Mommy Baby Pictures- Tips for Self Portraits

I’ve been wanting some mommy baby pictures.  I mean wanting them bad!  Since I take a lot of pictures I thought, Oh, I’ll just set up the tripod and take a few…. yeah right.  Easier said than done.  I’ve used my tripod with the timer before and had great results.  This picture of our family for Christmas was taken using a tripod and a timer. 

 

 

So, what was different this time???  A few things.  First off, Khloe was 2 months old in the picture above.  She moved around WAY less than the squirmy little 10 month old that she is now.  Second, Chris was in the picture above. 

When you take pictures with a timer, the camera focuses when you push down the shutter button.  When I was setting up the tripod to take our Christmas pictures, I focused on Chris, pushed the button and ran in front of the camera.  The result- in focus pictures.  When I was taking pictures of just Khloe and I, it was nearly impossible to get us in focus.  I could focus on Khloe when setting up the tripod, but she’s so close to the ground that it wouldn’t focus on me when I got into the picture.  And there was no way for me to focus if I wanted pictures of us standing up. 

I tried and tried and tried to get a decent picture of us.  I actually tried for 2 days in a row.  The first day, I got 1 decent picture.  The second day, one more decent one with the tripod, still nothing I loved.  I was getting so frustrated which made Khloe frustrated.  I was to the point of tears.  Literally.  Finally, Chris came home.  He took over the camera for a few minutes and got some decent shots.  I still don’t consider these “amazing” and I’ll probably bribe him into taking more when I go to take her 1 year pictures.  But they kept me from tears J

 

 

Through all of my despair (I’m may be a bit of a drama queen) I did manage to take a few things away from my impromptu mommy baby photo shoot. 

1.       Use a remote and set the camera on a 2 second delay.  When using a remote, the camera focuses before each picture.  So, since I would have been in front of the camera, it would have focused on me.  By setting the camera on a 2 second delay it gives you 2 seconds to hide the remote before the picture is taken.  Why didn’t I do this?  My remote batteries were dead.  L

2.       If you don’t have a remote and have to use the timer, get someone to stand in for you while you focus the camera.  Had Chris been home, I would have had him stand with Khloe and I would have focused on him.  Then I could have ran over and taken his place.  Luckily when he got home last night, he was willing to take the pictures, so I didn’t have to go this route. 

3.       If using a timer, set the camera to take 10 (or more) pictures at once.  This way if you blink or are flipping your hair (which I realized I do A LOT) there will be other pictures and all that running back and forth wasn’t worthless.

4.       Relax!  Especially when taking pictures with kids.  They can feel the tension and it makes them tense too.  When Khloe finally laid her head on my chest in the last picture, both of us were exhausted.  I need to repeat this to myself over and over every day.  Not only for pictures. 

5.       Have fun!  You’re not trying to catch the perfect picture, you’re trying to capture memories.  I need to remind myself of this one too J

 

 

And just for giggles, here's an outtake photo that didn't make the cut :)

-Brooke

We Have a Yard!! Whoop Whoop!!

Time for a yard update!!  We have made some MAJOR improvements outside our house since last September.  We’ve had some issues with our yard.  The spot we chose to build on is a nice piece of flat land on top of a mountain.  If you’re familiar with West Virginia, you know how amazing it is to find a large flat lot.  If you’re not familiar with West Virginia, let me give you a little idea of the landscape here.  (Look behind us)

 

You may think of us as crazy for wanting to live somewhere with so many mountains, and to be honest, the winter commute is…. interesting to say the least.  But there is something that draws me to these mountains.  My childhood memories aren’t of beaches, they’re of hiking through the woods and climbing mountains.  They’re not of palm trees, they’re of big oaks and cherry trees and apple trees.  They’re not of salt water, they’re of rivers and streams.  This is who I am.  I do and always will belong in these mountains.   Chris feels the exact same way, we’re both West Virginians born and raised.  So when we got married and began to plan our life, there was never a question of moving out of West Virginia.  We knew we would live here.  Okay… now that I’ve thoroughly shown my inner thoughts about WV, back to the yard update.

 When we decided to build here, the lot looked like this.

 

 

 

Nothing but woods, woods and more woods.  But it was flat underneath all of those trees and we could see the potential.  The first step was to have the property logged.  We own 10 acres up here and we wanted to have some woods, so we had about 3 logged.  So, what I didn’t know about logging (and really never cared to know until we got to that point) was that they take the tree trunk, but leave the stumps and the tree tops.  After they were finished logging, we were left with this.
 

We’ve been in the house for 3 years and it took us literally 2 ½ years to get all of the stumps out.  As of last Fall, this is what we were dealing with.  The picture really doesn't do it justice.  There were stumps everywhere.

 

When I had the baby in September, Chris took some time off work to be home with us.  Since it’s really, really rare for us to have time off work and be home, we took advantage of it.  We rented a super big backhoe and decided to get this thing done!  It took a week of Chris working on the backhoe for nearly 8 hours a day. 

 

When Spring rolled around, we were ready for grass.  We haven’t had a great track record with grass…  When we first moved in, we planted grass in a little area in front of the house to avoid mud.  Well, the grass grew in patches…. Then half of it died, we think there wasn’t very much top soil and it just got washed away by rain.  So the following year, we covered it all with new top soil and re-planted.  It still came in patchy, but over time it filled in.  Given our experiences, we were both surprised when we planted the whole yard and it actually grew!  All of it!  Not just patches!  We’re so happy with the yard now, it’s turned into what we dreamed it could be when we first looked at that wooded lot. 

 

We still have some landscaping we want to do, but for right now, we’re just happy to finally have a yard.  A yard with no stumps and rocks and mud :)

-Brooke

Khloe loves Daddy

Khloe loves her Daddy.  There's no hiding it.  From the way she smiles at him to the way she bats her eye lashes when she looks at him, it's obvious.  It's also obvious that the feeling is mutual.  When Khloe was born, Chris turned into a completely different person.  He loves her so deeply that it makes my heart melt. 

 

So, I wanted to do something special for Chris for Father's Day.  I didn't want a traditional card, so I used Picasa to make a collage of pictures and turned it in to a card from Khloe to Chris. 

I also wanted a card from me to Chris, so I put together a Khloe vs Daddy card.

Chris LOVED them.  It turned out to be something that was super quick and easy to do, fun and creative.  I think this may be our new tradition- to make something for Chris on Father's Day.

If you haven't tried Picasa, do.  It's free and it's so simple.  When I really edit photos, I go into a more complex program with layers.  But for a quick fix, Picasa is my go-to.  It's the best collage maker that I've found.

And now, just because they're adorable.... some more pictures of the two loves of my life :)

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

-Brooke

P.S.- Have a happy 4th!!