picture-happy

My big (and as far as I know, ONLY) Christmas present this year is a DSLR camera. I got it a little early, because we found it on fantastic sale :) and I LOVE it!!! I'm still learning, but I've been reading books from the library and playing around, and I feel like I'm starting to figure out this whole photography thing, and having lots of fun! I love having a real camera to take gorgeous pictures of my girls with! So, here's my photo dump:

We've got a zillion more pictures like these, but these are my favorites: Gabby LOVES this puzzle. We found it for $5 and she loves the princesses, so it's perfect. And she's awesome at it. We're very proud. :) 

Here's Lydia being adorable in a snowsuit thingie. This was one of my first sets of pictures, so as far as having good focus, etc, they're not great. But she's so cute, it just doesn't matter, does it? :)

Gabby looking sleepy yesterday morning; she's started bringing her blankets downstairs with her when she gets up in the morning. Her favorite game is to "sleep" or "hide" (under her blankets) and it doesn't seem to matter WHICH blankie she brings down, she just likes blankets. A little bleary-eyed still :)

Yesterday morning, we had some puking issues, so we went through several changes of clothes. Rather than get frustrated, I figured "let's have some fun!" and hoped that maybe if the outfit of clothes was cute enough, Lydia would stop puking on them. It seemed to work :)

Here are some of Gabby being silly - again, one of the first days after getting the camera, having no idea what I'm doing... but G is having a ton of fun :)

And later, Gabby found Paul's socks that he took off at his desk and put them on "all by herself".

During our little "photo shoot" with the cute clothes, Gabby jumped in (she suddenly LOVES posing for the camera!) and was all about putting on Lydia's orange socks, trying to pose her feet the same way as Lydia, giving the baby kisses, and generally just being totally fun. I adore my girls!!

Trying out a little B&W... and I think this one is really fun... not sure why though!

This one took lots of effort. I LOVE how it turned out - I love her bare little toes, and her sweet face just in the background... love love love :) This is currently my desktop :)

Trying to do the same thing with Lydia... didn't turn out quite as sharp on the feet for focus, but it's hard to get those squirmy little toes to stay still :) I love the colors though!

And then later, I thought "why not get a shot of just the flower hanging with the other hair things?"

So I did.

And Lydia happened to be on the change table when I was taking that picture, so here are some of her looking up at me :)

And then later, I finally figured out how to turn off the flash. I'm a little embarrassed at how long it took - it's really very simple. Perhaps I should read the user's manual...

Here's our Christmas tree in the dark - we still need to put the angel on top (honestly, it'll probably be Christmas Eve by the time we actually do it) and yes, the bottom half IS undecorated. That's what happens with a 2year old :) Oh, and instead of garlands or tinsel, we've got Mardi Gras beads. From the Jazz Jubilee. All of our decorations are special that way :)

Just a few pictures of random ornaments, playing around with flash and focus, etc:

... I think this was a gift from Tania's parents.

We got a bunch of these red balls (matte, gloss, and glittery!) for our wedding, along with a bunch of silver bells (again - matte & shiny!)

We've got a few stuffed animals on our tree, gifts from Paul's awesome mom our first Christmas when we didn't have any decorations :) These bears are my favorite - their noses have magnets in them, so they're always "drawn to each other" :)

Merry Christmas!!!