Team Anders

Happy Halloween, everyone!! Bring on the candy, 2012 ;)

Easton's first snow!! 30 October 2011 Pretty sure this beautiful October snowstorm is the result of us buying Easton his winter bunting last weekend...oops, our bad! *wink* Well, wow, what an incredible bout of weather we just had. It started raining here around 3 o'clock yesterday and switched over to snow around 7:30. It was so pretty and most definitely made me want to go buy a Christmas tree and put that baby up!!! Bah Humbug would have seriously objected to that though so I stayed focused on Halloween for the time being. Rain... To snow... You can see how heavy it was - this was last evening @ 9:00 PM How's this for solar flare and long exposure? Poor trees...Rae's diggin' it though Beautiful October morning - 7:00 AM Today the Globe reports there are about 650,000 people without power in MA this morning. Luckily, no power outages here at The Commons...though people around Reading haven't all been so lucky. The Team wen...

After numerous failed attempts at snapping a cute shot of Rae I resigned myself to the fact that she was over having her picture taken. So I'm cheating a bit today and using this shot I took at the Lincoln Park Zoo two weekends ago.  Sleepy Rhino... Used my 55-200 lens (thanks to Molly Starkey for recommending I buy one!)  

Saturday morning...ready for breakfast, Mom! Good afternoon, all. It's a cloudy day here in Boston and Team Anders has settled in for a relaxing afternoon after our early morning hike and trip to the store. Jace has his standard 8 games on the TV and his fantasy football sheets strewn about the coffee table, Easton's down for his afternoon nap and I just finished making some butternut squash risotto (and it's pretty yummy even though I forgot to buy some parmesan cheese at the store). I love my Daddy!! This week was pretty uneventful but we did go to the doctor for Easton's six-month wellness exam and shots. I updated his stats on his  Watch Me Grow...6 months  page if you're curious. He's definitely making progress with sitting up on his own and is now beginning to really make distinct one syllable sounds...favorite at this point is 'ba' followed by the endless spit-flinging raspberry! :) Check me out world...changing my view of this place...

Oh my goodness is it tough to photograph a 6-month-old's hands! Took forever to get a shot that wasn't totally blurry (or blank because he had moved his hand before I could even click the shutter!).  Easton's hand on our kitchen counter Sepia filter used in iPhoto Added another for fun...learned how to make this "frog" in elementary school and it still makes me smile :) Ribbit...Ribbit... C'mon it TOTALLY looks like a frog!

This self-portrait pretty much sums up the last 21 days...constantly behind the camera! Learning new things, thinking a bit creatively...and loving it!! After numerous creepy attempts this was the shot that worked! :) sooooo sleepy - night, night

Scratching your head, too? HA! Ok so apparently "bokeh" is a style of photography where you have a focused point and then the light or objects behind the subject are blurred on purpose (or something like that). Here are all the websites I had to read to figure out how to accomplish (and draw inspiration from) to complete today's assignment: Bokeh on Wiki  88 Examples DSLR bokeh tutorial So after doing my research and realizing how inadequate my supply of Christmas lights is... I had to get creative. Even though these shots may be an epic fail in the eyes of the photography world I'm very excited that I've learned a new skill today! Bring it Christmas 2011 - I'm going to be a Christmas light bokeh shooting fool!! I'll explain what each photo is under each shot: Photo Specifics : Sony a33, Aperture Mode - 1/10, f 5.6, ISO 800 Shot in the dark in my bathroom, flashlight shining on a pile of necklaces that I thought would reflect light to look l...

Thumbs down to the New England autumn rain because I had totally planned on photographing some of the beautiful orange leaves on the trees around our apartment. Since I figured the downpour wouldn't be good for my camera or iPhone I went roaming around the house looking for something orange...repeat pattern of what I did for Day 11 "Something Blue" . If we were even remotely prepared for Halloween it would have been a no brainer...candy corn, pumpkins, etc. but no such luck. So I tried numerous shots but nothing was working until Jace jokingly told me to take a picture of his SLP hockey jacket. I thought "lame"...and then I thought "hmm...wait...maybe not the jacket but he does have an old high school hockey jersey in the closet"...and voila! My something "orange" (disregard the white & black)... Go Orioles! Shot with my iPhone (because I left my good camera on all night last night...battery = drained)

It's great to be back to the October Photography Challenge...took a few days off with our trip to Chicago (might do some catch up shots over the weekend though...TBD). Today's assignment photo is in honor of my husband's numerous requests for me to wear these shoes as much as possible. He loves my Birks... I wish I lived in a climate where I could wear these 365! LOVE Ok so sarcasm above, Jace hates them...but I LOVE my Birkenstocks. I think I've owned a pair, in one style or another, since 6th or 7th grade. I photographed these because their time on my feet in 2011 is rapidly coming to a close and that makes me sad. :(

Team Anders just wrapped up a phenomenal weekend as Jace, Easton and I traveled to Chicago to see our great friends Joey & Catie Locallo and meet their son, Jack Joseph. The last time we were all together was out in California for Joey's sister Jenna's wedding...those were my pre-blog days unfortunately but here's a cute shot of all of us from the reception. BEST. TRIP. EVER. Seriously, I was convinced I was going to move there and run a vineyard! ;) Teams Anders & Locallo...Firestone Winery (sans-kiddos) 25 July 2010 Yes, that is a wine glass in my man's hand!!! Anywho...this weekend was also a blast and Easton was stoked to get to meet his new BFF...I mean finally because he hears about Jack all the time!! The two little guys were born less than a month apart (16 April and 12 May 11). We arrived @ O'Hare on Saturday around 11:00 AM. Easton did great on the airplane once again but it was sure nice to have Jace there to help this time... Ok, so...