Christmas Program

Millie had her Christmas Program this week at Westfield High School. First I want to say a big THANKS to my mom who drove up just to see it. Rick was out of town and Millie was pretty upset that he was not going to see it. So thanks Mom, you rock!

This program was so funny I was laughing out loud. These kids practiced so hard everyday for about 2 months and it showed. I was very impressed and entertained.

Here are some photos of mine and a few a friend sent me because she was much closer to the action than I was.

A Few Chrsitmas Photos

This was the first night I was playing with my new lens. I still have a lot of learning to do and perfect focus is such a hard thing for me to master. I think it's because I don't see clear so it's impossible for me to use manual focus. Oh well, guess it just won't ever be perfect and I will have to live with it.

Karate Central

Reed needed an activity, the poor kid has nothing going on these days. Of course I knew if I signed Reed up, I would never hear the end of it from Millie so I now have 2 students of Karate in the house. Their uncles and Rick better watch out!

Snow Again

We had a a few inches of snow a few weeks ago. I guess I will get used to it and eventually I won't keep posting blogs every time it snows, I promise. But my kids get so darn excited about it so I can't help myself.

Reed wanted to shovel a pile of snow, that's what he told me. So I shoveled the entire driveway which was more ice than snow so that he could have a pile and re-shovel it into the yard. He was thrilled. Millie was at school while all this fun took place, poor thing.

Smart Boy

Reed is not nearly as easy to teach as Millie was so of course I try not to compare them. I am proud of Reed and how quick he learns, he just won't let me teach him for hours at a time like Millie did. So of course he is learning a little slower than she did. I think he is every bit as smart as she is, he just doesn't have the thirst for perfection that she did. Once I finally got him interested in trying to write letters, he took right off. He wanted to play his sight word game on my phone today and I said he had to learn to write his name first. He grabbed his aqua writer immediately and wrote this for me all by himself. His response was "See, told you I could do it, now can I play on your phone!?! "

Millie Is Thankful

Millie brought this work home from school last week. It cracked me up, especially that she put ages on the pictures she drew (sorry mom) and the Thanksgiving is...page. Where did she come up with that? I asked her if those were things the class said together but she said no, they were her answers. "Family chatting"?? Where in the world did that come from, so silly. And I don't think she has ever been around an apple pie. I have to believe some of those answers had friend influence!

Black Friday Fishing

Millie and Reed went fishing today with Grandpa Alan and Rick. They both caught 2 fish. Millie named her both of hers.

Reed's Thanksgiving Feast

Reed had a cute little Thanksgiving Feast at his school today. We got to go and see them sing some songs then they ate. Of coursed Reed ate and ate and ate. He had 3 plates but we had to cut him off because it was time to go. That boy is going to get really expensive to feed real soon. We may not only need our own cow but we may need to start raising our own pigs too!

Merry Christmas To Me - f1.4

I bought myself a little early Christmas gift and it came in the mail yesterday. A new lens for my camera, woohoo! It will take some getting use to because this is my first prime lens. What that means is it won't zoom. The only zooming that will happen is with my feet. So it will keep me moving but it will allow me to get so much more light in the camera so indoor shots and low lighting conditions will be possible now.

Here is an example. The first photo is with my old lens which only had an aperture of 3.5. See how Reed is blurry because I just didn't have enough light so the shutter had to stay open longer which caused the camera to record Reed's (and my) movement - thus, blurry.

Here is the same shot with my new lens. Same amount of light, same distance apart. My new lens has a larger aperture (1.4) which means more light will come in so the shutter does not stay open as long. See how much more clear (and goofy) Reed is?

I am very excited about this! Are you? I bet so!

Children's Museum

My mom, sister and nephew came to visit this past weekend and so we all had fun at the Children's Museum. The Museum really is too much to try to cover all in one day but we did our best. The kids had a blast and after our third trip there, we still have not seen everything. Good think the kids have a pass.

Reed was busy making DNA from wheat.