Day with the Dalton blondies, 4/10/08

Here Emily is giving Randi raspberries and tickles.

Randi was quite enthusiastic about giving her mom raspberries, too. A little too enthusiastic.













Little Kourtney was playing peek-a-boo with me with a blanket and I was snapping a picture each time she came out from under the blanket.

Emily and Randi playing with stickers together.

Emily made me delete 9 out of 10 pictures I took of her. Above right is a survivor.

Cuddling w/ Kourtney

Here I managed a miracle (really, you have no idea) in getting both twins in the frame AND both looking at the camera at the same time. Kids spend a lot of time moving around and looking down when they're playing. By the time you focus, you're too late most of the time! I had great hopes that I was going to get some really good pictures but I didn't do so well this time around.




Here's little Kestin with some cracker crumbs clinging to her face. She's saying, "Why do you keep following me around with that black clicking thing in front of your face? This is very curious."

Emily was very nice to pick me up from the airport (uh...in the middle of the night!) and give me a nice bed at their place. In the morning I woke up to little kiddies in pajamas playing and squealing outside my bedroom door. Needless to say, Emily didn't get much sleep that night and I'm only hoping Eliot did, since he had to go to work early! Randi warmed up to me pretty fast, since I seemed like a willing buddy to play with. She kept calling me Amy at first. ("Come on, Amy! Amy, wook at dis!") We all spent the day playing, chasing, laughing, and dumping out toys and then picking them up again, having accidents involving heads getting bumped, trying to get the girls to eat canned pears and hot dogs and take naps, jumping on the bed, bouncing crying girls on our hip, giving hugs, etc. (I must say, I'm amazed at Emily's ability to continually keep the bows and piggy tails in the girls' hair fixed again when they kept falling out!) Since we were pooped, Emily and me sacked out on the couch while Randi watched a kid's TV show later in the evening when the twins were asleep. Then grandpa and grandma came over with some dinner and Eliot got to join us for some food and chat. It was really great being with Emily and the girls since I haven't gotten to spend this much time with them in the past. Thanks again for letting me visit, guys! I loved it and will retain fond memories!!

Last Friday, I dragged Deanna and Tony and their friend Glen along with me to listen to a band (Au Revoir Simone) at The Troubadour. Then Deanna and I abandoned Tony and Glen and I got absorbed in taking pictures in random spots in the club. Deanna was good enough to "stand here," "look at me," "look up," "chin down," etc. and be my model, since that was more interesting than taking repetitive pictures of the band and I'm too hesitant to snap pics of strangers. I didn't end up really listening to the band so I basically I paid $12 for the privelege of taking pictures. Hm. But, I learned some things when I took a look at my results, which is usually how it goes and what helps me do the research to find out how to get better. My shutter speeds were too slow for the most part for low light so some of these blown up show evidence of camera shake. I tinkered with the one with bright backlighting in Photoshop to make it look a little more cool. I tried to post a picture of the band but Blogger hates those pictures for some reason and it won't upload them.