It Has Been a While

It's summer so we have been swimming and at the ball fields. Just thought I would share a shot of GW celebrating the fact he made it to second base! Have a good weekend!

The Difference a Lens Can Make

Today is my 33rd birthday and my wonderful hubby got me the lens that I have needed for a while now. Our house has wonderful lighting for living. Very soft lights, but for pictures it pretty much was awful. Most indoor pictures are blurry. So Sean got me the 50mm lens for my b-day. These are straight out of the camera and I love them. I should also be able to get the basketball shot that I want next year! I am just so excited! The kids are already tired of me sticking the camera in their faces! Barbie even got her picture taken and I usually cannot get one of her that is not blurry! I will spend the next several days playing with my new toy!! Sean, it was the perfect gift! Thank you! It is so nice to have a husband that gets me!

Rituals

Every year I take pictures of all the girls on the softball team and make little books for them. At the end of the year party they pass these books around and everyone signs them and they have pictures of themselves in action and one of all the girls. My favorite pictures are the batting pictures. Gracie always looks mad. I don't know if she is trying to scare the pitcher or if the sun is just in her eyes. Several of the girls stick their tongues out while they bat. Some have thier faces screwed up in concentration. One girl has her eyes closed in almost all the pictures of her batting. It is amazing what your camera catches. Things you don't notice while watching the game. Gracie has a ritual before every pitch. She draws a line from the point on the plate out, then she crosses it like she is marking her spot. Then she pounds the plate with her bat. Then she is ready. She repeats this with every pitch. The other night we were watching my nephews baseball game. This one boy came to the plate twirled the bat and hit his cleats a few times then got into his stance. After the third time Gracie asked why he did that. I just looked at her and said cross, cross, pound, stance. She just smiled.