The Newest Member of the Family

Yesterday the newest member of the family arrived at our home. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my birthday gift....

*sigh* Isn't it lovely? That is a Nikon 35mm lens! Woo! A couple of months ago I borrowed a 50mm lens from a photographer friend and I loved it, even though it wouldn't auto focus on my camera. The 35mm is the equivalent of the 50mm I borrowed, but it's made for my camera. So what's so special about this lens?

Special thing #1 - it will allow me to take much better flash-free pictures inside.

Special thing #2 - I can make the background in photos super blurry which makes the subject really pop. Example?

Thank you, Chase, for showing us all your belly. Anyway, as soon as the mailman arrived yesterday (very late I might add) I was at the door waiting for him to hand me the box from Amazon. Then I promptly shooed the boys outside for a little practice photo shoot! I managed to snap off about 80 pictures in the 10 minutes we were outside (a thunderstorm was rolling in, so we had to head inside). Here are a few of my favorites...

Tyler

 Jackson

 Tyler, Jackson & Chase

(it should be noted I posted this on FB last night and mentioned I was going to edit out the mud in Tyler's hair and scratches on Jackson's face and was met with protest - so there it all stays.)

Chase

 Jackson & Tyler

It should be noted that I did not receive enough birthday money to pay for this lens. Instead I had to turn to SwagBucks. I've talked about SwagBucks here before, but in case you weren't paying attention let me tell you again.... SwagBucks is an amazingly easy way to earn free stuff. To help me buy this lens I cashed in SwagBucks for a $50 (yep, 5-0) gift card to Amazon.com and I used some PayPal cash ($20 to be exact) that I had earned through SwagBucks a month ago. That's $70 I was able to use towards my lens that I didn't have to actually pay for myself!

If you're not earning SwagBucks yet, sign up. You'll love it. (Click any of the "SwagBucks" words here or scroll all the way to the bottom of this page and click the banner.) In the last year or so I've cashed in enough SBs (SwagBucks) for $45 in cash, $20 in pre-paid Master Cards, a $10 Starbuck's Card and the $50 Amazon.com card. Not bad for a Stay At Home Mom, huh?

Not Really A Saturday Savings Post

I know my Saturday morning post is generally all about grocery shopping, but I also know I usually post on Friday mornings too and that just didn't happen yesterday! So today, I bring you a potpourri of stuff...

Baking Fool: I'm a baking fool this week! In fact, as I write this post I have the first part of two batches of Whoopie Pies in the oven. Business has been good for Valentine's Day, for which I am so thankful!

Chase's Hernia: Yesterday afternoon I took Chase to the Children's Hospital for a consult appointment about his hernia. We have a surgery date set for about a month from now. The biggest challenge will be keeping him totally healthy in the days leading up to surgery!

A Borrowed Lens: A triplet mom friend is letting me borrow a lens for my Nikon! I've had fun messing with it the last 24 hours or so and will post some pictures next week here and this weekend on my 365 Blog (probably later today)!

Grocery Shopping: I did half of my grocery shopping yesterday and will do the second half on Monday, which is why I decided to not bother with a full Saturday Savings post today. Price Chopper is having a nice President's Day Sale on Monday, so I'll be heading there to get some good deals on cereal, potatoes, laundry detergent and frozen veggies (among other items on sale). Yesterday I picked up Dole Salad Blends for .99 each, chicken nuggets for $1 and frozen blueberries for $1.88. I also picked up some more Organic Milk at Whole Foods. Holy moly, I wonder when the sticker shock of that will wear off.

Oh and I must share this fun grocery trip I took last weekend! HyVee was having another one of their 2 day sales, so I made a special trip to the HyVee closer to home in order to take advantage and to look for the Organic Pears that were on sale but not carried at the HyVee I had visited on Friday. Get this: I walked out of HyVee with 20 containers of Danon yogurt and a 3 pound bag of Organic Pears and paid only $2! How? The pears rang up incorrectly so I got them for free and with my two coupons and the great sale on yogurts my total was $2! Sweet! You know what? Those pears rang up incorrectly again yesterday (they're on sale all month) so I again got a bag of free organic pears! Woot! Woot!

Don't Forget: You only have two more days to enter the giveaway of the week! I'm giving away a whole set of organic insect killer! It's safe to use around your pets and kids and it does the trick! There aren't many entries yet, so your odds are good right now... enter HERE! Monday morning we'll announce the winner and a new giveaway!

Photographing Three Two Year Olds

Thanks to a smokin' Black Friday weekend deal on photo cards, I was forced  highly motivated to get a Christmas Card worthy picture of my munchkins. I figured it wouldn't be that difficult... after all, I got some great shots at our two-year photo shoot! Turns out a lot can change in 3 months...

Saturday morning we dressed the boys in the sweaters I snagged on clearance last year at The Children's Place and we headed to a nearby park with my lovely new camera (which I'm still figuring out).

 

I had a vision for some cute shots but the boys were not cooperating. At all. Apparently two year olds have minds of their own and don't like to be "directed". Nick and I were trying all kinds of "fun" places to sit (that used to work long enough for me to get a couple of pictures!) but that didn't work at all...

 

 

(That's Chase in the middle with the nasty "owie" on his nose. Thanks to PhotoShop I was able to fix that in the final picture I chose!)

Jackson & Tyler

Chase, Jackson & Tyler

Jackson, Tyler & Chase

At one point they all headed for the bushes. Why, we don't know.

When two of them (Chase & Tyler) plopped down in the bushes Nick decided to stop trying to herd them out and instead take advantage by plopping Jackson down next to them!

Hmmm... A little too woodsy of a feel for my liking.

As a last resort we stopped at this bench on the way out of the park. Cute shots, but still not quite what I was looking for...

L-R: Tyler, Jackson, Chase

After I got home and looked through the hundreds of pictures I snapped I realized there was nothing I was super excited about, so I went to Plan B. Plan B went pretty well and when combined with a picture from Plan A we had a winner of a Christmas Card! Now you'll all have to come back next week to see what it looks like (I want those on our mailing list to see it first, thus the delay in posting it here)!

Props to all of you professional photographers who have figured out how to get multiple two year olds to all sit or stand in the same place at the same time!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Before my family and close friends think I've finally snapped - yes, I know my birthday is actually in May and that it is now late November. That fact didn't stop me from buying myself a birthday gift though! Check out what's currently traveling across this great country to my home...

*sigh* Isn't it beautiful? That, my friends, is a Nikon D3000. Yes, I finally have joined the DSLR world! Yipee!!! The camera is coming just in the nick of time too; my point and shoot is rapidly deteriorating and the boys are supposed to see Santa for the first time next week - I must have a working camera for that!

So why am I calling this a birthday gift and why have I suddenly been able to fulfill my dream of owning a DSLR? Two words for you: Savings Bonds. When I was a child I would get a Savings Bond each year from my grandparents. I'd look at them and think "man, these things are never going to mature!". Throughout the years I have occassionally checked online to see how much they were worth and when I checked last week I noticed they had all matured enough for me to cash them in and get a camera!

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for the sweet birthday gift! :)

Are you readers ready for an overload of cute pictures? Prepare yourself now, because pretty soon the picture-fest will begin!

2 Year Pictures

Friday morning Nick and I loaded the boys into the car and headed towards The Plaza and the Kauffman Memorial Gardens.The boys had a ball running around the gardens and I took hundreds (333 to be exact) of pictures in only 30 minutes.A huge thanks to Matt for letting me borrow his camera again!

Jackson

 

Tyler

 

  

Chase

 

  

The Boys

 

For those of you that are hard core fans of pictures of the boys, here's a slide show of some of the other good pictures taken during our photo shoot on Friday!

 

Caption This

This picture I took yesterday morning just amuses me like no other. I feel like it's worthy of a fantastic caption but I'm currently experiencing writers block (too much time away from work perhaps?). What caption would you give this picture? (Hint: You may want to click on the picture to see it bigger.)


While you're thinking here are a few other cute pictures... A teenager at church was nice enough to let me borrow his Nikon D50 for a week. I'm loving it! Originally I was going to use it to help convince Nick of my need for a DSLR camera. Now that the AC is broken in the Jeep and it's becoming apparent we may need a new car sooner than we thought, my desire for a fancy camera has been pushed aside to who knows when. A shame too because I'm having fun. Did I mention I took 307 pictures in a 24 hour period?

There's an entrance to a park nearby that I've always thought would be a cool place to take pictures, so yesterday morning when it was nice and cool I loaded the boys up and we headed down for a photo shoot. Fun times! These are just a few of the favorites. I'll share more in the coming days!

Jackson in stripes, Tyler in green and Chase in brown

The Cuteness of Jackson

Every once in a while one of the boys will get excited to see me with my camera and will begin posing for me. I love it when that happens and take full advantage of the situation! Last week Jackson was posing away for me and I got so many cute shots of him. Unfortunately the first two shots have a crummy view in the background but I fixed that for the remaining pictures. Now if I could just get all three boys to cooperate like this at the same time!

Serious Spring Cuteness

The boys seem to be entering a phase where they actually enjoy having their picture taken. They even will giggle and say "cheese"! The other day I grabbed my camera to try to catch pictures of them blowing on dandelions and every time I tried to put my camera back they would all yell "more, more!" until I took the camera back outside and took more pictures of them. As a result, I snapped 104 pictures in about 30 minutes. Yikes! Don't worry, I'm not going to show them all to you - only some of the best :)

Speaking of pictures, I'm seriously considering buying a Digital SLR camera. Those of you that are hard core about your picture taking - what camera do you have and why do you love it? (I'm leaning towards the Canon Rebel.)

Jackson in Green, Tyler in Stripes and Chase in Brown