F-stop and angles

Just some more practice with my camera. 

Practice

I was just trying to get the hang of lighting and focus with my camera one day a few weeks ago.. Ivy is the perfect little model to have, besides the fact that she is pretty darn wiggly these days. Especially if we are ever outside... Anyways, a lot of these I switched to manual focus per my good friend's suggestion to try it out. I do LOVE how they turn out but it is pretty dang hard to be so quick with it. It will take lots of practice...  

I love having a big yard for her to roam around..

Aren't these weeds just lovely? lol.. wish they were flowers but still thought the pic turned out kinda cool.. playing with the focus:

Back inside:

Another year older and wiser too

My birthday was a couple weeks ago and we kept it pretty low-key this year considering we'd just returned from an awesome vacation. The only thing I knew I wanted to do on my birthday was eat at our favorite little bbq place just near our house called Haymaker's. They make killer pork sandwiches and sweet potato fries. So, after Ivy's dance class that morning, off we went to enjoy a wonderful lunch together. 

This really is just about the only thing I ever crave around here. Slow smoked pulled pork, finger lickin' bbq sauce, and the most delicious sweet potato fries I've ever had. It really is that good.

Sam made me a delicious brownie trifle (since I'm not a huge cake fan) for dessert:

He is quite the cook! Wtg babe. 

Here's to another year! Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes and kind words! And for your very generous gifts! I have the best family in the world who all know me so well. :) And also, thanks to my friends for helping me celebrate the next night at our girl's night. I always have a blast with you girls! 

Washington DC Spring Break Part 2

Again, I know it's total picture overload but we really tried to use this week to practice with our new friend. I'm hoping that as we get better, we wont have to snap nine million photos to get good ones, lol.. 

On Friday, we met Neal for lunch at the Pentagon, where he works. I didn't take my camera (these are phone pics) because they are strict with that stuff. Anyways, Neal was able to give us an amaaazing tour of pretty much the entire place. It was very neat. We felt pretty lucky to see just about every floor and even some very important offices. My bro-in-law rocks! Thanks so much Neal!!

After the Pentagon, we just hung out at Kristin's for the afternoon. It was finally a little warmer out so the kids played outside while Kristin and I worked on our photog skillz, ha:

Ivy loves her Aunt Kristin:

When we left the Pentagon, Sam actually stayed back with Neal to go riding around downtown and then back home. He said it was awesome. So glad these guys were able to go do their own thing every so often:

 

Kristin and I skipped out for a few minutes to go have dinner at this delicious greek place near her house (the boys had already eaten before they got home).. Then Sam and I headed out to visit the DC Temple that evening, thanks to my sis watching Ivy for us. Both of us have been to this temple a couple times but never gone inside. It was very neat to finally go together... 

The next morning, I wanted to go to the new Udvar Hazy Air and Space Museum so bad. Sam got to go last October without me so I told him he had to take me. He didn't complain considering it quickly became one of his favorite museums last time he went. ;) They have the Shuttle Discovery inside and hundreds of other real airplanes just all lined up in this gigantic hanger type room. Awesome, awesome place. I highly recommend it:

Later that day Kristin's neighbors threw an easter egg hunt just in their front yard.. Ivy caught on pretty quick. She thought it was the coolest thing ever. All the kids were so cute, looking for the eggs. 

(These two good ones are courtesy of Kristin):

I'm pretty sure Sam is already better at using our camera than I am, lol.

So a few nights in between all these exciting days, my sis and I were able to do a little shopping and/or get some fun treats with Millie.. Sam was also able to go on a nighttime trail run with Neal and a bunch of his buddies one night.. Oh and there was an afternoon that the boys (with Simon and Noah) rode their bikes to chick fil a, while we drove Justin because he wasn't feeling well. And finally on Saturday night, we were able to go on a nice date with Kristin and Neal. We went to this delicious Italian restaurant. I loved trying all these new restaurants while we were there. They were big steps up from our tiny bbq places and Cracker Barrel. ;) I didn't get pics of any of that but it was so much fun to try to pack in as much activity as we could while visiting. And I loved that Kristin and Neal were up for anything. It made for a fun week!

And finally, Easter morning.. Ivy wasn't too sure what to think of the Easter basket:

 But as soon as she realized the eggs were filled with candy, she approved, haha:

All ready for church in their Easter best. We said "Ivy, give Noah a kiss! Noah, give Ivy a kiss!" hahaha Noah responded "um, I don't waant tooo." It was hilarious:

Dying eggs with Millie after church:

 Aaaand then it somehow turned into Mustache Easter. Not sure how that happened, lol:

Happy (mustache) Easter! Hope you all had a wonderful holiday celebrating our Lord and Savior! It was so nice to spend the day (and week!) with loved ones. A big thank you to Kristin and Neal for letting us come to visit! We really appreciate everything ya'll did for us. :) We had an amazing time and miss you already!