Thanksgiving.

We went to Nampa for Thanksgiving this year. It was nice to see everyone. While there we played some Wii. Nuan and I had sore arms the next day. It was a lot of fun. I did a family portrait for the Trowells while I was there too. We used a king size sheet for the background and my Nikon speedlights and umbrellas for light. Could of used another flash for Alex's hair to separate it from the background but those things don't grow on trees :-)

Nemo.

Today J had a Doctor appointment. We had to wait for a long time in the lobby so I took some pictures of the fish in the aquarium. They have it stocked like the aquarium in Finding Nemo.

J's Karate tournament.

Today I took J to a karate tournament. He won the gold medal in the Kata or form competition and he won the silver in the Kumite or sparring competition. That was very good since he had to do two rounds of two fights with only one short break in between. That left him very tired for the final match. The other kid had only fought once. Most of the action shots I took were blurry because they were moving really fast and there wasn't much light in the gym. Here is a shot of J being awarded his medals.

Portrait of J and Natasha.

Today I took a portrait of the kids. It turned out about as good as I could do it with just one flash.



We also did some fun ones. J's didn't turn out, so I will have to do a re-take another day. Here are some of Natasha.

Bouncing Off The Walls.

Natasha was invited to a birthday party at Bouncing Off The Walls.  I was going to take J with me to run some errands but the birthday Mom invited J to stay and play.  I grabbed a few pictures of the kids while they were there. Click the picture to see it in actual size.

Mean ol' witch with a hat.

I bet you are glad you didn't run into this scary witch on Halloween!

J's poem.

J has been asking me to help him set up a blog for a while. He had one before when we had .mac accounts but why pay $200 for something you can get for free, right? J chose mrsmileydude for his blog name, you can read his blog at mrsmileydude.blogspot.com.

Hey J, don't spend it all in one place.

So J has been doing some babysitting for us and we paid him some money. Naturally, it was burning a hole in his pocket so he accompanied us to Wal-Mart. They were out of the toy he wanted. I told him that since Christmas is coming up they will probably have more next week so maybe he should wait until then. He just looked at me like I was crazy and decided to get a bigger one.
J isn't particularly fond of math, so I am always looking for practical applications for things he is learning. On the way home our conversation went something like this:
Me: So, J how much do you have left on your prepaid card?
J : Uh, 15.72 minus uh...
Me: Hey, you know you could use estimation to figure that out, you know what you learned in school a few weeks ago.
J : Uh-huh.
Me: What is it called when you chop off the last few digits of the numbers?
J : Front end estimation.
Me: Yeah, if you use that technique then it is easy to do in your head.
J : Uh-huh.
Me: So that leaves you with about 5 dollars right?
J : Uh-huh.
Me: See, there is a real use for math in your daily life.
J : Uh-huh.
Me: Wouldn't your teacher be so happy if she knew you are using what you learn?
J : Uh-huh.
Me: Are you even listening to me?
J : Uh-huh.
Me: Then what did I just say?
J : Uh-huh.
Me: See, you aren't even listening to me.
J : Yeah I was.
Me: Then what did I just say?
J : Oh, you said I shouldn't spend all my money at once and I should save it up for something big I want to buy.

He was so busted, Nuan and I just burst out laughing. He decided to torment his sister with his new toy.