Checking In

Once again, life has managed to get in the way of blogging. October has flown by-it seems nearly impossible that next weekend is Halloween. I think the week that Emma and Jill were gone contributed quite a bit to the pace of the month.

Sadly, the camera hasn't been out too much lately. I assure you that it will be in the next week to capture all of the fun of Halloween with the kids. I did use my phone's camera quite a bit while Emma and Jill were away so that I could send updates to them on what Josh and I were doing. Here are a few of those so that we don't have a completely image-free blog entry.

Josh and I went to a car show that a friend was DJing on Saturday. Here's Josh in front of one of the cool cars. It had a LS6 Corvette engine in it.

Josh auditioning (a little late) for "Lord of the Rings"

He loved having the whole tub to himself...

We spent a lot of time hanging out with my family and Iyla (or as Josh calls her "Boo-Boo")

My delicious skillet potatoes with bacon I made one night once Josh was in bed. It went great with the steak cooking on the grill next to it.

So there's a few pictures to keep things interesting. More to come this week once the holiday festivities begin...

4th Birthday

Here are a few more images from Emma's birthday party on Sunday. She was convinced that since her party was that day, she actually turned four that day. She doesn't equate a birthday with being a certain date, they are determined by when the party is.

It is hard to believe that my baby girl is four already. Today was a rainy and stormy day and it reminded me a bit of the day she was born. The storms weren't as powerful that day, but the weather was very similar. I can recall holding her in the hospital and looking out the window to see the rain falling.

Emma is growing up so quickly, but in a wonderful way. Over the last year she has matured so much and become such a little person. It's exciting to see her grow up every day. Happy fourth birthday Emma, we love you!

Full Auto

I headed up north to do a little shooting this afternoon. The weather was great courtesy of storms rolling in. I had the opportunity to shoot a few full auto guns and take some pictures with a lot of brass flying.

I made this image from below the shooter with my lens set nice and wide. I deliberately put myself about where I thought the brass would be landing. The image above is the result of a lot of luck and a little good positioning. I love the arc of empty brass ejecting from the gun and the piece right in front of the lens is icing on the cake.

Fishing Rod

On my days off, one of our regular activities is going to a store called Sportsman's Warehouse nearby. Emma loves it because they have little shopping carts that she can push around. Josh loves looking at all the mounted animals on the walls and proclaiming "DOG!" even though they are clearly not dogs.

Several months ago Emma noticed the kids fishing rods in the fishing section. Every week we have to go ogle them. I told Emma since they said "Four and up" on them that I would get her one for her fourth birthday. Over the last few weeks she has been asking nonstop about when she will get her fishing rod.

Last night at her little birthday get-together I finally gave her the new Barbie fishing rod. It came with a foam hook and targets to practice casting with, so I set it up and we did some fishing in the backyard. The image above is Emma's "first catch."

I'll post some more pictures from the birthday celebration soon. The white balance on my camera was a little off, so they are going to take a little bit of work to get right.

First Baseball Game

Today after Mass the kids were all playing outside the church when a gentleman approached us and asked if anyone would be interested in some free tickets to a Diamondbacks game. Jill quickly snatched up the tickets and we tried to figure out how we were going to work a 1:00 game with the kids. Our initial plan was to drop Josh off with Jill's parents and take one of the cousins along. On the way we changed plans and decided Emma and Josh should experience their first baseball game together.

I brought the camera along to document, but the tight seating and trying to keep a constant eye on Josh prevented a full photo session. Here are a few of the shots that turned out from today:

Emma wanted to take a picture of the game:

Josh and his cousin Abby enjoying the game:

The kids had a great time, but were exhausted by the fifth inning. The Diamondbacks had just scored before we took off and we sadly missed a few late home runs that clinched the last home game of the season for them. Free baseball games sure are fun!

Cleaning Day

Any of you who have met Jill know that she is a clean freak. As soon as she walks through the door from work she's trying to get the house in order. I'm constantly trying to assure her that the mess will gladly wait for a while so she can rest, but I suppose I'm not convincing enough.

Taking after mom, Josh is in love with the vacuum. When Jill is doing the carpets, he is shadowing right behind with his toy vacuum. As you can see from the frame above, he's pretty happy to do some cleaning. The bottom frame was made in the light of the front window post cleaning.

Goin' Shooting

Holy cow! It's been a month and a half since I've posted anything on here. I guess that's what happens when Jill's back to work and I'm in a crazy work rhythm as well.

Unfortunately, my camera has been spending a good bit of the time sitting on my dresser these days. I'm trying to get back in the habit of having it with me so that I can save these moments as the kids grow up. Another reason I haven't been feeling so photograpical lately is it has been stinking hot around here. We are all waiting impatiently for the start of the fall.

I took this picture some time last month while I was getting my gear ready to go out to the shooting range. Josh actually was the first to grab my shooting glasses and put them on, but he was unwilling to keep them on for long enough to snap a picture. Emma on the other hand was happy to oblige...