Thursday, August 5, 2010

Playing around at Easton

Easton Shopping Center has what I learned is called a "Splash Pad." When they first built Easton when I was in high school, I think the splash pad was more meant to be a beautiful water art type thing that you could sit and enjoy while taking a break from shopping. I would say within a year, kids started coming and playing in the water. Now parents bring their kids decked out in swimsuits, and they make a day of playing in the water. I used to make fun of those parents. I have learned in my parenthood stage of life, that you should never judge what you don't know. I take the girls to Easton, decked in swimsuits, to play in that water thing all the time. I really should stop throwing rocks in this pretty glass house I'm in.

So, this day we met up with Haley and Karen, and also our good friend Jacqui, who also had family in town. Big 'ol group of us!

Haley was, of course, soaked by the time we got there
002

Normally, Claire is our water-baby (totally brave and willing to get soaking wet even in full clothes) and Olivia is the scaredy cat. Claire had an off day this day, and really had ZERO desire to get wet... or be set down... it was tiring.

Olivia played her same song and dance where she wants her hands and feet to get wet, but not her whole body, or more specifically, her hair.
007

016

Also in our group - Becky, the last bride I worked with! I love Becky... she's adorable, and really is willing to do anything. It had been raining right up to when we went to Easton, so everyone had umbrellas on them. Jacqui convinced Becky to take an umbrella into the fountain, fully dressed, and pose for me. I love people!
021

023

025

027

028

I'm shocked I could even take anything, we were all laughing so hard!

During all this, Claire was being a pip. Refused to even be set down, let alone go and play. Frankly she was acting like a little baby, and not like an almost 3 year old. So she got passed from person to person, everyone trying to warm her up to socializing with us.

I always joke that Claire gets her blue eyes from Karen. EVERYONE on my dads side of the family has brown eyes. My mom has blue eyes, so thats where I got my recessive gene from, and made it possible for her to have blue eyes, but its just fun to joke that she favors Karen in the looks department (in reality, Claire is like a mini-Tim)
029

Oh, finally cracking a smile Claire?
030

There we go... all better!
031

Look, at this point she even let me set her down!!
034

Now we totally convinced Haley that she needed to drag Olivia through the fountain. Up until this point, Olivia had only ran around the perimeter of the thing. But Haley got her up and through the fountain ;)
036

037

Haley herself had zero problems going through the fountain. She wanted me to take some images of her walking through the fountain when it was going full blast
063

068

And then... we all held our breath... Claire walked towards the fountain
076

She actually enjoyed herself (somewhat) when Haley carried her through the fountain
081

085

And we'll leave on an image of Olivia's standard pose by the fountain
097

Butt sticking out so only it, her hands and her feet get wet
098

Here's hoping lots and lots of images can (slightly) make up for my lack of blogging of late. Happy Summer!!


Photobucket

Sunday, August 1, 2010

The craziest family I know...

I couldn't remember the last time my family had taken professional pictures together. The last picture that had everyone in it was taken at Christmas-time, on my grandparents couch, and I believe I was in my early teens. Oh, and my cousin was sticking out her tongue. But that was back when you had to develop pictures before you could see them - so when she stuck out her tongue, we took a second picture. She looked beautful. And half the family had their eyes closed, or weren't looking at the camera. So tongue picture has hung ever since.

I think fate randomly brought my sister AND my uncle to Columbus Ohio. Sure you could point out that Jessie was in a wedding that weekend, and John came down because him and my Aunt were in Cleveland helping her family... I say fate. So we decided (without really telling those two... ooops) that we were going to take family pictures.

The five siblings
056

There were four dogs at the house this day. Three of them are in this picture!
028 color

My sisters and I
095

We got the images by me setting up my camera, on a tripod, and arranging everyone except me. I'd jump in, and my sisters good friend was kind enough to pull the trigger for us. One of my favorites? Friend John says "Ummm, I think somethings not right... its set up for something different" We start laughing because we know what happened... I took a series of pictures of the three sisters, and then just added my parents in without thinking. Resulting in this:
103

Nice.

We also did something I had seen done at a Sandy Puc seminar. She took individual images of family members against a solid backdrop, and then spliced them together later in the computer. I thought it looked neat, and was a way that I could individually direct each family member to look their best (Plus it's a neat size, so I know it'll get hung) The result?

0collage

And the individual of my sister (who I hate for looking so gorgeous- curse you Jessie!!)
209

And one final one to share... John yelled out, lets do a silly one! Which I will now do with everyone. Because the silly one is my favorite!
044

Photobucket