Christmas Pictures

We took a bunch of pictures yesterday in the hopes that ONE of them would be normal enough to use as our Christmas card this year. W-O-W....harder than I thought. Well, I had an idea because we did the same thing last year.

Anyway, here are a few cute ones. Of course, you'll have to wait until Christmas to see the "winner".

And on a side note, we started at noon.....without eating lunch first......NOT the smartest idea. Tummies (among other things) were grumbling.

On another side note, Hanna wasn't really into getting her picture taken and Emma was always just a black blur. That is why there are never that many of them. Eden, as always, was ever so cooperative for the camera. ;)







Showing off the lost tooth.

New Website

I have a new website!

Go there now!

Dogs

This is Sammi's dog, Harley. Darn cute little bugger.



Harley and Emma looking at......? Perhaps something Harley gaked up? He was doing that a lot yesterday.



This is Ginger. She also resides at the Olson's house of dogs, cats, birds, frogs, fish and bats. Did I miss a species?

Sushi Night With Gram

It was supposed to be sushi night with my sister, Kathy. But it was cancelled for the third week in a row. And I was bummed cuz I was really craving it. So I went to Hornbacher's and got the girls and myself some sushi from the deli, which is what I do when the craving sets in reeeeeeeeal bad. Cuz if you've ever eaten sushi at a "sushi place", it's waaaaaaaaaay better than store bought. I always wonder how long this stuff sits out. But it'll do in a pinch.



And I mentioned a few posts ago that my girls (amazingly enough) like sushi.

So I got them each their own tray this time.



I think Emma just likes the fact that she can stab her food repeatedly with a chopstick and not get in trouble for it.



Hanna truly likes eating the whole thing.



Eden likes the seaweed. She will unwrap the roll sometimes and just eat the seaweed. Crazy kids! And they all love the ginger.



Gram had pizza...haha. She's NOT a fan of sushi.




Oh, on a totally unrelated note, Eden's tooth FINALLY came out.



The tooth fairy left her four quarters. Generous tooth fairy HA!

And here is Eden torturing Gram with a fake mouse.




Gram is NOT a fan of mice.

And here is Hanna, being annoyed by me.

Emma reads to me in bed

Playing with the camera

It was sunny out again yesterday. And you know what that means......

I'm going to want to go take pictures.

I love taking pictures in natural sunlight. Especially in the evening, it's so breathtaking. The girls are starting to groan whenever I mention the word "picture". This morning before they left for school, all I said was "It's sunny out" and they both went "Ooooh noooo. No more pictures PLEASE mom".

But anyway, I wanted to take some pictures yesterday so we all piled in the car and went just a couple places where we thought it might be nice to play with my new camera.







Nothing overly fantastic about the shots of the Stave church. It is such a beauty in itself that taking pictures of it with a disposable camera would turn out beautiful.

And the next few are just random things around the house. I am trying to get a feel for aperture and shutter speed. Although I don't need to use the manual settings, I want to get used to doing it because taking pictures in low light without a flash really captures the mood of the lighting. The trick is to do so without blurring the shot, which is a bit tricky. (the trick is, it's tricky...good writing there)





Look at these next three...





See what I mean? What a difference it makes NOT using a flash. The lighting is spectacular.

Now, here are some WITH the flash.







While cute.....VERY cute....it's a different mood entirely.


And like I said before, you just can't go wrong with natural sunlight.