The highlights in pictures...

Amazingly, though it has taken up a vast amount of my time lately, I do still make time for things other than school.
I am taking another Big Picture Class this month: Picture the Holidays.  It is a 30 day photography seminar with Tracey Clark.  Each day she gives you a prompt, generally having to do with the holidays for this class, and you post your favorite picture.  I have to put a plug in for bigpictureclasses.com.  I love them.  I discovered them through SavvySource, and it was the best $15 I have spent in a long time.  I have learned so much about my camera and what makes a good picture.  They have classes for writing, scrapbooking, and photography.  It is fabulous, go check it out.  You will not regret it.  I will definitely be taking more classes through them.  I would love to take one of the writing seminars.  Right now though, I am really trying to improve my picture taking skills.

So here are some of the pics I have taken for it:

I am working on focus and perspective.  Don't be too critical, I am certainly not a professional photographer, but I am learning and improving.  The prompts she gives are awesome and really force you to look at things in a different way.  I love it.  I gave you a very brief summary of the prompts for some of the more random pictures.

Something framed...

Something that made you think of Christmas...

 I couldn't get the picture that I wanted.  Kira had this look of amazement on her face looking at her Christmas tree.  I missed it.  She is loving Christmas!  She learned how to say "tree".  We have a blow-up Dora in our front yard and our neighbor's have a snowman.  Every morning, first thing when she wakes up, she has to go look out the window and see Dora.  Second, we have to turn on the lights on her tree.  These are the moments that make me feel glad to be alive, glad I have such an a amazing life, an amazing little girl.  I must be truly blessed.  By the way, I am so psyched for Christmas this year, I can't even describe it!
 

Heart Shapes (something having to do with love)

Something reflected

A view you wouldn't normally see...

This one was a little off prompt, but I kind of liked it.  I thought it was interesting.  The actual prompt was about taking time to see the small things.

I love how you can see her chomping those goldfish.

And, I learned a valuable lesson that day: apparently 5 months old is plenty big to eat goldfish.  I busted a jar in the kitchen and it literally shattered all over the floor.   And it was garlic, so our kitchen reaked for days.  In the midst of me trying to clean it up while simultaneously trying to make sure no one got cut open, including my two overly curious dogs, my very helpful child, and my barefoot self, I overlooked the fact that Kira set down her snack trap on Ariana's car.  Next thing I know, Ariana is munching away.  She got very upset when I took them away, and I figured since she had done ok with the ones she had already eaten, they were fine.  Now they are one of her favorite treats!

Other fun stuff:  

 Spending time in the beautiful weather outdoors while Daddy put up our beautiful Christmas lights!  The sky that day was amazing.  I kept trying to really capture it, but I never could get it quite right.

Love this one of the girls looking at each other.  It is like they have already made an unspoken agreement to stick up for one another.

 We finally got and put together a highchair AND a crib for Ariana.  Guess now she has to stay.  ;)  She was given the choice of juice, cereal, or binky.  Obviously, she chose the ever-so-loved bink-a-dink.

  Here they are side by side having a morning snack.  Kira is saying "cheeessseee..." in this picture.  Don't know where she picked that up, but it is hilarious.  Grandma sent them brand new pajamas!  Kira insists that she wears her Dora ones as much as possible.  She also tried to put Ariana's on over her own.  She gets really excited, but kind of jealous when Ariana wears her set.  My neighbor passed down pretty much a whole new wardrobe for Kira (which as my neighbor has impeccable and expensive taste, was thrilling).  She gave us a Dora jacket.  Kira loves it.  She has to show everyone she meets the Dora on her coat.  She started saying "hi" and "bye" to every inanimate object she comes across.  It makes getting out of the parking lot time consuming as she greets every car.  Strange child.  She loves the planes that go over our house.  Every time she hears one she has to point to the sky and look for it.

We have a lot to look forward to this week: finishing up some crafts, cleaning the house, doing tons of baking!  And maybe even relaxing a watching a Christmas movie or 2!  Yay!