Bored

I'm in a hotel room in Pittsburgh right now and I'm a bit bored. I do have my new toy with me (iPad 3), which is certainly a big help. I'm loving that if I don't actually have work to do (often in my room at night I do, but tonight I don't), I now don't have to pull out Mu laptop but can instead just use the iPad. So nice!

However, I think I need more apps. I have the few games I typically play as well as a couple of new ones, but now I'm done and it's not even 10pm. So, I pulled up a new drawing app I got for the kids and made a couple of drawings. I wanted to share them here but apparently the blogger app has issues with publishing photos from the iPad as well. Maybe there's a setting I need to change, who knows.

Can you tell I'm kind of bored? Nothing like a rambling, pointless blog post. But hey, I guess that's my prerogative.

Updated: Now that I'm home, and I've got everything synced to iCloud, the drawings I created on the iPad easily synced to my home computer. So, here are the two drawings I did!

Art time!

Natalie has always loved coloring/drawing/painting, but we haven't done much lately. Now that Henry is starting to enjoy it more as well, we're spending more time enjoying these activities. Yesterday our plans to go swimming were cancelled due to rain, so we spent some time in the basement playing and organizing. Natalie found the travel easel we have (a gift from Uncle Scott for Christmas last year) and asked to play with it. The kids were happily occupied for quite a bit! Natalie enjoyed the white board, while Henry played with the chalk board on the other side.

Inside of the easel is a pad of paper, markers, colored pencils, and oil pastels. There's no way I was letting Henry play with the markers or pastels, so we had some fun with paper and colored pencils as well. Henry really enjoys when you trace his hands!

I asked Natalie if she wanted me to show her how to draw something, and she agreed, so I taught her how to draw a cat. Below is the progress that we made - I drew one on the left, I helped her draw the one in the middle (held the marker with her), and then she drew the one on the right. I'm so proud of her progress!

Since then, she's drawn about 4 more cats, including adding bodies to them. I can't believe she can already draw such recognizable things! My drawing skills aren't exactly fantastic, but I'm happy to help her learn some basics.

And here's another example of my drawing "skills" from this evening - tracing the cover of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" on the kids' glow pad. I can trace with the best of them!

Even though I may not be great, I do love arts & crafts, drawing, coloring, etc. So I'm glad to be able to share that with my children!

Loudoun County Fair

I love county fairs, carnivals, etc - always have. The lights, the food, the rides...it's all just so much fun. I've only been to one in the past few years (two years ago when I took Natalie to the Prince William County Fair), and had never been to the Loudoun County Fair since moving here. I'd heard from many others how much fun it could be, and finally this year we were able to get the kids there. We all had a blast - the one thing that I wish was we'd gone over a bit later in the day, as it was pretty warm HOT until the sun went down, and we left just as it was starting to get dark. The advantage was that it wasn't very crowded yet, but we missed out on the carnival at night, which to me is the best time! Maybe next year we'll go later.

We started off at the petting area, where we were smiled at by this guy

He did let me pet him, and I think Natalie did as well, but Henry was too scared to get too close. That continued to be the case - he was super excited to see the cows and pigs (look how cute they are sleeping together!), but when we were walking through the barns housing them, he was freaking out. As long as he was in his stroller, he was a bit better, but still didn't really want to pet anything...until we reached the chickens!


Apparently chickens aren't scary. To me, they are way freakier than mammals (I don't trust little darting bird eyes), but Henry loved them. The kids showing off their animals at the fair were really great about bringing the chickens over for him to touch, and we spent a LOT of time in the chicken area.

 We watched the "opening" ceremonies in the main ring, and I got this adorable photo of the two kids.

Then it was time for some dinner, followed by rides! I bought enough tickets for Natalie to go on three, and we talked her into this helicopter ride, as it looked like something she'd really enjoy. If you can read the writing on the sign inside, it says that if she pulls the bar back towards herself, the helicopter will go up in the air. At first she didn't, but then when she pulled it towards herself and went up in the air, she loved it!

 We of course had to go on the carousel, Natalie's favorite. She JUST made the height cutoff to be allowed to go by herself, which made all of us quite happy!

 I don't normally like to take photos of strangers, but I had to get this one and share it here cause it was too funny. These two teenagers rode with Natalie the entire time, and did not get off of their phones once. Didn't talk to each other or look around. Seriously, what's the point of riding the ride?!

Natalie then wanted to go on this "jet-ski" ride, which honestly was a bit slow and boring for her, but it let me get a couple of good shots.

 At that point, Henry started getting excited at the idea of a ride, so I bought two more ride tickets and we put them on this car ride. He absolutely LOVED it!! Very excited to have him go on more rides, and have them ride together, next year.

Last day at the beach house

We started off our last morning with some playtime in our bed - adorable kids!!

And then took the kids down to the beach one last time. Evan didn't really feel like going, and Henry was being a bit fussy, so he kept Henry at the house with him while we took the girls down. I also decided to risk it and bring my SLR camera down with me, as I really wanted to get some good photos. Love these couple I got of Natalie!

I've posted on my photography blog some of the photos I took that day with my telephoto lens, so you can click HERE to see those.

That afternoon, Natalie started playing with Katie, and it was so cute that I had to snag a few pics. I have more, but these are my two favorites!

 We promised Natalie and Zabby that they could stay up late on the last night and go in the pool while it was dark. They didn't get to stay up quite as late as they would've liked, but it was fairly dark by the time we made them get out of the pool. I can't remember who took this photo of Natalie and I, but I really like it!

A fitting way to end a fantastic vacation.

Pool time at the OBX

On our next-to-last full day at the beach, we spent a TON of time in the pool. The kids were of course clamoring for as much pool time as humanly possible, and this was such a perfect pool day that we were happy to oblige. Evan didn't feel like going in right away, so he took a ton of photos for me of us all having fun. I wasn't quite sure how to share them here, until I discovered an AWESOME feature in Picasa that allows me to make a photo collage! Maybe I'm a bit behind on the technology here, but better late to the party than not showing up at all, right? So, here is an overview of our fun in the pool. Despite some of the pictures being tiny, I really love this feature and I'm thinking you'll be seeing it more on here in the future ;)

My family on the beach

On July 4th, my friend Beta brought her SLR camera down to the beach (I had not gotten that brave yet - I didn't make that call until Friday, our last day at the house). She let me download her photos, as I knew she had taken some good ones, but I didn't know how many until I saw them! So, hats off to Beta for taking such fantastic photos of my family (and our other friends, of course, but I'm not showing those here!).

I love this shot of Natalie and I!

If you're friends with me on Facebook, then you've seen this one and see it every time I post something, as it's my profile pic right now. I love everything about it - the boys in their shades, us being out in the super calm water, the fact that we all look pretty good...it's just such a great photo.

Beta managed to get this close-up shot of Natalie...and it may be my favorite recent photo of her. Look at that beautiful face! The framing of the photo, her expression - it's just great. 

Henry did not take his shades off all day - he does not like the sun in his eyes. So, he gets to be a man of mystery here...and such a cute one he is!

Natalie's reaction to the wave washing up on her.

While the rest of us sitting on the beach don't look that great, I love that she got Natalie in a mid-air leap!

I had absolutely no idea that Beta took this photo. I think I was being cute at Evan (or something), but the pose I'm making is pretty cute, I think. Cute enough for me to share here, at least :)

So once again, thank you Beta for taking such great photos of me and my family!

Beach week 2012: Sunday

The first day at the beach house was a fun one! We got settled into our rooms, and at that point it was lunchtime. The kids were very excited by the high bar seats at the kitchen counter. It was a favorite place to eat - and as there were 4 who were old enough to sit there, but only 3 seats, you can imagine where that led...!

Like all of the other parents, I took FAR more photos of the kids than of the adults, and our littlest house guest was one of the most fun to photograph. Here's Katie looking adorable! Love that grin.

That afternoon, outdoor pool time was interrupted by what we thought was going to be a really bad storm. Before it started, we went outside to take a look and some photos. I posted the photos I took of the clouds on the photography blog (the first two photos there); here's another one.

The clouds were surreal! Like something out of an alien movie before the ship breaks through. Somehow, the storm went right around us (that day) and all we got were a few drops of rain and lots of wind. Henry thought it was pretty awesome

And Evan got these two pretty great photos of Henry and I.

Zabby's mom bought the girls matching pajamas; I knew this ahead of time and still packed pjs for Natalie. I'm not sure why, as these are all that were worn the entire trip. The girls looked adorable!

The girls also got to share a room with bunk beds - there was enough space to set up both of the play tents we had brought (left is Kathy's, right was ours), which gave all of the kids a place to play, and let the girls put on "shows" with their Barbies. Too cute!

A really great first day...and the rest of the trip continued. I've already posted about July 4th, put some of my more artistic photos on the photography blog, and still have about 3 more beach posts to do. Hopefully I can finish up this week so I can move on to other fun things we did in July...before August gets away from me completely!

Sprinkler fun!

The day before we checked into our beach house, my parents let the kids go run around in their sprinkler for a while. Fantastic fun was had by all (even us just watching).

 Here's Natalie showing off her water ballet

 Love the expression on his face!

 And speaking of expressions, this may be my favorite recent picture of him. Look at that face!

 Love any time they hold hands and do something together

 When we were just about done, Pop-pop took the hose and started spraying us with it - Natalie thought this was fantastic fun. I, holding a camera, did not!

Happy July 4th!

One month ago today was July 4th, and since I still haven't put up many photos from our week at the beach, I figured this was as good a time as any to start. I have well over 600 photos from our 10 day trip to the Outer Banks, and obviously cannot put them all up here. I decided the easiest thing to do would be to pull out my favorite "groups" of photos (beach, pool, kids playing, etc), so hopefully those posts will be up soon. In the meantime, here's the fun we had on July 4th.

We took the kids to the beach 3 times while staying at our beach house; the second trip was on Jul\y 4th. Here are the kids (mytwo, Zabby & Zane) getting ready to head down to the beach.

 Note: I didn't intend for this photo to look so old-fashioned, but it was so blurry from condensation on my lens this was the only way to salvage it. I actually really like how it turned out!

Evan building a trail of sand structures for the kids to knock over.

 After the beach was lunch, and nap, and then my parents' arrived at our house to have a Fourth of July BBQ with us. While the food was cooking, we took the kids in the pool. This photo is my favorite - you can see the splash as Henry kicks some water at Pop-Pop!

 The kids all had red,white, and blue July 4th clothing, and we were able to get this great group shot! If you'll look closely, you may be able to see that they all have temporary tattoos - these were a HUGE hit. Little Katie even has one on the top of her foot!

 Kathy was nice enough to take this great family photo of us.

 ...and this one of the two of us. Awwww

 After dinner it was time for sparklers! Natalie and Zabby were the only two old enough to hold their own completely, which they were very excited about.

 Henry had my help with his, but I let him hold it by himself very briefly in order to get his photo. He was fascinated!

 I knew from the one photography class I've taken that a longer exposure allows you to take photos of moving things, and have them appear stationary. So, we thought we'd try writing our names with sparklers and seeing how the photos came out. Turns out, pretty darn well! Kathy took this one of me writing my name (we used an 8 second exposure, after me playing around with the settings a bit).

 And I took this one of her. Most impressive was that she wrote her name backwards!

 We didn't think we were going to see any fireworks, where our house was located, but turns out we saw a TON of them! I didn't get very clear photos of the fireworks, but despite the "fuzziness" I really like this photo.

 Finally, there was a full moon that night, and with all of the sulfur in the air from the fireworks, the moon appeared very yellow/orange. With the assistance of my 300mm telephoto lens, and a sturdy railing to set the camera on, I got this beautiful shot of the moon.

All in all, a fantastic July 4th! Beach, friends, fireworks, family - what more could you ask for?!