The Babbling Brooks

Sneak Peak!

We've been in Montana since July 12th. We picked Legend up on July 1 at his other grandmas, stayed a day in St. George and then went to Washington. We spent a week there visiting Ocean Shores, seeing my sisters, and going to the Hansen brothers summer birthday party. Brad, Legend, and Trevor came to Montana with us and Wendy, Brian, Zachary, and Jacob followed a week later. We've had lots of fun and I've got a ton of photos to share. Here's a sneak peak of some of the pictures I've taken of our five grandsons...Trevor (9), Legend (6), Zachary (4), Jacob (2), and Lennox (9 months).

      

John goes back to work in Oklahoma August 3rd, so we'll be headed that way in a few days! 

I Heart Faces

This weeks theme at I Heart Faces is Creative Cropping. Here's my entry in the Kids category. We were in St. George and took Legend for our usual morning treat at Starbucks. He climbed up behind Papa and was teasing and laughing with John. They were having so much fun and I wanted to get some pictures. It was difficult to snatch a photo cause Legend was moving around a lot. This is one that I cropped to get the final photograph.

  

There are always lots of great photos to look at, so go on over to I Heart Faces and take a look (click on the link or the button above!). 

Winning Photo!

Hurray! My photo in the adult category at I Heart Faces took 7th place this week! I'm so thrilled to have made it into the top ten! Check the March 2nd post if you haven't seen the photo...thanks to Paul for allowing me to use his face :)

I Heart Faces (Kids and Adult entries)

It's time again for another entry! This week's theme is Black & White. In the Kids category here's a photo I took of Legend at soccer camp. It was during the rest break and he was relaxing in the stands and "hydrating" as Papa John taught him to do :)

   

And here's my entry in the Adult category. I took this photo of my sister sitting in a restaurant across the table from me. The lighting was very dim and I set my camera to spot metering to darken the background. It's my favorite photo of her!

   

Be sure to hop over to the I Heart Faces blog to see some amazing photography. They have lots of hints on how to make your own photos great, too. Click HERE to get there...or you can click on the button at the top of this post. Enjoy!   

I Heart Faces

I found a great photography blog called "I Heart Faces". It's all about sharing photography of, you guessed it...faces! Each week they have a different theme and you can link to your photography fitting the theme. Here's my entry for this week's kid theme....."The Eyes Have It!" I took this photo of Trevor last spring while we were sitting in the restaurant at the base of Whitefish Mountain.Click HERE to get to the links and take a look at the awesome photos being posted this week or click the I Heart Faces above button to show off your own photo. Enjoy! 

Fiji Photos...

You'll find the link to our Fiji photos in the Smugmug list (on the left sidebar)...

The Studio at Mountain Dreams...

I've had a lot of requests for pictures of my studio. Here it is! Since we were moving to a new state and building a new home I had the opportunity to build the room exactly the way I wanted it. There was a lot of planning to get things right. It is wired with cable, extra phone lines, and plenty of outlets, so I could reorganize if I wanted to...but I don't see that happening. The outlets behind the furnishings work on switches and I also have some higher up on the wall to use with chargers, heat tools, etc. The floor is heated porcelain tile, easy to clean and warm in the winter! There are 2 skylights on the northwest side of the room that let natural light pour in all day long. I took the pictures with my wide angle lens with natural light, then used the photomerge feature in Adobe Photoshop Elements to get an entire wall in the picture. All the furnishings and most of the storage was purchased at IKEAwith the exception of the work table (standing height) which I got at Costcoand the photo ledges which are from Pottery Barn. The drawer units beneath the worktable are Iris carts with the wheels removed. The shelf above it sits on top of the carts (thanks to Cheryl S. for that idea!). Each drawer is labeled (as is everything else in the room) and has a piece of patterned paper on the inside of the front to give a more uniform look (thanks to Paula W. for that idea!). The white frosted paper holders and the pale yellow storage pieces (the Shelf-It series) are from Cropper Hopper. The stackable paper trays are made by Design Dynamics and can be ordered online at several scrapbooking sites. All the wood storage pieces and the photo boxes are from IKEA and I'm putting my Longaberger baskets to good use! I love my play space, hope you do, too!

         

I'll try to keep my head from swelling...while I'm smiling...

The 2008 Lincoln County Fair ends tomorrow. I entered 17 photos this year and am totally pleased (and surprised) at the results. I received 12 first place blue ribbons, 2 second place red ribbons, 1 third place white ribbon, and 2 Honorable Mention green ribbons. But, here's the best part. There are 6 Special Sponsor Awards awarded for amateur photography...Best Photo of a Child, Best Photo of a Live Animal, Best Black & White Photo, Best Photo of a Bird/Insect, Best Photo of an Adult or Group of People, and Best Color Photo. All 6 were awarded to my photos! I was totally surprised to see that!

   

Thank you, Mr. Kelby!

If you take a lot of photos like I do, you've probably had this experience. You've forgotten to change the settings on your camera back to where they should be. I took a few photos indoors one evening where there were incandescent lights, so I changed the white balance setting to avoid a color cast. The next morning we went to Glacier Park and boarded the 9:00am boat at Lake McDonald. The water was calm and was reflecting the peaks, a beautiful day at the park. I happily snapped away taking photo after photo. After we got off the boat I looked at the photos and....Ackkkkkk! My photos looked like this...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beautiful shade of blue, but not so good for photos! I didn't know if they could be saved or if we'd be making a point to come back to the boat real soon. Just last week I had ordered "The Photoshop Elements 6 Book for Digital Photographers". With a little research and a little trial and error I was able to change those blue photos to this...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks to Scott Kelby and his book I was able to save my photos :) If you use Photoshop Elements it's well worth the dollars. Be sure to get the one for your PE software version!

Lincoln County Fair....Ribbons For Me!

The Lincoln County Fair opened here in Eureka yesterday and runs through Sunday. I entered some of my photos (which had to have been taken in the last year) and I won some prizes! I even received one of the special Sponsor Prizes for Best Photo of an Adult or People in a Group....that winner was the one I took of the bride (Shannon) kissing Legend on the cheek. I love that photo :). Besides that award I got 2 first place ribbons, 3 second place, and an honorable mention. In the flower category my photo didn't get a ribbon and that was the one of all my entries that I figured had one of the best chances, go figure! Anyway, I think I won a grand total of about $10.75 cash and the prestige of bringing home a fistful of ribbons :) Here's my entries....I think you've probably seen all or most of them at some time on this blog...

John got in on the action by volunteering with our church. He spent almost four hours working in the burger booth. I spent a little time looking through the Arts exhibits, but saved the rest for tomorrow when we can browse together. While John was flipping burgers I found a cozy spot on the fairgrounds and almost finished Harry Potter. Tomorrow we'll go see the rest of the fair and then attend The Bull Thing for which we purchased reserved seats. We've been looking forward to that for some time. We've heard a lot about it, but had never been able to get over here for it. It's bull riders from all over the country followed by Cowboy Poker...4 hapless men from the audience sitting in the bull pen playing poker while the bulls are let into the ring, last man in the ring wins the pot!