Fencing

We just finished another fencing class.  we had an amazing 13 people in this one.  Not all of them came to the class competition but those that did were great.  The two four year olds fenced longer than they ever had.  Each kid had 6 bouts and Ada won all 6 of hers.  Sam won 2 of his (admittedly, they were mostly against a bunch of 7 year olds), and Evelyn didn't win any but got 2 points in the bouts that she finished... not bad.  Even though Ada had to leave early for the 8 is Great program, she won our first place trophy. And to top off her day, she also earned the Leader of the Week award at school called the Noble Knight Award... as well as getting all O's on her report card. What a day for her.

Sam, Laurel, Evelyn, Tori, Jojo and Tayden

Salt Flats

The other day I had to drive out to Mount Pleasant.  I've really wanted to show my kids the Salt Flats, but it was kind of late... But we were closer than we've been for a long time, so I took the time to take them over. It was really windy and it was really late.  7 pm, overcast, but the kids loved running on the salt and seeing the Morton Salt plant on the freeway as well as what's left of Saltair... I showed them how it looked before the fire and they were amazed.

smiley baby

These were done with only my ceiling fan light... all the windows have shutters and no flash on the camera... not bad in low light and lots of colors.  It seems that my camera has a hard time with low light and dull colors.

Baby push ups

Baby push ups are my favorite... While baby is scooting and lunging around, he's still practicing being up on hands and knees.  He discovered push ups a couple weeks ago and has been sooooo excited to practice, especially if Dad, brothers and sisters or Grandma Wilcox practice with him.  He honestly sat there practicing this for about 2 hours straight before he was totally exhausted.  I think he's like Jer and Sam.  They have to practice something until they're completely satisfied before they experiment with their new skills.

 

found this

This was on my SD card... so in love with these kids... They've soooo missed the snow.  This was the last snow of the year probably.

Spring pictures

I'm an advocate for pictures... I love them, but really?  Why do our schools feel obligated to do a spring and fall set of pictures?  Ada really wanted me to buy the fall set of pictures. I really did not. So, I told her that I'd do them myself.  I'm still working with the settings on my camera... so I'll use this post as an example of what my camera can do, and show off my cute model.

In the shade, on auto with the flash for a fill in.

In the shade with some adjustments to the aperture and a color filter.

In the shade, no flash on auto.

Same shot with a warm filter on it.

 



No flash, in the shade with the effects intensity filter... Ada loves this one.  I wish I'd caught it without the filter though... she's just cute when she smiles.

Partial sun with a fill in with on camera flash.

Backlit, no fill flash.

These were all done with the effects intensity filter... fun, but not my favorite for portraits... maybe for landscapes?

Shade, no flash... aperture adjustments with a warming filter.

 

Some pretty fun stuff... and I'm slowly getting used to the light and color balance of this new camera.  And can I say... I just love these kids. When I get this camera down... maybe I'll buy a reflector and experiment with that! 

Keep them busy

Springville

Springville Art Museum

I love this place. The kids mostly like the sculpture garden because they can touch those, but I appreciate that they let me wander through the rest on occasion.  I love the maturity that some of the high school students on display have in their work.

Geneva Steel

I'd always wanted to take pictures in the big melting pot from Geneva Steel.  I finally made a moment and took the kids. They thought it was pretty cool and weren't ready to leave when it was time.

Ada

Ada learned about Egypt in class last week.  She brought home a picture of our family if we had been early Egyptian.