There were just so many favorites from Saturday night I had to include a couple more...

A couple more from Saturday night at Murray Park.

Little Miss Sky last night at the park...

A couple from tonight!

Tonight we went over to Murray park before running a couple of errands.  Lately Brooke has been emptying out the bin of fake food and putting it on her head.  It's been hilarious watching her walk around with this bin on her head.  She does it ALL the time.  She specifically dumps the food out so she can put it on her head.  Back when I originally had her picture taken in this outfit by Carin, she wasn't so fond of the hat.  Now that she's been walking around with things on her head (even though they're not hats) I decided to break out the hat again and see if she'd wear it.  LIKE A CHAMP!  She hardly took it off.  I figured it would be fun to try and take a few pictures myself in hopes that I could emulate Carin Davis' original work.  Here are a couple I took tonight.

Laughter and Tears...

Again just playing with old pictures, changing the look, using the sharpening tool, etc.

Just playing with old pictures.  Learned how to set an action to sharpen images and then do it.  Not sure this is the best image, but I sharpened it.  I also used curves a little.  Still playing/learning.  Hoping to take some more classes, read a few books this year and learn ways to take great shots!

I love making things and have recently learned how to make rag blankets.  I made one for a friend and wrapped it up and put a (hair) bow on top.  It was the cutest little gift, I had to take a picture of it.

A few different clicks and I get a completely different look of my poor eyelash attempt.  I like this a little better.

ISO 1600, but still cute none the less.  I love Jett's little hands helping up his sister!

I'm so bummed, I just realized this is the photo that caused all the ISO problems.  I just downloaded all the images off my camera only to realize they are ALL grainey and because they were on an ISO of 1600!  DOG-GONE-IT!  Live and learn.  I remember just playing around with my camera inside while Sky rode on my leg.  She was being cute and trying to get my attention while I fiddled with my camera.  It was fairly dark inside so I set it to 1600 to see if I could get her without using the flash.  I set it there and forgot about it.  So the park, the pool, and for several other fun pictures, I am sad they are all terribly grainey.  Good news for my kids, this means Mom wants to go back and retake some of these pictures.  So back to the fun park we found the other night and at least one more trip to the pool!

First attempt...

Carin Davis offered up a challenge/task on her blog for others to try, so somewhat willingly I went for it.  She posted this amazing picture of her little girl just out of the bath, clean and calm and wrapped up in her towel.  She focused in on her eyelashes that were still wet and it was beautiful.  She challenged others to take an "eyelash" photo and post it.  So excited to have something to capture, I took my camera to the pool.  I knew that if I could just get above Brooke, I could get an "eyelash" photo cause she has amazing eyelashes.  Problem is that ME, the still new at this manual thing, didn't check the ISO setting before shooting a bunch of photos.  It doesn't look so great at 1600 out in the broad daylight.  LAME!  So this was my first attempt, and the second (either tonight after baths or next week at the pool) will be much better!  I will be sure to make sure the ISO is on a reasonable setting for the lighting situation.  So this is grainey but however since I want to document my journey... I must post my mistakes as well as my treasures!