pics you can see them bigger.

 

 

This is at dance class.  Tough location to take pictures, through a window, no flash, terrible lighting.  The camera did pretty good.

 

 

 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Obsession..

Hi, remember me?  I used to blog all the time.  Now I just read all the time and play with my camera.  I'm obsessed.  Just when I think I have it all figured out, I find another mountain of information to tackle. 

I have found the biggest problem is, that even though I understand a lot of what I need to understand to get good shots (aperture, shutter speed, ISO, metering, exposure compensation), the action happens too fast to process the info in my brain and get the camera set right.  I need to train the kids to stand still until I say "go" then they can start horseing around without me missing any of it on film!  I guess over time I'll get faster at this.  I also think I need to practice on objects that don't move! 

OK, what else is going on?  Not much.. getting ready for the trip to Long Island.  Will be great to see everyone.

Yesterday was a fun day for the boys.  Uncle Alex had a play date.  He invited all of Derek's friends over to play dungeons and dragons.  Uncle Alex wouldn't play unless they let him be the dungeon master.  And since it was his house, and he had control over all the snacks, they let him be dungeon master.  ha!  No, really, the boys had a really great time playing D and D.  They hope Uncle Alex comes out to play again real soon!

I don't have any fun pictures to share.. the pictures I have been taking while playing with the camera and testing camera settings are of dumb things like my dresser and a lamp ;-)

Let's see what I can dig up from the past:

 

Speaking of Chris.. they say 5th grade transforms the child.. well it's true for Chris.  He has been the most agreeable, responsible kid lately.  OK, not all the time.. but a lot!  He willingly does homework right away, works on long term projects way in advance, and even thinks ahead and plans, "mom, I want to put all this stuff in my backpack now because I need it for school this week and don't want to forget it".  Those who know him well will recognize that this is not typically how his brain works...  Let's hope this lasts a long time!

Have a great Tuesday, I promise to post some new pics tomorrow.

Saturday

Today Chris went to a friends' birthday party at the bowling alley/arcade and had lots of fun. 

Steph had a friend over for a playdate.

Steph and I went to Dilynn's art show at the local library.

Then Jeff, Chris, Steph and I went out to dinner for our anniversary.

Here is Dilynn's art show:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aunt Chrisie came to our Brownie meeting on Friday to teach the girls cartooning.  They LOVED it!

This is just a picture of one of the Brownies/one of Steph's friends... I like the way the photo came out:

 

And here is another one I like ;-)

 

And finally, Steph's class had some "seniors" in on Friday so that they could interview them and will be working on their biographies over the next few weeks:

Happy Birthday...

Aunt Elaine!  Hope you had a great day!

 

And Happy Anniversary Jeff (and me :-). 

 

I'm having a real problem with this new camera that Jeff bought me.  Ever since he got me the camera, the laundry doesn't get done.. the groceries are running out.. the house is a mess.. and dinner...  hmmm, what's for dinner?   I do love my camera. Been spending lots of time figuring out all the cool things I can do with it.

On a different note, if anyone out there has a few hours that you just don't know what to do with, I have a great idea for you!   Just ask Chris about his Biography project he is doing in school.  He is a bit excited about it.  He, of course, chose a baseball player; Satchel Paige... who's birthday is (possibly) the same day as Chris (he will tell you all about the possiblel fake birth certificate).  AND when they give their presentations on this person, they get to dress up as them.   He has informed me exactly what we are going to do for his costume, and how we will make the mustache.   He has 3 or so pages of notes going so far.  Oh, did I forget to mention, this project was assigned today..

More tomorrow..

Happy Birthday and Hoops

Happy Birthday Uncle Joey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Hope you had a great day!

 

 A night at the gym..

 

 

 

Great shot!  Bad picture :-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chris drives to the hoop..

 

Chris on the floor scramblin for the ball..

 

Math Fair

Tonight there was a math fair at the elementary school.  Three classes came up with the games and ran the game, Steph's 3rd grade class, Derek's 4th grade class an a 5th grade class (not Chris').   Here it is.. fun fun fun

 

 

  '

 

Happy Birthday

 

 

Bill Faiella!  Hope you had a great day!  (Sorry for the old picture, it was the only one I could find!)

So when we last met, Steph was on a gymnastics meet high.

Today she brought her medals/tropheys into school for "share".

Oh, funny story.   I got a phone message from Steph's teacher today.. went something like this (I know her well and she found this whole thing very hysterical): 

"Hi Kathy, this is B.  Are you missing a cell phone?  Well don't worry, it's safe and sound here in my hands.  Apparently your cell phone was in your daughters pocket when she went out for recess.. I will give it back to you after school"

Now before you jump to conclusions.. no, she did not take my cell phone :-)  Not that something like that might not happen in the future!  But I had put it in her coat pocket at the soccer game on Sunday because I had no place else to put it!  I'm just glad Chrisie didn't call me like I thought she was going to today or the phone would have been ringing in Steph's locker.

Steph's last soccer game of the season was yesterday.  They lost.. bummer.  She did score the teams lone goal again.  The girls were not sad, their favorite part is when each team takes turns lining up and making a tunnel for hte other team and singing "2 - 4 - 6 - 8  Who do we appreciate.."  They love that!  Then we went out for pizza.

Last night, while I was supposed to be blogging, I was deeply engrossed in a Canon users manual, several photography blogs (did you know you can find blogs on topics such as "Gymnastics photography" or "indoor basketball game photography".  I was also busy snapping hundreds of test pictures of my living room testing out all the thousands of features.  Wed Chris and Derek play each other in basketball again.. I'll be armed and ready wiht my new camera!

tonight was fun, fun, fun... I just got back from a Girl Scout Coucil Leaders meeting.  It was way, way worse than any meeting you could ever imagine.  They spent 20 minutes listening to some women go on and on about how she can't find a location to have meetings.. and details about each location and what they said or did.... that may be my last meeting..

Hope you all had a great Monday (and great birthday Bill!).  More tomorrow...