I had the opportunity to take some pictures of my neighbor's boys the other day. It was supposed to be a surprise for Mother's Day, but we ended up having to reshoot it. The first shoot we did was in the middle of the afternoon and the lighting just didn't work, so we reshot and the pics turned out much better. My husband came along and was the "smile getter". I thought we got some really cute shots.

2nd 5K

This year has been the year of becoming more fit and seeing what this 37 year old body can do. Last year I was pretty consistent with working out, but this year I wanted to step it up a bit. I was inspired by my niece and sister in law. They both ran a half marathon in February and that's when I decided to start running again. I ran track in junior high and high school. I did the mile and my best time ever was 6 min 16 seconds. I don't know that I'll see that time again. I also played soccer and was always known as being fast. So, I decided to dust off my running shoes and see where it took me.

I do most of my running on a treadmill. I just find it easier. I can set my water there and get to it whenever I want. I can run with the fan blowing right on me in an air conditioned environment and still manage to sweat like a pig. I started out running at a 6 on the treadmill, then 6.5, now I go between a 6.8 and a 7 and take it up to a 9 when I sprint at the end. I was really proud the other day when I ran 3.1 miles without walking at all. I'd been working toward that since I started running in February.

So back to the 5k today, it was not nearly as packed out as the dash down greenville. It was also a much more hilly course and the thing that threw me was that there were no mile markers so I felt like I was running blind. I had my stopwatch, but didn't really have anything to compare it to so I had no idea how I was doing or how far I'd gone. I really had some defeated thinking going during the race-it was really humid and I was going on about 5 hours sleep. I walked several times and was really disappointed in myself. I finally realized that I was close to the finish line and picked it up a bit. I thought I still had maybe half a block to go or so but when I turned the corner the finish line was much closer than I thought it was so I turned it up and sprinted to the end. I ended up with a time of 29 minutes and 9 seconds. I had a much better time than I thought I did. I was really tickled because my two goals for this race were to finish with a better time than I had in my first 5k, and to finish in less than 30 minutes. I accomplished both of those goals. I beat my first 5k time by about 4 minutes. I think I'm definitely making progress. However, I stayed for the awards presentations today and in my age group the top finishers had times of about 26 minutes so there is room for improvement.
Unfortunately I don't have any pics from today because I was solo at the event. Maybe I'll get some pics at my next one.

Pics of the girls

I saw Brenda at church today and she gave me the go ahead to post the girls' pictures. I was really surprised at how well these turned out-mainly because it was so incredibly windy the day we did these. I guess we were in areas that helped block the wind. So without further ado here are a few of the favorites. I ramped up the color and contrast in photoshop a bit. I'm loving that I'm finally able to do some cool stuff with photoshop.

A busy month

May has been a really busy month for us. Even at 3 Caleb has a lot of end of the year school stuff going on. I was in charge of the teacher appreciation luncheon at his school this year so I had that to deal with as well as a myriad of Mother's Day projects. I made this for my mom for Mother's Day. I thought it would be something that would be really useful for her as she keeps a lot of cards on hand for various occasions. Each page is a pocket page that she can store her cards in. I sewed the pockets on the paper so that the cards wouldn't get stuck in the glue-I learned that the hard way ;0) I thought that this would allow her to keep them organized as well as give her a place to write down all the dates she needs to remember. The papers are all from Close To My Heart and are from the Key To My Heart set from last year. I love this paper. All the elements and stamps are also CTMH.














This has also been an enlightening month. I've learned a lot this month-some good, some bad, but enlightening nonetheless. I'll be making some changes based on these revelations and we'll see what we see. Speaking of learning, my photography class, "Oh Shoot", ended last week and was a great experience. I learned a lot and hope to continue to improve my photography. I took my friend's daughters out and did a surprise photo shoot of them for her for Mother's Day. The pictures turned out great and she was thrilled. I need to see if I can get her permission to post them, because I'd love to show them off. It was nice to do a photo shoot where I didn't have to coax and cajole the subjects to do what I'd like. But, I would hope that teenagers would be a bit more cooperative than a fiesty 3 year old....

That's all for now. I have lots more to say, but it will have to wait for another day.

Sweet Summertime

My favorite digi designer has an all new paper and digi line coming out May 1st called Sweet Summertime. If you leave her a comment on her blog by April 27th you have the chance to win this adorable kit in either digi or paper. This line is too cute. I love it. You can visit her blog at http://www.creativitybycrystal.blogspot.com/ and be sure to look for the layout by yours truly on her blog.

Obsession

For those of you who know me this will not come as a surprise, but once I find something that I want or something that I want to do I become obsessed with it until I have done it, or purchased it. I found the coolest camera bags on Etsy this week and obsessed about it until I had ordered a custom bag. I want a bag that will hold my camera stuff and enough stuff for when Caleb and I go to the zoo for the day or the park or whatever. Plus these bags are super cute. I ordered a bag similar to this one, but I got the Ultimate Snugglens. I'm so excited to get it. If you want to visit this seller's site it is http://www.etsy.com/shop/gypsyrosehandbags

Texas Bluebonnets & Oh Shoot!

I always have such good intentions to post and then I seem to run out of time. The last month has been really busy. I'm taking a photography class called Oh Shoot! at Jessica Sprague's website. It is taught by Candice Stringham and has been really great. I've done another class and read some books about my camera, but it never seemed to click for me. Well, I finally seem to be getting it. I've supplemented her lessons with a few books about my camera to really get this stuff into my head. I also bought a new 35 mm fixed focal length lens for doing portraits. It's got a lower aperture on it than my kit lens so I'm able to get that lovely blur that looks so good in portraits. We are on kind of a break this week from the class. Last week was our lesson on Manual Mode. I'm happy to report that I've managed to get some good shots using manual. The shots below were either taken in Manual or in Aperture priority.

Caleb pointed out that this cactus looks like Mickey Mouse, and I must say that he is correct!

By the end of the bluebonnet shoot, this is how Caleb felt about my picture taking.



At the end of the day, Caleb decided he needed to take a few pictures of me and since he'd indulged me all day I decided why not. He took quite a few interesting shots, but got some pretty good shots in too.

Gotta go get the boy from MDO. Enjoy!