Photographer wannabe

I have to admit, I have been really envious of people who can take really pretty pictures. I knew I knew nothing about this and it bugged me. SO, when our friend Tim heard about our camera woes, he offered me his previous professional Canon Eos. He has upgraded and never did anything with this other camera and he JUST happened to be leaving to come see us the next day (Thursday)...so he brought it with him...quite a fabulous Christmas present!!!! He gave me a 3 minute tutorial and then turned me loose with the monster! I had a great time and won't bore you with the 300 pictures I took, but here is a good one I accidentally got of Gabe at his flag football game...powerful zoom!

And,okay, I can't resist posting this one of Alayna and Tim trying not to smile:

Next, the beast went with me to the kid's Christmas parties at school on Friday. I had NO idea if Holden and I would be anywhere in the picture, or if it would just be a picture of my nostrils...so this was a pleasant surprise since the camera was only at my arm's length. The lens got in the way of the flash...that's the shadow...we'll have to work on that one.

At Riley's party, I got brave and asked someone to take our picture...much better, only one chin in this picture!!

Alayna's class took most of my time since I was on for decorating and staying to help out and clean up. They were listening intently to a story when I snapped this picture...she is such a gift!

Turns out my attempt to make the entrance festive was really just an annoyance since it hit them right in the face...

Riley and his teacher (who we LOVE)Mrs. MacNevin:

Holden and Mrs. Mattson...please be in prayer for her, she is awaiting a kidney transplant and has to endure dialysis every night. She is precious and so patient with these energetic 1st graders!

After an early release, we went home to make our first gingerbread house...okay, pop quiz...has anyone noticed who is missing from the Christmas festivities??? Yes, its Gabriel! He was on a class field trip and didn't come home until 6pm. Anyway, back to the gingerbread house. We had all these fancy ideas (and by we, I really mean me, because the kids really just wanted to eat the thing, who cares what it looked like!), but, since we have never done one before, I only got one tub of frosting. This did not go far. Plus, I decided to do stars to cover the roof which requires dropping bits of frosting down side by side until its all covered, which takes much more frosting. To top it all off, we had one side of the roof come apart and we just glued it back together with frosting and did not let it dry...I bet you know where this is going! SO, that was of course the first side I did, with all the heavy frosting stars, on the side just glued back down with frosting and not let dry...YES, it fell apart! Just as I was thinking of grabbing the camera for a halfway done shot it slid down the side. Riley was very quick on the "I told you we should just smear it all over the roof!" So, we smeared it over the roof after trying to put it back in place...what a mess! We finally got to the best part, adding candy! And here is the finished project's good side:

Riley took this picture:

Now, you photographers out there who are not wannabe's like me, will know that this is such a good picture because of the rule of thirds that he accidentally followed. That and the good lighting at that time of day! I was really jealous of this picture and begged Tim to teach me how to take pictures where the foreground is in focus, but everything else is blurry. I am obsessed with these pictures and think they are so beautiful, and wanted to learn to take them. We goofed around with it a little (I'll leave out my pathetic attempts), then Tim took the camera from me and snapped this one of Riley like it was really easy or something:

Okay, its a little orange, but I LOVE it, its exactly what I want to learn to do. So, here is my attempt next:

Close, but not quite. So, Tim strikes again:

Geesh, will I ever get the hang of this??? After SEVERAL more tries, I am proud to say that I took this one of Alayna: Paul apparently is a photographer wannabe, because I caught him sprawled out on the floor in the entryway for this photo:

I'll also blame him for this one taken while we were listening to Riley then Holden read us jokes from this book. Some of them were truly funny, and some of them were NOT. We were cracking ourselves up grading the jokes, giving them a thumb up or down. Here is an example of one we hated:"Q: What do you a call a person with 2 heads, 2 noses, 2 mouths, 4 eyes, 4 arms, and 4 legs? A:A person with extra parts." Terrible! A few jokes later, Riley reads us one wrong (bless his heart) that makes it 100 times funnier than is should have been and it was all over then! We giggled until our sides hurt! I think that is why this picture is blurry!

WARNING: Rabbit trail ahead! So, today is chore day at the Prachar house. And Tim, after the generous gift AND photography lesson decides he wants to wash the windows. I was thinking the sliders (they are always covered with small handprints...wonder whose those could be????), so Paul got him what he needed and he proceeded to go all the way around the outside of the house cleaning ALL the windows!! He even scraped paint from one window and an old sticker from the outside of Alayna's bedroom window (that I hadn't even noticed until it was gone!) He even cleaned the inside of the windows as he went since they crank out:

The squeegee works miracles on the windows!!

THANK YOU TIM! You are such a blessing! Now, when "Pick a room and clean the windows inside and out" comes up in my chore box I can just smile and refile it...for a few months anyway!!

Okay, I promise I am wrapping up this very long post (made possible by Paul and Tim who took the kids to Agape to meet the King Air coming back from Arkansas after getting a new paint job and stayed away for along time). So, are you wondering why there is a picture of a washer and dryer with this post?? Isn't it a pretty picture though?? The lighting was perfect...ahem...anyway. These are the latest of the Lord's provision. As if the camera was too distant of a memory and we needed to be reminded that He will provide for our EVERY need, this washer/dryer set were loaned to us for an undetermined period...sort of like the treadmill that now lives in our guest room. Our friends Dan and Kate are going to the Dominican Republic in just over a very SHORT month and they are not going to be able to take them with them to the island,so they asked us to appliance-sit with permission to use them! This is amazing because our own washer we brought from Iowa is being stored in our garage because the house came with a set (you can see it just to the left of the other set). We let someone from church take our dryer because theirs died and they couldn't afford one. For the past couple months it is taking longer and longer to get anything dry in the dryer we were using. The last load of clothes that included some towels took 100 minutes to get dry. Not very energy efficient and I was just wondering what we were going to do about that...voila, here's a new set! Why do we ever worry? Why do we ever feel stressed??? Because our faith is SO small...ugggh, will it EVER grow up????