Busy day!

Yesterday was a pretty great day! Emma showed a lot of determination and learned to ride a 2-wheeler bike with no training wheels. I'm so proud of her! She's still working on getting tight turns down, but she can go around the square in front of our condo and she's getting really good at balancing. Yay, Emma!


Not to be outdone, Levi Raced around and proved that he was pretty fast too.

He was also very generous in sharing his Easter candy with Josh.

Once Emma got tired from all the biking, Josh thought he'd try on her hat.


And here's my great accomplishment for the day: The Playroom floor is DONE! now we just have to wait for it to cure and we can move the furniture in on Wednesday....if I can be patient that long.

Our Eggs

Sagan wanted to see our Easter Eggs, so here they are. (Sorry they're late!)

Fashion Photography

Here's my Shots for the Fashion Photography assignment:







There were a few others that had some classmates in them but since I don't have their permission to post them online, I've left them out.

Easter with the Nielsons

So next weekend is Easter, but it's also General Conference and right before Marci and Stacie's Families are going to Arches to go camping with my parents, so we did Easter this weekend with my family.

So here's how the tradition goes. We all Gather as we can and have some fun playing:







Even the Babies got to come out and Play! It Was Alec's first time at a family function and JuliJo's too!



Then We Eat!



After dinner, the high school age (and older) grandkids go hide the eggs in the yard, then hunt Begins with the youngest grandkids, then the older ones get their chance!










Everyone seemed to have a great time. Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa!

The Stylist

I took these for the Fashion assignment in Digital Photog. I don't think I'll use them, but they're still fun and Emma had a blast.

Why I love my Advanced Digital Photography class

So for those of you curious, my teacher liked the cake, Skittles, and Bread pictures. Makes sense since I spent more time cleaning them up after I posted them here. He wasn't really a fan of the others.

A Lot of times taking a class from this teacher is like going to an educational Stand-Up comedy act so the 4 hour class isn't really so much of a burden. Here are a few quotes from class last night:

"Shes a good Pea Holder!"
"It's not syrup if it's not maple. We're Americans!"
"Virginia is little, but there's people there. Let's help them out."
"Nobody's going to be the same again, chemically."
"It's good for your plumbing!"
"That's not pigs in a blanket, that's pigs in bondage!"

And some that were more instructional than funny for our next assignment which is Fashion Photography:
"What you wear is a statement of who you are and who you aren't."
"What you wear is defined by who you are, and who you are is defined by what you wear."

Another Food Picture

I think this one will be replacing the breakfast one in my slideshow for class.

DigiPhotog Assignment: Food

The Assignment for Advanced Digital Photography this time around was to take pictures of food that would make the viewer taste just what it is that you like about it. Here's Hoping I do okay on grades. The picture of peas was not what I would like to have shown. I would prefer to have them be freshly picked and shelled peas out of my Grandpa Nielson's garden, but Grandpa and his garden are both gone. I miss them.

Romance

Romance
Originally uploaded by oreospapa

We had an assignment in Advanced Digital photography to do a concept shot for "Romance". That was the only direction we were given, but we were told that it would be a chance to develop our personal photography styles a bit more.

When I asked in a different lesson about what we shoot if we're not sure what our personal style is, the teacher said that I did very well shooting portraits n black backgrounds. I Guess the black background is my style for now, but I want to expand it, make it more than a background. For instance, I need to get better at controlling depth of field, colors, amount and direction of light, and getting clearer pictures in my mind of what I want to do before starting to shoot. I think this picture was good practice for all of those things. It's not exactly what I'd pictured, but I guess it will do.

I also thought about using this one on the left, but decided on the one where Erin and I are actually holding hands. I kind of like this one because it looks like either the moment before we hold hands or the moment we let go and there's more tension there. I also like the idea of the rings shining together and having the circle of light around them.

And baby makes six

Surprise! Erin is due to have our fourth child on October 6th. We told the grandparents tonight and had to tell our Employers right after we found out last weekend (with the baby due so close to the go-live date of our new software, my boss had to know as soon as we did.)

We're a little nervous about announcing it this early in the pregnancy, but both Erin and I have a hard time keeping exciting news to ourselves.

To tell her parents, we made Erin a shirt that Says "Mommy" on the chest and "Baby" on the tummy and waited to see if anyone noticed. We had been there two or more hours when I finally said "Grandma, what do you think of Erin's shirt?"

Erin's mom said "I hadn't noticed it."
I said "Maybe you better take a look."
She looked up, kind of smiled and said "Another one!?" :)

We told my parents creatively too. They have a wall in their bedroom with a 5x7 picture of each of the 26 grandkids. On the way to Erin's parents' house for dinner, we stopped by "just to say hi" and I snuck down the hall and put this on the wall in the correct spot:

We still haven't heard from Grandma and Grandpa Nielson, so I assume they haven't seen it yet. Should be fun to get their call when they do.

The Boys

The Boys
Originally uploaded by oreospapa

This is my other good shot from Saturday.

Because Mom asked me about it

Jump!
Originally uploaded by oreospapa

Another DigiPhotog assignment, and another blog entry about it. :)

Last saturday I spent taking all kinds of portraits of the family - here is one of the two best shots. Thanks to Emma, Leah, Ben, Ian, and Isaac for being willing to pose. Thanks also to Tay and Becca who posed for an "Environmental portrait" that I haven't posted here but got to include on my assignment.