home sweet home

We've made it back safe and sound to...ahem...not so sunny California. It's rained the past 2 days...boo! But there was a bit of sun yesterday that we were able to go outside to the NEW park behind our house. It's so fun because they put in a small area for 2-5 year olds (it says so on the sticker on the pole! ha!)...so it's perfect for a supervised little Luke! There's also a swing set with 2 baby swings! YAY!!! Luke LOVES to swing...it relaxes him beyond belief! So we're looking forward to seeing the sunshine again so we can head back out there. A trip out back will probably be worked into our daily schedule...for mine and Luke's sanity of getting out of the house. It's so perfect to have out back!

Our trip home was AWESOME!!! We had SO much fun both in Lubbock and FW. I have too many pictures to even think of counting and I'll get them up with a recap of our trip ASAP. I have to get them off the camera and on the computer first!

As for now (it's 1am), I should probably hit the hay. Brian's been so wonderful to let me sleep in these past few days (and really our entire trip) so I'm back on the night owl schedule, which will abruptly end in a few hours when I wake up to an early bird little boy...but I couldn't think of a better way to be awakened!

Thank you all for such a wonderful trip home. We're so glad we got a chance to see some of y'all back home...we're just sorry we couldn't see everyone. Thank you ESPECIALLY to our families for putting us 'up' and being so accommodating! We REALLY appreciate it and y'all!

Stay tuned for TONS of pictures!

Love to you all!
LDub (my new nickname...I've bestowed upon myself!)

Santa Claus Came to Town v. 2

I've hit a wall...I tried uploading all my pictures from our Santa visit and it told me I had reached my limit for pictures! :( So I have the option to 'purchase' more space (of course), but I was able to delete a few miscellaneous albums I had so I could upload these.

So with all that being said, here's our pictures from going to visit Santi Claus!

'weeeee!'

such a big boy!

'that's a BIG bear, Daddy! Can I have one?'

'I LOVE ponies!'

'uh, uh...almost can get it!'

almost there!!!

'oh, hi there!'

'your beard is weird...'

'oh, hi! I kinda like you!'

'ooo...you have shiny things on your jacket...'

'I'm gonna keep my eyes on you.'

 

Santa Claus Came to Town!!!

We went to see Santa today!!! I had a pretty good feeling that Luke would do fine (as opposed to 2 of my friend's kid's -that are Luke's age- pictures...the typical screaming baby and smiling Santa. Ha!) I figured Luke would be more interested in checking Santa out and possibly pulling his beard. HA! Well, a mommy's intuition is right! Luke smiled away! He was SO STINKING ADORABLE!!! He looked at Santa, checked him out and started to smile and giggle a bit. Too cute! So here are the pictures we bought from the mall. I've got a few more of us in line and with Santa. I'll post those later tonight, but here are these for now! Merry Christmas!!!
 

What's happenin' Santi Claus!?!

 

Ooo Ooo Eee Eee...Oopsie!

Woopsies! I got so excited to get all my postings up that I completely forgot about Halloween! How could I possibly have forgotten to put up pictures of the cutest stinking monkey there was??? I have no idea!

So I waited and waited on deciding what (if any) costume to get Luke. I figured we weren't going trick or treating since Luke is too little for treats (and I certainly didn't need to acquire any treats for myself or Brian!) and assumed we'd just stay home and hand out treats. I didn't really want to spend the money on a costume just to stay home. But the idea of not dressing him up for his first Halloween bugged me too. I REALLY wanted him to be 'Max' from Where the Wild Things Are, but the only costumes I could find were 'homemade' and either really poorly done or waaaay too expensive (we're talking $250) for a one-time use. Then the idea of me being the Cat in the Hat (which is my go-to costume) and Brian and Luke being Thing 1 and Thing 2 respectively crossed my mind, but didn't make it to fruition for some reason or another. So we went to a costume shop and found a couple of costumes, but none that struck my fancy. I had seen a monkey costume at Old Navy a couple weeks prior so we decided since we've always said Luke's a little monkey, he'd be a monkey ('Max' will happen...just in a few years!). And the bonus was the costume had gone on sale!!! Luke was a monkey for the bargain price of $10! Woo-Hoo!


We did end up walking around the neighborhood with some friends, so Luke was seen as the cute little monkey he was (and he WAS the cutest monkey out there, if I do say so myself!).

giving our neighbor some treats!

the Cat in the Hat and her lil' monkey

Who knew the Cat in the Hat was FABULOUS!!!

This was our 'Spooooky' front porch. I cut out each of the bats (it took forever, but I just mindlessly cut them out while watching TV after Luke went to bed) and made the wreath...which I'm very proud of! It turned out awesome!

Auntie Em Comes to Visit!

 YAY!!! My BFF from college (10 years ago! We can't believe it's been that long!) came to visit and meet Luke right before his 1st birthday! I was super excited that I got to see her and she got to meet Luke! It was a super quick trip, but I'll take what I can get! I picked her up early Sat. morning and took her back to the airport Sun. afternoon. So we spent Sat. playing with Luke and catching up. And, of course, a mini photo shoot! Then Sat. night we had an 'old school' girl's night out and left the boys at home. Then Sun., well, let's just say reminiscing about college days does not mean my body recovers like in my college days! It was such an  awesome weekend! Thanks for coming to visit Auntie Emme! We heart you!!!!

p.s. Luke loves his new clothes too, Auntie Em!

it's my Auntie Em mommy!

she's my new best friend...because she holds me upside down!

Where Has It Gone?

...Time that is! I can't believe Thanksgiving just passed! It has been absolutely NUTS here! I finished up with my photography class and feel like I haven't stopped since! Once that class finished it was time to clean, clean, clean because my BFF, Emily (Auntie Em), was coming to visit, then Carolyn (Brian's mom), then my parents, then Thanksgiving, then...well, I think that's it. Oh right...and about 60 people came over for LUKE'S 1ST BIRTHDAY!!! It was a hectic couple of weeks, but they were all AMAZING!!!

So here are the pictures from my class (the best ones that I turned in for my assignments. I have about 2,136 more on our external drive...just a guesstimate! haha!) Enjoy! Hopefully you can see the difference from all my pictures and the growth...I think the class was well worth the money and I plan to take more to get better!!!


Week 2: this week was brutal! We had 2 'mini assignments' and then our weekly big assignment. I don't think I EVER put the camera down! We worked on white balance, finding good light, capturing and stopping motion and focus.

I didn't turn this one in, but I really liked the light (sun flare) on him!

'capturing motion'...the sand falling.

working on lighting

this one's a little out of focus, but I just LOVE it! My little smiley guy!

'stopping motion'...one of my absolute favs!

working on focus...notice the 'roughage' around his mouth...the boy eats EVERYTHING!

Week 3: Finding the light. We really focused on finding good lighting inside and out this week. We also worked on 'catch lights', which are the reflections in the eyes. Luke's are super easy to catch because they're so blue! That helped a ton!

he LOVES being upside down!

inside light

Brian being silly with flowers...hippie boy!

The following picture was taken one night that I was on the computer and Brian was watching TV. I asked Brian where Luke was and we both weren't entirely sure! ha! So we went looking and found Luke had discovered a super fun toy!!!

Week 4: composition. This was our final week. We only got 1 submission! EEK! I was so nervous. She challenged us to post something that we would hang in our house. I thought and thought and decided to take some pictures that would be Luke's '1 year' pictures that I could put out at his party. So, of course, it had to involve his boots from Aunt Linsey, Uncle Shannon, Katy Beth and Andrew! Then I found Brian's old college (nasty) hat and the 'denim' diapers were an added bonus!!! So I was pretty proud of this...even though Luke wasn't totally cooperative!

These last ones were some others that I took that I thought were super cute too! And they all were displayed at Luke's birthday party (and some still are around the house!). I actually had one of the wives ask me if I would take her family's Christmas card picture! How cool and exciting!

So those are the pictures that were produced from the photography 101 class that consumed my life for 4 weeks! Stay tuned over the next few weeksI'll get to posting pics from everyone's visits... (hopefully I'll get everything posted before we head for Texas on Dec. 10th!). Thanks for being patient and checking back! We hope all y'all had a yummy and blessed Thanksgiving!