Christmas Recital

I had my annual Christmas recital a few weeks ago at a local nursing home.  I brought my nice camera but left the SD card at home, which means no pictures from my camera, only my phone.

Lilly played Jolly Old St. Nicholas and Deck the Halls.  

Here she is with her new teacher this year, Carolee.

Although, I did see some flash in the video Jim took with my phone, so I know someone has a picture out there that will most likely be better than my phone pictures.

Santa Fly-in

I just downloaded 700+ pictures from my camera that I am slowly making my way through. It is going to take awhile but I want to get some editing done before Christmas hits and I have another 700 pictures to sort.

December 8th Santa flew in to the Danville airport for his 2nd annual fly-in.  When I say airport I hope you know I mean a hangar for Cessna airplanes.

(This is what happened when I told Jack to stand NEXT to Lilly for a picture.)

Last year was the first year for the Santa fly-in.  There were less than 50 kids and it was really magical.  This year there were more than 100 kids with all their family members which made for a very crowded hangar.  Last year we were able to watch Santa land in his plane and bring all the toys out of the plane. This year Santa drove around from the back of the building, so we must have "missed" the landing,  He also must have dropped off the 4 giant sacks of presents that wouldn't fit on the plane earlier that morning.

Before Santa arrived the kids enjoyed cookies and checked out the planes.

The kids were thrilled and noticed no difference this year.  They were jumping up and down, cheering for Santa as he pulled around the corner.

Jack was the first child Mr. and Mrs. Claus spoke to after exiting the plane.  He was very nervous about going to say hello.

Out of 100 kids Jack was number 98 to get a present and Lilly was number 99.  That is a long time to sit and watch 97 other kids open presents, especially for a 6 and 3 year old.

Waiting.

Jack was too interested in cookies and planes to really notice that 97 other children were opening presents before him.

Poor Lilly sat there quietly, I think she was wondering if Santa forgot.  Then when she saw the other presents her friends received she got a case of "comparison-itis."

Even if Santa brought you and your brother blu-ray combo packs of your favorite movies with coordinating toys, it might be disappointing after you saw other children open different presents.  Maybe your pregnant hormonal mother wouldn't react properly.  Maybe if everyone had remained calm they would have realized what a hard day it was for everyone involved and that it was exhausting to watch 100 children open presents from Santa.  However maybe it opened our eyes to a valuable analogy.  Maybe that's why we should never compare ourselves, if we are too busy comparing our lives with someone else we forget to see the gifts we have in our hands that God has already given us. Maybe everyone walked away having learned a valuable lesson.

Phone Picture Update

One day last week I went out for lunch with some people from church.  I didn't think things through clearly and I didn't think about entertaining Jack while I tried to create new social bonds at a restaurant in public.  So as much as I don't like to, I shared my phone with Jack.  I don't have a lot of games on my phone because I don't like to share my phone. As a result Jack took over 150 pictures of himself.  Poor Jack entertained himself for over an hour by taking pictures of himself and playing the few games I do have on my phone, oh and I think he ate a few bites of food.

I didn't realize Jack was taking pictures of himself and I thought they were hilarious when I saw them the next day.  He also got a picture of me, maybe slightly bored, but at least we know Jack wasn't bored!

At the end of November we had a snow day.  Only it was the kind of really inconvenient snow day because NOTHING was cancelled.  It didn't actually start snowing until 6am which means there was no time to cancel school or delay school.  By the time 8am rolled around the roads were really bad.  I experienced anti-lock brakes for the first time.  Not a good call for the school district.  It's probably a hard decision to make, but they haven't had much luck this year with their decisions.  We had two days off of school for the hurricane and no one here even lost power.  Then we get a few inches of snow with no plows and dangerous road conditions for buses, and school is in session and on time.  

On Friday last week there were warnings of freezing rain so they delayed school but there wasn't actually any freezing rain, it was just really cold rain.  This was an equally inconvenient delay because I had a doctor's appt scheduled and had to make all sorts of arrangements.  Oh well, better luck next time!

Then Jim made a wreath from leftover Christmas tree clippings.

Then Jack put on three hats at one time.  He likes to wear as many hats as he can at a time.

 (Fedora hat, backwards baseball hat, santa hat.)

Then the elf on the shelf got super creative.

And you can't tell by this picture, but what I was trying to capture was Jack eating his pizza upside down.  He always eats his pizza upside down.  On this particular day Jack had not had a good day so we let him eat pizza in the living room while watching the iPad.

Due to an unfortunate incident at the grocery store, Jack now has to be restrained at the grocery store. I made it easier on both of us and allowed him to use the iPad during my shopping trip.

This concludes my random picture update.

Dress up

I am getting ready to take my family across the country for my brother's wedding.  Lilly will be the flower girl and I realized last week that she had yet to actually try the dress on.  The plastic covering on the dress intimidated me and made me fear opening the dress.  Luckily for me I over came my fear and the dress fit beautifully. She is ready to be the flower girl!

Jack loves to have his picture taken.

It's the sort of dress that induces spinning.

I was even able to take advantage of the daylight and a still Lilly to create some bokeh in my pictures.

Jim came home and brought in the mail.  Lilly received a Christmas card from her grandfather and she declared picture taking time over.

Obsessive Photography Thoughts

Last Christmas Santa brought me a new camera.  I knew this camera would make all my picture taking dreams come true.  Alas, Santa did not bring me any photography skills with the new camera, and I have had to rely on shooting in automatic with no knowledge or skill. (This post is a lot about photography but I interspersed it with photos so as to keep you interested and not completely bored.)

(2012 Pitcavage Tree)

As I became more aware of other people's photography abilities I became more aware of my lack of knowledge on matters such as lighting and anything that goes beyond lighting.  I started reading about aperture, ISO, f-stop, shutter speed, etc., and all I can gather is those things have to do with lighting.

One friend on facebook posted some impressive photos of her baby in front of the Christmas tree using  bokeh. Ever since then I have been obsessed with capturing bokeh with my own camera.  Bokeh is described as a blur in a photo that is pleasing to the eye.  All the blurry photos I take in manual mode are not artistic and do not count as bokeh.  What interests me most is bokeh in regards to light, specifically Christmas lights.  With the right lens and settings, the trees on your lights become round orbs of light that are very aesthetically pleasing.  After a year of thinking about it, and after finding some tutorials on pinterest, and after trying Jim's 35 mm lens I was able to get a few pictures with bokeh.  Next year I need to acquire a 50mm lens with an aperture of 1.4.  I don't know what that means, all I know is it will make my pictures better and the bokeh better.

(My tree with different camera settings to create a more severe bokeh effect.)

My first attempts at bokeh were at night with Lilly as my model.  I wasn't happy with how many of them turned out.  After using Lilly and (later on) Jack as models I realized that I needed to photograph something that wouldn't move so I could set my camera appropriately.

If you look at the tree, the lights are blurry, creating slight bokeh with their small orbs of light.  Lilly is not blurry but she is also a little darker than what I wanted and the bokeh is not what I wanted. In most of my attempts the entire picture was blurry, which again is not aesthetically pleasing. So this was my first small success.

Then I kept my camera settings the same and had her reach up to point to an ornament.  This kind of made her look photo shopped but she was in focus which was another success.

Then I tried turning on the overhead light to see what would happen.  There was more light but it created an odd effect that made it look like she was standing in front of a blue screen with a fake background, but the bokeh is in place, however small.

After that I sent her to bed and continued to try different settings.  I decided that I needed to try the next morning in the day light with Jack as my model.  

Do you see the bokeh in between Jack's hat and arm?  Success! He is a little blurry but the day time lighting is so much better and the bokeh orbs are bigger!

It didn't last more than two minutes because Jack became very sad that I kept telling him to sit still.

I put my camera away for a few days and pulled it out again last night after the children were asleep to try with some inanimate objects to see if I could have any more success.

(Lilly's manger she received when she was three from her nursery leader.)

The bokeh was exactly what I wanted! Now I have to figure a way to get my children to remain perfectly still so I can use them instead of a manger so my picture doesn't look like a cheesy Christmas card one might find in the .99 aisle of the card section.

I may have just created a new line of Christmas cards for the dollar store.

This is the advent wreath Lilly made at a friend's church.  I think this picture could be used by my local NBC station to run Christmas morning during commercial breaks.  My point is, I needed to use objects to practice getting the bokeh look that I wanted and I just grabbed what was around me.  My goal is to one day have my children replace the tacky Christmas decor. My other point is that photography is really difficult for me!!  One day I hope to take a class and get some other lenses and take pictures that don't look lame.  I am not one of those people who think that since I own an SLR that I am a photographer, but I would like to take advantage of my Nikon and take better pictures of my children.

In the mean time I hope you enjoy my new line of .99 cards....

Christmas Tree 2012

December 1 marked the day that I set to get our tree and haul out the decorations.  Lilly had been asking since November 15 and I just kept reminding her that it wasn't happening until December 1.

This is the third year in a row we have bought our tree from Kohl's Tree Farm, no affiliation with the department store.  I was sad to find out that similar trees were being sold for quite a bit less closer to my house, oh well. Now we know for next year.

When we arrived at Kohls it wasn't that cold getting out of the car so both of my children refused to wear a coat. Instead of cause a scene or demand they wear coats I decided to teach them to listen to their mother by suffering in the cold.  Now, it wasn't that cold and we were only outside for 10 minutes so this was a safe lesson to teach.  Although the older woman next to us disagreed and told me they would most likely catch cold.  I didn't bother to dispel the myth and tell her that they cannot catch a cold from being in cold temperatures (old people don't tolerate being told that their theories they have been spouting off for years are FALSE). Being in cold air will not give you an infection!(It is also a fact that you cannot do any permanent damage to your eye sight by reading in dim light. It can cause strain but the strain subdues after rest. I really dislike myths that people tell me to make me feel like I am a bad parent. I have more, but I will stop there. This post is about our family Christmas tree after all!) As you can see I shared my pashmina with Lilly, which is what my mother would do when I wouldn't bring a coat.  See, I taught a lesson AND was a loving parent, win-win.

Side note - I couldn't get Jack to actually look at the camera. He was too busy running like a maniac all over the tree lot. Another side note- it was "kids get a free Santa hat" at Kohl's yesterday.  They were both excited but Jack had a fit and wouldn't wear the hat until I put the hat over his fleece hat.  I am guessing that the fleece hat is a lot softer than the Santa hat.

You can either cut down your own tree or choose from the pre-cut selection.  Cutting your own tree saves you $2, so we chose from the pre-cut selection.  After you choose the tree you take it to the barn area and they shake it out, net it up, and then put a tag on it for you to pick up after you are done shopping.  Then they ask you to pose here for their facebook page.

Another fun thing about Kohl's is they have a huge Christmas store with ornaments and any kind of decoration you would want to find.   

This is part of their tree stand collection they have hanging on the wall.

One of the more exciting points for me was the fact that this was the first year we didn't have to tie the tree through the windows of our car.

The tree is home and in the stand waiting for lights and decorations.