SuperTrent!

 

Yeah, this definitely falls under the “Favorite Photos” category. This was a family project we undertook on a cold, snowy January afternoon when Trent was about 3 months old. The goal was that he would be asleep when we took the picture and it would look like this was his dream, but every time I got him to sleep and laid him down, he woke right up! Ha! He’s STILL a light sleeper. ;-)

The girls were very helpful with ideas about how to do this. The “buildings” he’s flying over are VHS videotapes laid on end, some with bits of construction paper for the lighted windows. The “moon” was a sheet. He was wearing a pair of white socks that passed for tights on his stubby legs and we had a red onesie we were able to slip a blue shirt over. I remember it took a long time to get to this point – probably a couple of hours, literally. But the kids were so excited throughout and the end result was far better than what we hoped.  :-)

Best in Show

Back in April, 2012, I wrote a blog post entitled The Boys of Summer, describing how Courtney managed to get this great picture of Trent:

Out of all the nice shots she got that day, this was my hands-down favorite. I just think it’s a great picture! In 2012, the girls did not participate in 4H, so we weren’t able to use this picture in the fair. This past year, Courtney signed up for 4H photography, but you can only submit pictures that have been taken in the past year, and we just missed the mark. A few weeks after the fair, we received an email from the 4H organizers letting all the 4H-ers know they were invited to submit photos to a local festival our town has every fall. This festival has a live band, antique car show, and an art and photography contest. We checked out the entry form, and their rules did not include any timeframes for when the pictures had to have been taken. So we decided to enter this picture.

Courtney got a call yesterday morning from one of the judges saying her picture had won “Best of Show” in her category! I was at the grocery when she got the call, so she called me to let me know. She told me later that when she was dialing the phone to tell me, she was so excited she dropped the phone!  :-D

We’re proud of Courtney and thankful she was recognized for such beautiful artwork!

Good morning, sunshine!

This was a phrase Mom used to wake us up with on many a morning and I find myself using it often. Claire is looking especially sunshiny this morning. I was able to capture her first smile of the day, just moments after she woke up.

Favorite Photos: Ballet Beauty

Out of dozens of pictures I took of the girls dancing during ballet class this year, who would’ve thought this would be my favorite picture?

I took this back in March. I can’t believe I even got it. I had the long lens on so I could stay as far back as possible and still get some close-ups of the dancing. Sarah and Isabella were right in front of me and for just a moment, Isabella whispered into Sarah’s ear. I snapped as fast as I could and only got this one shot.

Erica and Courtney, July 2012

We’ve been browsing through pictures in our Picasa photo albums and there are so many pictures that we go back to again and again. More often than not, my favorite pictures seem to be the happy result of great lighting, great composition and great subject matter that seem to come together at just the right time. So, periodically, I want to try to remember to upload these favorites to the blog and give a little background on them. I tend to think of this blog in terms of recent, up-to-date news on what’s going on, but I need to remember that the main goal is to document our family through the years – even those pre-blog years.

This picture was taken one warm summer night when Mick made this two-seater swing. Mom’s cousin, Suzy, spotted the plans for it in a Lowe’s flyer. She gave them to me because she thought it was something Mick could easily do. She was right: he put it together in an evening and the girls had to try it out right away. The sun had just set and I really didn’t have enough light left to get this shot. So many of the other ones I took were blurry, but again, somehow, everything came together at just the right moment: the lighting, the tall corn as a backdrop, the girls’ bare feet and joyful, carefree expressions that kids so often have in the summertime. I love it!