Creations From Everyday Life

July in Review.

I know that I've been posting pictures of other peoples kids lately. And, I haven't really had a lot of time to sit down and just do a post about our family happenings as of late. So, I decided to do that today. Believe me, it's been a pretty long process to get myself to this point (being able to actually start the post). It started this morning with me selecting pictures from my July Folder that I wanted to use. Then I had to transfer them from RAW to JPEG. Then I had to do stuff with the kids. You know. Clothe them. Feed them.

Then I finally had time to open them in my PSE so that I could resize them. But more stuff came up... and eventually I ended up out at our new lot to show my sister. Then we went to her work to pick up her paycheck. Then we ended back here, where I had to feed Tess and ban the girls to their bedroom until they cleaned it up. They have really had a hard time keeping it clean lately!

I got back to my pictures. I resized them all, added my watermark and re-saved them. Then... Tess needed me again because she has started to roll over. This means she instantly rolls on to her stomach if you lay her on her back... but she doesn't necessarily love being on her stomach. I just picked her up and rocked her in my rocking chair for about 30 minutes until she finally fell asleep.

At present time, Tess is asleep in her crib. The older girls are in their room... not cleaning. And I'm pretty sure Calvin is in there annoying them.

And on with the post!

A couple of weeks ago, Tess really discovered that she has hands. She has been slightly aware of them for a little while... but she REALLY NOTICED them just recently. I was lucky enough to get a picture of her staring at her hands in total amazement. I always love it when they are excited to discover body parts. (Well with the exception of the time Calvin discovered he was a boy in the shower. That's a story for another time).

Then we discovered that Tess inherited something from her father. When she is really concentrating on something. Like the toy she is trying to kick... or her hands, she sticks her tongue out.

Nothin' cuter than a little baby tongue.

Then... Jared turned 30.

He said that he needed a BIG PARTY!

So I planned for 2 weeks, and threw him a BIG PARTY.

We had catering from Famous Dave's BBQ. I mean, what kind of dude wouldn't want as many ribs and wings as he could eat on his birthday???

For drinks we had Apple Beer and Coca Cola, both in glass bottles. And mixed drinks (Blueberry Mint, Sweet Sunrise, and Blackberry Lemonade).

Throw that all together with 24 of your closest friends, and that equals a pretty rockin' birthday in my book! Oh... and the best part is that there were no kids allowed.

I made him a big cake, and had 30 candles on top. We had problems with it though because although it didn't seem windy outside... I guess it was just windy enough to blow the candles out for Jared! We were going to move the action inside... but decided to make a go of it outside instead. We all started singing while someone else re-lit the candles.

During this picture... we were all singing, while someone was lighting... and someone else was trying to keep the wind from blowing the candles out! I think he maybe got to blow half of them out on his own. Still fun.

The Saturday after Jared's birthday, I really wanted to get up early with Kate and take some pictures at a place I pass often. I wanted to make it out before sunrise to take some cool early morning pictures. But I goofed it like I always do. By the time we got up, dressed, and to the location... it was about 7:10am. Geez, I can't believe how sunny it is already at 7am!

Kate was not the most cooperative model. I'd tell her where to stand, and then I'd get into position. But then she would give me "mom, I'm purposely giving you really cheesy smiles because I know they annoy you" smiles.

But whatever, I was cool with that... because all I really wanted to do was scout the location for possible future photo shoots.

By the way. If you have bad allergies... this would NOT be a cool location. There was WEEDS/TUMBLEWEEDS/WHO KNOWS WHAT everywhere... which wasn't a problem for Kate and I. But Jared sneezed just looking at the pictures!

About 7:45am the same morning, we went back home to ask Erica and Jocelyn if they wanted to go to the "farmers market" at Ancestor's Square. They have it every Saturday morning from 8am - Noon. I say "farmers market" because it wasn't really what I would consider a Farmers Market. There was some produce from local farmers... which was cool. But there was A LOT of crafts and homemade goods that had nothing to do with farming. They even had a table where you could register to vote?

Erica didn't want to go. She wanted to sleep all day (which is the norm for her). But Jocelyn was all for it! When we got there, I let the girls play around. I took some (what would have been) really cute pictures of Kate in front of an old door. But I was using auto-focus, and my camera focused on the door and not her... so she was super blurry... and I was quite mad about it because she looks natural instead of cheesy smiled. <-- run on sentence I know. But I was ranting.

But I took these fun ones (manual focusing) on the old fire engine they have there.

I didn't feel like editing... so take them as they are...

After pulling 1 happy girl (Katelyn) and one screaming girl who I swore I should have left at home (Jocelyn), away from the fire truck... we went to the actual market. We sampled some home made cheeses. Yummy. Then we bought some home made blueberry bread. Super yummy. I let Jocelyn and Katelyn pick out some jewelry from this vendor. They could either get a necklace, OR a bracelet and ring. But not all 3 (didn't have enough money for all of it). Katelyn quickly picked out a necklace she liked. Jocelyn wanted it all and threw a holy fit that I wasn't going to get it all for her. So she ended up picking a necklace (when I should haven't let her have anything)... and we went home. I told Jared that the next time I went I was just taking Kate.

And maybe Calvin.

After some breakfast, we decided that some skeet shooting sounded like fun. I forgot to mention above that Jared's present for his birthday was a new shotgun. An expensive new shotgun. And he was dying to try it out!

So we went to Wal-Mart and bought everything we needed. Shells, and Skeet. And we made our way out of St. George city limits to shoot.

Here is a shot of the beauty broken open (so that Jared could load the shells).

Mom: now you can at least say you saw the gift you chipped in for!

I shot it twice, but noticed that the kick of the gun wasn't too nice to my milk ducts. So wanting to avoid Mastitus, I declined to shoot it anymore. But Jared had fun.

And Kate had fun shooting the .22

I thought this picture was fun because you could actually see the ejected shell flying out of the gun. It's hard to see in this reduced version of the picture... so I circled it.

The whole time we had fun shooting, Jocelyn and Calvin sat in the truck and whined because it was hot... and they were hungry... or they had to pee... or whatever else they could imagine to whine about. All-in-all, not a good day for Jocelyn.

Awesome day for Katelyn.

...same day.

Erica was at work, and we decided to go fishing.

It was still hot, but we had fun.

No one caught anything... but shortly after this picture was taken Calvin threw Jocelyn's pole into the lake!

Jared and I fished it out, so all was well...

In other July news.

Katelyn is working on a nice crop of mushrooms in our backyard:

We have a few patches in our yard that we are attempting to re-seed. We've been attempting for awhile, but the mix between dry desert heat... and the dog re-digging up the patches has made it difficult. However, Kate has had major success with this location. That girl, bless her heart, goes out every morning (and afternoon... and evening... and sometimes a few times in-between) and waters the grass seed. And it's growing REALLY WELL now! Along with a few mushrooms from the extreme over watering. But I'm proud that she is so determined with it.

I fully attribute my still living vegetable garden to her watering skills as well!

Also this month.

Swimming Lessons.

They have been very successful. Of course they have been in a total of 4 different sessions.

Jocelyn went from level 2 to level 3. She can now do the front crawl, back stroke and elementary backstroke. Her favorite is the elementary backstroke, and she actually has decent form with that one!

Katelyn has been in level 2 all summer, but will be moving up to level 3 on August 18th (when their 5th and last session for the summer starts).

Calvin started in level one. And is still in level one.

But now he looks like this during his lesson:

Instead of this:
(June 2nd)

...or this:
(still June 2nd)

He is borderline between level 1 and 2. But we are just keeping him in level 1 to finish out the summer. He will probably start next year in level 2!

Soon we will be starting a new adventure... as school starts in 1 week and 4 days!

Man how the time flies!

The Twins.

I met Natasha back in October (2007). Her mom is in my ward, and we were at the ward Halloween party/trunk-or-treat. I had talked to her because her daughter had the cutest costume, and was about Calvin's age. Then I was talking to her again at a Christmas thing at the church. I was clueless for awhile... and then she was like... "oh, my daughter was the bee at the Halloween party."

So you know me... I followed her daughter around the gym and took pictures of her.

I think from then on out, we kept track of each other via the blog sphere. In that time, she found out she was pregnant with twins, and I started a photography business.

I told her long before they were born that I needed to take pictures of them for my portfolio. Then I launched my website (amyhummel.com which has been updated with new pictures as of this morning), and she kept reminding me not to leave her out of my portfolio! I felt flattered to say the least!

So, finally they came. A bit early... and their arrival was announced in a hilarious post titled "The Buns Are Done," by her husband Dave. Something about the wordage:

• ...at 5:45 out popped Jack. he came out just fine. Right after that he did a quick ultra sound to check the position of the girl, turns out she wasn't in that great of a position. She wasn't as head down as we would've liked her to be, but Dr. Ott didn't seem to mind too much. He reached in grabbed her two feet and proceeded to pull her out feet first. Kind of reminded me of a dairy farm...

After they spent several weeks in the NICU, I was finally able to come photograph them. Because they were already 3 weeks old by the time I got my paws on them, they weren't as sleepy as I would have liked. And they didn't want to ball up either.

But I think we got some good ones nonetheless.

What do you think?!

Big sis giving baby sis loves...

Baby Aniston being super cooperative!

"ON TO THE ONES OF THEM TOGETHER" I hear you chanting. How's this for a cute one!

Or this one?

Or what about this one?

This one of Aniston turned out better that I thought it would (thanks to photoshop), but it definitely wasn't my vision. And thank you Megan for the ruler.

This one of Jack is one of my FAVES!!! I totally threw this pic into my portfolio as fast as I could get it uploaded! I think it may have something to do with his spiky hair and little fingers.


This is probably my favorite of them together. And, as a side note... they locked arms like this all by themselves. Yes, it would have been cute to pose them this way. But isn't it so much cuter knowing that they did it on their own!


I love this angle. Jack didn't like this angle. He was crying in this picture. Aniston was like, "whatever..." Thanks Dave for helping us hold the fabric!


Of course, I can't have a newborn shoot without taking pictures of their feet. But I think there is something super appealing to having 4 little baby feet in the picture!


Tops of their head. Not as crisp as I would have liked... but I was having focusing issues. I think my eyes were just tired. It was at the very end of the session and I manual focused most of the pictures.


I love this one of Jack. All snuggly in his mama's arms.


And then finally, this adorable one of him snuggling up to his sisters cheek.


Natasha walked away with 60 pictures of her cute little babies! And I walked away with awesome portfolio material... and some rockin' earrings (which I have worn 2 days in a row now). You can look at her jewelry website here. I think I may need to buy some from you!

Cozy in the Morning.

I love the lazy summer mornings. Jared goes to work. The older kids watch cartoons. I feed Tess, and then lay her next to me. We both drift in and out of sleep for 30 minutes or so...

I don't want to forget mornings like this.

Aaralyn & Jack.

When I came for the shoot, Aaralyn was a big help (like all new big sisters are). She's just a little older than Calvin... so I'm familiar with the age. I goofed around with her some. She liked looking at the pictures on the LCD screen. And she also liked poking the lens of my camera just as I was about to take a picture. I think this probably annoyed her mom more than it annoyed me. I seem to have great patients when it comes to other peoples toddlers. I probably would have shut Calvin in his room. Which funny enough... was Aaralyn's fate!

But, while she was with us... she smothered her brother and sister with hugs and kisses to the point where we wondered if they'd be smothered, literally.

At least it made good photos.

Right?

Our little piece of land.

I know I've posted about this a lot... so I have to make sure I get more creative with my photography to make it interesting... ha!

Yesterday we made our official, first payment on our lot. And since it always hurts to make LARGE payments, we needed to treat ourselves to a little therapy today. The therapy being, actually standing on what we were paying for... and walking around what will be our new neighborhood.

About 2 minutes of walking from our house (lot) will get you here:

We walked on the golf cart path for a bit. The golf course opens at the end of August, so we weren't too worried about being in the way. The security guy told us not to let the kids pull the grass. Which was fine since we wouldn't even let them walk on the grass...

I like how crazy the skies get here. It looks so cloudy and stormy one direction... and so blue and calm in another direction.

I took a picture of this cool flowering desert plant with a stormy background... I over-exposed it (oops), but tried to fix it in my RAW editor. It's okay. I guess.

I told Calvin to stand on this rock. I visualized him standing tall on it and looking off into the distance. But he wasn't too sure of his footing. So this is what I got.

I still love it.

Jocelyn playing over the edge of our lot.

Jared chillin' on that rock I tried to get Calvin to stand on...

Imagine that. He's smiling in a picture.

And lastly, my favorite picture of the day.

All of the fun we had... the girls were the most excited to visit this.

Curious?

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

Yep.

You guessed it...

The port-a-potty.

From Below the Surface.

This week I was asked to take pictures underwater where my kids have taken swimming lessons all summer. I ended up with a good amount of $$ for doing so, and got some really fun pictures to expand my portfolio.

Of course I have to show off my kids. This is Calvin, who at the beginning of the summer was terrified of the water.

I don't know why he insisted on the goggles, since they were full of water anyway. But they matched his swimsuit nicely.

Here Calvin is jumping in to Keith. Keith is the son of the swim instructor Kristen. He helps his mom with the little kids.

...AND the most awesomest thing ever. Here is video of Calvin swimming under water:

Here is Kate jumping in:

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Now on to the new portfolio entries... in no particular order of favoriteness...

 

just a little sneek peek of...

...the two most adorable tiny people in the whole wide world!!!!!

I haven't even had time to sit down and go through the 100+ pictures I have... but I just had to post one right away! This one comes to you straight out of my camera. Transfered. Reduced. No photo-shopping what so ever!

Man am I in love with these kids!

Kate Today

Kate: "Mom. We can't step on the cracks." (speaking of the kitchen tile).

Me: "Why not?"

Kate: Because they are sooooo mysterious..."

Dirt. Dirt. and more Dirt.

Last weekend was a family reunion that happens annually on the Arizona Strip. It's about 70 miles from any civilization... yet 900+ people drag themselves and their camping gear out to the dust bowl we call the "Bundy Reunion."

It's huge... it's dirty... it's fun.

Although I'm always afraid of the dust vs. my camera... I take it every year because it's an amazing landscape, and I can always find a fun picture to take. Sure I could bring my husbands Point & Shoot. But what fun would that be?

For instance. The photograph above took awhile to get how I wanted. I wanted the mirror in focus and the background in motion. This would be pretty difficult in any moving situation. But throw in a primitive dirt road at 60+ MPH and you have serious bumpyness! I wanted the shutter speed fast enough that it could still the mirror (even though we were bouncing all over)... yet slow enough to blur the background. I think it took about 10 tries to get the right combination of shutter speed/aperture/and stretch of road. And I'm glad I was patient... because I love how it turned out.

Below, I was getting a picture of Katelyn watching the sunset on our first night there. I forgot to take the the settings off of black and white though.

I thought the picture was cool though, so I kept it. And then I changed the settings so that I could get this:

That was Thursday night.

After that, I lost all "creative photography" interest because Tess and I were sick. We had some sinus thing going on that we didn't have when we left home, so we chalked it up to allergies.

Friday night I couldn't sleep because there was someone snoring in the next tent over. Finally Jared made me a nice bed in the back seat of our truck. I know it doesn't count comfy... but it totally was. I slept soooo good, and felt GREAT the next day (other than having the sniffles and an occasional sneezing fit).

Saturday was a dream! The weather was perfect! Mostly overcast and cool... but not cold. Then it would drizzle rain off and on. Most people would think that it would suck to have rain while you were camping. But out here in the desert it's our idea of a good time. In fact, most of us were saying prayers that it WOULD rain while we were there. And when it started raining... we moved our chairs from under the tarps (that we used for shade) so that we could sit out and enjoy!

This was when Tess and I started feeling a lot better. I think that most of our sinus problems came from the dust in the air. So the rain would knock the dust down. And just when it would start to get dusty, it would rain again and knock the dust down. It was amazing!

So since i was feeling better... out came the camera again (although I made sure to keep it in it's weather resistant camera bag... zipped up tight when not using it).

I had to take a picture of my sister Erica. She participated in the Skeet Shoot competition. I thought that she was rockin' cool because she had never even shot a gun (other than a B.B. gun) before. And there she was rockin' out the skeet shoot with the red-necks. She didn't hit any clay pigeons... but she's a winner in my book!

 

Then it was nap time. I contemplated walking around camp and taking pictures of everyone snoozing. Some people were in some pretty embarrassing positions to photograph (which is why I probably wanted to take a picture of it)... But I didn't want to make anymore family enemies, so I just took one of cute Kate:

...and sweet little Dallie napping on her aunt Ivonna.

 Later, I caught Jocelyn during one of her rare visits to our campground. Since I never get a picture of her at this reunion because she's never around... I made quick work to take this:

look at that dirty face!

And then I got this one of her cooling off in a barrel full of water:

Kate was pretty proud of this jaw bone she found from some perished cattle.

And here is Tess doing what she does best. Smiling and looking cute.

...and then my creative side came back, and I wanted to take a picture of myself through Jared's sunglass lens. This was in-between rain showers. I just noticed that you can see Tess laying on the cot in the bottom corner of his glasses. Isn't she cute?!

 

Then a rain shower came through again, except it was raining and sunny at the same time. I really wanted to get a cool picture of the rain coming through the trees and reflecting the sun. But I didn't have a tri-pod which I would have needed to get the shot I wanted. I needed a slow shutter speed to show the rain falling. But instead I settled on this one with the rain drops frozen in place (which is still kind of cool). You have to look close to see them...

That was it for the Saturday pictures. Sunday morning we started to pack up because we needed to be home at a decent time. Jared needed to get ready for his 50 mile backpacking trip.

An uncle was walking around offering strawberries so that he didn't have to cart them home. Calvin quickly accepted and out came the camera because I needed to document his dirtiness.

Mmmm... look at those hands...

While Jared was busy loading the truck... I kept Calvin busy by helping him to play a little fetch with our dog. Our dog is a little ADHD when it comes to fetching things.

Here's the wind up... (look at the game face on Diode).

And the release:

And lastly... I had to take a picture of a flower that grows in this area called the "desert globemallow."

It has to be one of my favorite flowers ever... and if I could... I'd have a WHOLE YARD OF THEM!

Then, I handed over the camera to Erica, and she took a few. Here are the ones of Tess and I.

Notice the string of drool coming from Tess in the photo above?

How was your weekend?

Tess at 4 months.

She's actually not quite 4 months just yet, but I figure it's close enough to get started. She turns 4 months in 4 days, and is getting to have her very first camping trip (the reason for my early post).

She discovered that she has hands this month. She also discovered that sucking her thumb is fun. As a result, many-a-binkies have been plugged into her mouth to hopefully nip that habit in the bud before it starts.

I think we are failing.

I discovered yesterday that she doesn't like me to rock her to sleep. I fed her around her bed time, but she was very much still awake. So I laid her in her bounce chair to chill for awhile. Within 5 minutes she started to doze. So I picked her up and started rocking her. I guess I just wanted to cradle her and sing to her. I rocked her for a minute or so with her smiling at me. And then she started to get super fussy and arched her back. So I thought... maybe she just wants me to lay her down. I did. And then she snuggled down in her bed and fell asleep before I left the room.

It almost breaks my heart that she's so new... yet already so independent at the same time!

She has a favorite toy.

I laid her under it for the first time this week, and within 30 minutes she had figured out how to use it to the max! It has a big pedal on the floor that she can kick (which makes the toy play music, and it has things that spin around.) But the floor pedal is for sissies. She aims for the big dogs up in the air... hanging from the top!

And, she loves to put her hands in her mouth starting this week. Not to suck her thumb... but I guess she is feeling her tongue with her fingers??

It's super cute... and I want to get a picture of it.

And that's all about Tess for this post. I'll post more after the 4th weekend!

On another note (of cuteness)... this was the funniest thing the other day. I had a friend over, and her daughter (who's photos frequent this blog quite a bit) wanted to wear these swim goggles. She absolutely loved them. She walked all over the house with them on, and would even stop to adjust them, and then start walking again. I debated for awhile on if I wanted to dig my camera out... but her cuteness overtook me... and the photographer in me HAD TO TAKE A PICTURE!

She's awesome:


And I really don't know why suddenly everything is being underlined. it won't let me deselect the underlining tool. This happened to me the other day, and to turn it off I had to close the whole thing and re-start my post. AND... I really don't want to close this and re-start.

So underlining you get.

Also...

I made a birthday cake today (Amy Style).

I don't have a picture... but I'm going to convince my friend (who I made the cake for. Well for her daughter actually) to take a picture with her 1Ds. <--AWESOME Camera!

I on another note... am scheming on how to get my hands on the 5D.