Snakes Alive!

Yes, it's another post about snakes. Only this time the snakes weren't roaming wild right outside our kitchen window. Our library had a program last Monday evening with a snake "rescue" group (I think it was just a family) that brought in some snakes to show and talk about. We decided the kids might enjoy it and it might be good to learn a little more about snakes in the area, seeing as how we have them around. The girls were thrilled about going, McKay not so much.

They started by showing their smaller snakes, including some babies (which of course got a big "Awww" from all the kids). The snakes got bigger...

..and bigger until they brought out the crowd-stopper snake: a huge albino python.

After they showed all the snakes, they walked around and let the kids touch them. (This was the part Courtney had been waiting for!)

Then just before it was time to go, Hannah got the chance to hold this smaller albino snake (can you tell she was excited?):

Of course the other girls had to have a short turn too (McKay is noticeably absent from the holding-the-snake pictures!):

We have learned that the snake we killed in our yard was harmless (sorry), but I still can't say I would be happy to see another one that close to the house! On second thought, maybe we need to get a few more snakes to help take care of this little rat problem...

Jump In!

More swimming pictures... (only one more day of lessons!). On Monday all 3 girls ended up working on dives and just getting to jump in off the diving board. (Poor McKay was stuck swimming the entire length of the pool several times -- he had to stop several times along the way and was worn out!)

So I tried taking lots of mid-air pictures (plus a few others too). I'll start with the "others":

Now for "diving" (I don' think any of them quite have the dive down yet, but we're making some progress...).

Hayley and Courtney are working on sitting dives:

And Hannah is doing kneeling dives and also trying to dive off the diving board (but she bends over and then ends up jumping in!):

Now let's JUMP!

Don't you just want to go jump in too? :-)

Bribery is Not Beneath Me

So, you know I'm learning about light in my photography class right now and trying to take pictures using natural light. I decided I wanted to try to get a nice picture of all four kids together. Challenging? Most definitely! Impossible? Not entirely, especially if you throw in a little bribe or two. :-)

Now I'm not talking major bribes here -- just the promise of a little treat or a cookie if they smile oh-so-nicely for Mom for a few minutes. I wanted to experiment with a couple of different places for pictures with all the windows we have and see how they turned out. I got a big chorus of "No Way!" upon my first request, but the mention of a cookie was enough to at least get the 3 girls interest.

So we tried just a little before church last Sunday. I started with the girls outside (since McKay wasn't dressed yet and hadn't decided he wanted to do pictures). This is what we got:

Not the greatest light and it's always at least a little windy outside, so that didn't last long. (And just a side note here -- I think Hayley has picked this same dress for church almost every single Sunday since I got it for her! This day she even put a couple of different ones on first, but eventually ended up with her favorite pink one!)

So we came inside and by then McKay was hungry enough for a cookie too so he had gotten himself dressed. Tried this spot near the back windows:

Lighting wasn't bad, but I didn't like the background or position all that well (I tried a couple of different angles and the others turned out worse). Time to go to church at this point.

After church and lunch and clothes were changed, I decided to try again. More cookies! Yes, my kids are certainly never lacking in the sugar department! I opened the front door (we have a full glass storm door so the light can come in but the bugs can stay out) and pushed the ottoman over in front of the door. First, only Courtney & Hayley were interested in cooperating. I thought this shot was cute:

And I liked this one too, except for the pink car that got left by the back door and ended up at the top of Courtney's head.

Then I finally convinced McKay & Hannah to participate (they didn't want to be left out of the nice, big picture Mom was going to hang on the wall, did they? and did I mention there are cookies after?). I decided to try the laying-on-the-ottoman pose and got this shot, which I must say I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!

There are only a couple of minor things I would change -- Hayley's hair being a little bunched up for one and the fact that I cut off some of Courtney's & Hannah's fingers (something I'm learning to watch out for!). And the background windows are a bit bright. But I love the lighting on their faces (and the fact I didn't have to use a flash!) and I love the catchlights in all their eyes (see below if you don't know what a catchlight is -- I didn't used to!) and I'm happy McKay's glasses aren't reflecting badly, and I'm SO, SO happy they're all looking at me and smiling at the same time!! I think I might have to get this one enlarged. :-)

Then I tried a different pose and changed my direction so the windows weren't right behind them. I don't like this one quite as well, but I do still like it:

And little Hayley stuck around at the end for her very own picture. Hopefully you can see the catchlights in her eyes with this closer-up shot (the reflections from the light source). They make her eyes sparkle!

Yeah for cookies!

Summer Pics and Home Furnishings

I promised a picture of our new metal headboard (that Julie got for us since we didn't have a local Garden Ridge store and brought up the last time they visited), so here it is:

I really like it with the white bedding. Now I just need to figure out what to hang up on the few walls we have (that aren't windows)...

And she also was able to get us some barstools for our high counter that she brought last time too:

The biggest problem is that there is only room for 3 barstools and since we have 4 kids, there are often tears over who does or doesn't get to sit there for breakfast or lunch. We need to figure out some kind of rotation or something.

And the challenge "word" in my photography class last Friday was "summer" so I took this picture:

And this one (a sunset):

(Besides all the swimming pools pictures, which are definitely summery.)

And here's another sunset picture that doesn't quite have the sunset colors, but I thought the clouds looked really neat!

And this final picture fits "summer" because it shows that my kids are going to bed really, really late (every night!) and not getting naps!

Swim Lessons, Second Session

The kids started their second session of swimming lessons last week. So we have three more days this week and then we're done with lessons! It has filled up our July -- I can't believe we're at the end of the month already!

They all got different teachers for this session. They moved McKay up a level, as well as Hayley, although I'm not so sure she was quite ready for the next level. For the most part I've been happy with their new teachers, although I've been the most disappointed with Hayley's teacher. He just doesn't seem to relate as well to the little kids and I haven't seen much in the way of teaching skills. For example, he'll just stand a few feet away from them and tell them to swim out to him, and if the kid doesn't want to, he goes to the next kid. So I'm not very impressed, but she is getting more confidence and exposure to the water, which was my main goal for her this year.

So now on to the pictures! (Of course, you knew there would be pictures.) I wanted to practice using a fast shutter speed to make water drop/splashes appear "frozen" in the pictures.

Before lessons started the girls went over to play in the "splash pad" area:

Since Hayley's class is a higher level, they don't have the kids stay on the steps, but along the wall. Hayley's discovered that she can actually barely touch the bottom here (I was surprised at first too!). So she's been having fun tip-toeing around during her lesson time.

Courtney's got a pretty small class this time and her teacher tells me she is doing great!

And check out how the summer sun is really bringing out those blonde highlights in Courtney's hair (this was taken after lessons as we waited for Dad to pick us up since we still were without our van):

Hannah's class is quite a bit bigger, but I like her teacher (and she often has someone helping her). This isn't the best picture of Hannah, but I thought the water splash was kind of neat:

And here's Hannah having a happy time:

I also had to get one of her after lessons so you could actually see her eyes instead of her goggles!

Here's McKay doing his favorite, the backstroke. He is getting pushed a bit in this level (and by his teacher), which is good for him although he doesn't always think so. He struggles sometimes to get all the way across the pool without stopping, so hopefully he can build up his stamina just a little.

And I've been taking so many close-ups with my photography class recently, I realized it's been a long time since I've taken a picture of all 4 kids together. So here one is!

More Pictures!

For lack of other news (our van is back at the dealership hopefully getting wires repaired for the last time -- and we do agree with my dad that it's probably rats building the nests in the engines), I thought I'd share a few more of the pictures I've been taking as part of my photography class. Some definitely turn out better than others and I still feel like my head is swimming sometimes when I have to try to think about how to set the camera, but I do like taking pictures! I hope you're not getting too tired of seeing them!

A few scenery shots:

Our last weekend's assignment challenge word was "metal" (the previous week it was "blue") -- here are my metal inspired pictures:

A couple more critters spotted in the yard (no surprise it was Courtney who came and picked up each of these):

Hayley practicing her letters (that's her Aunt Julie's hand in the picture) -- she can write her whole name now, even though if you ask her what the letters are, she'll say "I don't know!":

Courtney on the back patio (in the second shot she was riding past me on her bike -- I snapped a quick picture and thought it turned out good even though she wasn't really smiling):

More attempts at finding good lighting indoors (you can see part of our new bed frame -- I'll have to post a new picture soon):

And finally a couple more portrait attempts (outside in the wind):

I'm taking the camera again to swimming lessons tomorrow, so hopefully I'll get some good shots. We've started session two so the kids all have new teachers. More about that later!