Miscellaneous Recent Pictures

Here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks to show what the girls have been up to.

First, Elyse and her Pa "doing stickers" at Granny and Pa's house:

While Elyse was doing stickers, Jessica was creating with glitter glue:

Elyse has gotten really attached to her babies lately:

Finally, as anyone who knows us would expect, reading at our house is a constant:

Lucye

Yesterday our good friends Audrey and Lucye came over to visit for a while. I managed to take a few pictures of Lucye before Jessica pulled her away to work on stickers or play Polly Pockets or something like that. Here are three of those pictures:

(She was wearing Jessica's fairy costume, as you can see.)

Billy Jo and Bruce

Yesterday, I ported my portable home studio to my parents' home to take some pictures of my second and third cousins, Billy Jo and Bruce. I enjoyed taking their pictures, and it was good practice aiming my camera at kids who aren't my own.

Elyse at Eighteen Months

Today, Elyse is exactly eighteen months old. Here are some portraits we made to honor the occasion:

Self Portrait

I was playing around with my lighting setup a couple of days ago, and took this self portrait (and several others), which I then played around with in Photoshop:

There aren't all that many pictures of me here, mostly because it's usually me wielding the camera. Sometimes, though, I put it on a tripod and wield it at myself.

More From Faribault

On Sunday all of Anna's siblings and their families came over for a Father's Day cookout, and we took some pictures in the makeshift basement studio. Here are a few:

These last two obviously weren't taken in the basement, but they do show Jessica and Elyse's other cousin, and his daddy:

Pictures from the Basement

We're in Faribault, Minnesota, for a one-week visit with Anna's family. I've been slowly setting up a makeshift studio in the basement of Anna's parents' house, and last night I got Anna and Elyse downstairs to take a couple of practice pictures. Here are a few of them:

Elyse found one of her Uncle Luke's golf clubs, and was waving it around like she knew what to do with it:

Here's a picture of Anna I took while Elyse was exploring:

Here are Anna and Elyse together:

And Elyse trying to climb up Mommy's back:

(Click here to see the next post about this visit.)

Elyse

This afternoon I spent a couple of hours making a foam-board-and-duct-tape soft box that will fit in our suitcase for our upcoming trip to Minnesota. Here's a test picture I took of Elyse using it:

(She was moving when I took the picture, and I was shooting at 105mm at f/4.5, so her ear is more in focus than her face, but still I think it's a good picture.)

St. Nick and the Dragon

Here is a Little People reenactment of St. Nick slaying the dragon with his mighty candy cane, Ascalon:

Pa's Not-So-Excellent Adventure

The day after Jessica and Daddy's Stone Mountain outing, my father--Jessica and Elyse's Pa--went to the hospital with all the symptoms of a heart attack. That is exactly what it was, a heart attack, but fortunately a mild one--or one which was treated quickly enough to prevent its becoming something more than mild.

The doctors put a stent in one of Pa's arteries, which was 95% blocked, and will be inserting another in a couple of weeks to treat another artery that is 80% blocked.

Dad's doing very well; as I write this, he's still in the hospital, but will possibly--hopefully--go home today.

Here's a picture of Elyse and her Pa from about six months ago, when we took our Christmas pictures:

And here he is reading with Jessica a couple of years ago:

We're all very thankful that this episode wasn't more serious, and grateful to the doctors and nurses who have helped him to get better. Most of all, we're glad that my father was smart enough to say, as soon as he realized something was really not right, "Call 911!" That just might have saved his life.

Update: At about the time I was finishing this post, my father was headed home from the hospital. We went to their house for supper, bring Subway sandwiches with us. He seems to be doing well, but has been ordered to "take it easy" for the next couple of weeks.

Jessica and Daddy's Excellent Adventure: Stone Mountain

Tuesday morning Jessica and I dropped Elyse off at Granny and Pa's house and went to Stone Mountain Park for a day together. Here's a picture of the two of us shortly after we arrived, posing in front of the famous carving:

(This picture was taken by a Stone Mountain Park employee who asked if we wanted a picture of both of us. His uniform said Michael, but I don't know the rest of his name. In any case, thanks!)

Nearly everything in the Crossroads area was closed. How can you play, laugh, and pretend when the toy store is closed?

There were, however, plenty of rocks to climb on around the reflecting pool at the edge of the Memorial Lawn:

Jessica was so exhausted after all the walking and climbing that she had to lay down on a comfortable-looking rock and take a nap:

(She laid down on her own, not at my request as a photo opportunity. I'm not even sure she was aware I was taking pictures.)

We took a break and went outside the park to CiCi's for lunch, and then returned to hike around the walk-up trail for a while. Here she is posing on a rock on the side of a mountain:

As we walked, we picked up various detritus on the side of the mountain, including nuts, bolts, and washers, some of which may be remnants of the mountain's time as a working quarry. Here are a couple of pictures of Jessica showing off washers she found:

How They Do in Italy

Elyse knows how to eat spaghetti, and she does it just like they do in Italy. You eat spaghetti without a shirt on, and you don't use any utensils, just the fingers God gave you:

You certainly don't worry about getting it on you--spaghetti is a wearable food:

And most importantly, you enjoy your meal!

One More Elyse Picture

I posted a couple of pictures from our Easter portraits a couple of weeks ago; I've since decided that this is my favorite of Elye:

2011 Renaissance Festival

A couple of weeks ago we went to the Georgia Renaissance Festival. I believe it's the fifth time Jessica's been, and she's only four!

Here's a picture of Jessica relaxing on a bench in the Parrots of the Caribbean:

And here's a closeup of the parrot that was behind her:

Here's a sort of M.C. Escher pose I caught as two of the macaws groomed each other:

Elyse was very excited by the sheepdog demonstration; you can't see her face very well here, but she's howling with delight as the dog chases the sheep into formation:



Jessica was very taken with the Arabian Nights-style storyteller:

(In case you're wondering: No, I won't be doing that to my beard.)