Photo Project- This is our life

Paint the moon has introduced a weekly photography challenge called " This is our life".  Since I am just getting started learning how to use a camera more proficiently I thought this would be a fun way to make me try new things and get some practice in.  Don't worry about the fact that it was supposed to start at the beginning of the year and it's the middle of March.  Better late than never, right?  I'll try not to let every shot be of baby Joshua, but I can't make any promises.

Week 1: Balance

I had a hard time thinking of what I was going to choose for this week's challenge but, then Joshua just decided he was going to sit up all by himself.  After wondering when he was going to be able to do it by himself I decided to just sit him up and see what he would do.  He held himself up like that for a good 2-3 minutes (long enough for me to grab my camera and snap a few shots thankfully) before tumbling over in the most adorable way. 


This has been one crazy week and balance definitely describes it.  Sean fell while playing basketball and broke his leg and ended up needing surgery.  So, this week has been a nonstop whirlwind of trying to take care of him while still taking care of a 5 month old.  It has definitely taught me how selfish I can be and has made me rely on the Lord's strength and have greater faith.  I don't know why it happened by I know "the Lord works all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose."

 Joshua is happy to have his daddy home with him though.... and I am too.

Photography 101

I have always LOVED pictures and wished that I was able to take some better pictures.  My best friend, Jules, got a new camera for graduation and took some amazing pictures for us, like these maternity shots, and that got me interested in it even more.  

Before photo skills....not the best

After reading through a friend's blog and seeing her amazing pictures I asked her for some tips and tricks.  She was so helpful and gave me a huge list of resources to check out.  I started with this 12 week tutorial and I have been amazed with what I've learned already.  It's been a lot of fun and getting into it makes me just want to learn more and more.  It's so much fun to take pictures of J and capture those sweet laughs. 

 I started learning about aperture, which is how you get those cool blurry backgrounds and practiced in the backyard on this little bird that is normally in our kitchen.  

 The first picture was shot with f 5.0, the second with f 9.0 and the last f 36.  You can see the higher the f stop value, the more things in the picture that are in focus.

The next lesson was on shutter speed, which is basically how quickly the camera takes the shot. 

The faster the shutter speed the more the camera is able to freeze the motion and catch detail.  Pretty cool huh?

With a little photo skills:

getting better

I'm really excited to keep learning.

Craiglist Chair Redo

 After Sean built our beautiful farmhouse dining table we waited a while (about a year) before we got any dining room chairs to go with it.  When we had our small group over for dinner one night we literally had to bring every other chair in the house into the dining room to have enough seats for people to sit in.  

This is how is sat for a loooong while :)

 Being as cheap frugal as we are, we scoured the internet for a good deal on chairs.  I knew I wanted some white chairs like this post in Country living magazine so, I started looking at Ikea, Target, etc.  The absolute cheapest chairs that I found were $50 a piece.  That would cost us $400 for 8 chairs, way more than we wanted to pay and they didn't have cushions on them which is nice for a long dinner.  Sean and I looked on Craiglist for chairs for months and either the chairs weren't what I was looking for or they were more than I really wanted to pay (especially since I knew I wanted to refinish them).  Then, one amazing day Sean found these chairs for 10 bucks a piece!  That's right, $80 for 8 dining room chairs.  They were in great condition  and they had a really neat design and reminded me a lot of my inspiration chairs. 

 So, we sanded each one down and primed/painted them.  We ended up doing 4 coats of paint/primer on each on, which made us really sick of painting chairs but we love the way they turned out.  I found some fabric at Fabric World for $4 a yard (and I bought 3 yards to recover the chairs) and added a fun punch of lime green to the room.  I think it brightened the room up a lot and Sean loves the pop of color.

Growth Chart

Everyone says that they grow up so fast and they really weren't kidding.  Our little baby is already 5 months old and has gained 6 pounds and grown over 6 inches!  It's flying by and we want to enjoy every minute!  Joshua is growing like a weed and we knew we wanted something that we could track his growth and have for years to come. So.....

 We aren't planning on moving anytime soon, but you never know where the Lord might take us.  So, we wanted to make something that we could take with us if we every moved.  It will last us for years and years and we can use it for all of our kids.

 I was so excited to measure J and see how big he was getting.  I figure we'll do every couple of months for right now and then spread it out as he gets older.  Sean and I every measured ourselves too!

 I just wrote right on the board with a sharpie and labeled the date and how old J was at the time.

  

 We also wanted to make sure that we have scripture around our house so that our children can be used to seeing it and learning it.  We found this verse in 2 Peter 3:18 "Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ."  We thought it was a great verse for a growth chart and epitomized what we really hope for our children.