Olbrich Gardens

Today was such a beautiful day. The kids and I went to Olbrich Gardens with our friends Meg, Molly, and Lucy. A lot of the flowers are blooming now and it is such a beautiful place to go. I wanted to take pictures of so many different things. I decided that I should start with the flower setting on my camera. I think I took some pretty good shots considering I have about 3 seconds to spend taking any one picture before the kids are running away from me. :)

I didn't take very many shots of the kids this time. We did find a cool little spot that reminded me of a tree fort. I took Reese and Haeven's pictures and I'm really happy with the way Reese's turned out. It's too bad she was having a bad hair day.

favorite things

The kids and I have been spending so much time outside lately. There is no way I could go back any kind of job where I would have to be inside all day long.

Today we went to the Towne of Burke Park, not sure if that is the right name of the park. It's on Reiner Road. Anyway, we were there for over 2 hours today hanging out with our friends Molly and Lucy.

I was able to get some beautiful shots of the kids. My favorite one is of Reese looking through the side of the red tunnel. Just the look in her eyes is priceless to me.

Yesterday my next door neighbor's granddaughter brought me over some lilacs. Lilac is my absolute favorite smell in the whole world. They have 2 lilac trees/bushes in their yard and they always bloom about 1 week before mine do. I tried messing around with the settings I talked about yesterday and was able to get some cool shots of the lilacs.

Change of direction

So I've decided to change the direction of my blog. Origionally I was going to post pictures of the daycare on here so that the kids' friends and families could all enjoy them. Then I reallized I could only put a few pictures on at a time. I take so many pictures of the kids that it is hard for me to pick just a few.

Now my blog will be more about my photography. My dream is to be a professional photographer. I am going to start taking classes hopefully in the near future that will help me to become a better photographer. Then when the kids are all in school I'll be able to focus on my photography. Eventually doing weddings, senior pictures, and families. It would be fun to even be able to work for a magazine or newspaper or to do some kind of freelance work.

I've had my new camera for about a year now and I've never really explored all of its capabilities. So last night I looked up the manual online, because I lost my copy, and read up on my camera. I learned a lot of things that I never knew about the camera. I have a Fuji Finepix s700. I've been telling Kirk that I want a nicer, more professional camera. Well, I think that I may find that my camera is perfect for me at this point in time.

While we were at the zoo this morning I tried out some of the newly discovered features on my camera. One of the settings that I am most excited about lets me set the camera for exactly what I am taking pictures of. For example museums, sunset, flowers, party, snow, and beach.

I used the museum setting to take pictures of the lions and alligators at the zoo. It worked great. I was able to get clear shots of the animals through the glass.

Hope you enjoy

What a beautiful day! I would love it if every day in Wisconsin was like this. We had a wonderful morning. We met our friends Molly and Lucy over at Warner Park to go walking. The kids had fun running up and down the paths. It was really nice just being outside and having to worry about anything. When we go to the mall or somewhere else I'm usually worried about losing a kid, them breaking something, or getting into something they shouldn't. Today all I had to worry about was making sure they left all of the goose poop alone. :) Bryce was quite interested with it. I keep forgetting to mention that the older girl that has been in the pictures lately is our friend Alainna. She will be with us for the next few Tuesdays and Thursdays.

There were a lot of goose families. Moms and dads with their babies. Reese and Bryce kept insisting that they were ducks and chicks. The two of them kept trying to run up to them so it was pretty hard for me to get a good picture of the babies.

At one point we just sat on a bench in the sun and let the kids run in a field full of dandelions. They were in heaven! :) There was also a dog park a little ways away and they liked seeing the dogs running around.

On our walk back to the van we ran into our friend Rick. He was just out walking on his lunch break.

Hope you enjoy the pictures and the weather. Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there.

Melanie

Here are some pictures from the zoo yesterday. I can only add 5 at a time. Hopefully none of there will be sideways. :)

Mel

Outside fun

Hi All,

We have been having a great time being outside. One of our new favorite places to explore is Olbrich Gardens. That is where we went this morning. We met our friends Molly and Lucy there. There is a great little playground and lots of garden paths to explore. There were a lot more flowers in bloom since we were there last week. The fountains all had water in them as well. They all had a great time trying to throw things in the water and trying to catch the water in the fountain. There are butterflies painted along the paths for some reason, I'm not sure if they are used for decoration or to mark a certain path. The kids all loved trying to find the next one. They were getting so excited.

Yesterday we went to the zoo with Uncle Brett and JoJo. Haeven and Joe have a love/hate relationship. They are best buddies but watch out if they happen to want to same thing at the same time. Luckily yesterday it was more on the love side. :) All of the animals are out now except for the alligators and the giant tortoise. The kids all love riding the merry-go-round. Reese was hanging onto Uncle Brett so tight that he said he felt like one of the animals going up and down.

I know we do the same things week after week but the kids always have a great time. I just love seeing how they get so excited when they find out where we are going each day. I love taking them places so they can explore and learn by seeing the real world around them.

Sorry about the pictures. I haven't figured out how to rotate them yet. If anyone knows how please let me know. :)

Melanie