Kaitlyn is FOUR!

Happy 4th Birthday to Kaitlyn!!! Here are a few shots from this a.m. before school. The cake is the one we made for school. A M&Ms masterpiece :) I also took a picture of her in her classroom and need to head off to pick the kids up as I type! I'll post an update of the fun later :)

Okay, the brief update...McDonalds for lunch...brownies for dessert and she opened a few presents at lunch. She was one TIRED girl after lunch and is currently taking a deep nap as I type. I need to go wake her up for her baby gym class.

Oh..and one GREAT photo that I love is the one her nursery school teacher took of her and her classmates. I lent her a camera and she snapped a few shots :) More photos tonight!

Kaitlyn in action on the swing!

Here's a mini 'action' photoshoot with Kaitlyn the other day on the swingset. I can't belive her 4th birthday is on Friday. It seems like just yesterday that Krista was turning four! I was happy with these shots. I have been working on a new focusing mode called AI Servio that is used for sports photography and for tracking fast moving objects. In these she was going full speed on the swing. So fun to be able to capture her so well in action!

Spring in the yard 2010 at OneTrueMedia.com

Evan is a walking guy now...just one of the big kids in the yard now! This is from this afternoon. He got his 1st pair of shoes today--he had been wearing on of Erik's lightly used pairs before. Hooray for Spring and growing kids!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Track and Field

Krista decided to join the Track and Field team last month. There is a family from our school that has their 2 daughters on the team and Krista was so happy to learn about this opportunity! She is so thrilled to learn all of the events and just loves this sport so much--definately her cup of tea! Luckily it is in a nearby town (about 10 minutes away) and our friends have been MORE than helpful in carpooling Krista. I'm happy to see Krista learn about Track and Field. Such a fun sport for this time of year indeed!

This is Krista in her team jersey on her first Track and Field competition! She was competing in the 1000m walk. Sounds easy? No way! Those kids walked FAST! There is certain a distinct technique for speed walking. She did a wonderful job considering she learned it in a matter of minutes before the competition (placed 7th out of maybe 20 kids).

Since then she has competed in one other competition--and also did great for first attempts. The 50 m with 8.44 seconds (winner was 7.54 seconds.. an unbeatable girl from Camaroon in Africa who is MY height!) Almost all of the other times were in the 8 and 9 second range. It was Krista's first time starting on the running block so she did wonderfully. I think she placed somewhere around 8th out of 25. She also did the shotput and 1000m run. All in all she did very well for literally just jumping right in to this sport!

So far her times are as follows:

50 m sprint- 8"44 with -1.4 wind
Shotput- 5m10
1000m run- 4'23"97
1000m walk- 6'59"90

Sisters

One of my favorite recent creations :) The girls in their Easter outfits and hats by the lake. I found a cute quote to go with it. Enjoy!

Front Page Explore!

Gosh..I will do two separate posts. Today was a big day for my photos. As you all know I stopped posting publicly on Flickr when a few of my photos were "borrowed"... I can't say blatently stolen, because the individuals still left my watermark on the photo, but they used them on their personal blog sites. I was also infomed that one of my photos was available as a wallpaper download (computer background). Luckily that site was shut down. Needless to say I decided to post privately. Well yesterday I uploaded one photo (the winning photo from last month's dgrin contest) and thought it was set to "Friends and Family". I was WRONG. I logged onto Flickr later in the evening only to find dozens and dozens of comments...I had it set as a public photo. Well, I didn't remove it (and I had uploaded a minimal file---only large enough for proper web viewing and not printing) so I left it. Today I was welcomed with a message that this photo has not only gone to Explore but it has hit the FRONT PAGE of Explore! This is a big deal for me as Explore photos are hard enough to get, but FP Explore, wow what an honor! I've only had one other..."The Three Little Bears". So here is the screenshot on Flickr's Front Page today :) So far in 24 hours some 75 favorites and nearly 900 views.

Erik's 8th Birthday!

Today Erik turns EIGHT years old. HAPPY BIRTHDAY my little man! It still amazes me that he is already 8 years old! I'm so proud of my little Erik. He is such a wonderful, wonderful little boy! He behaves, he is caring, kind, obedient, smart, handsome, friendly, appreciative, thankful for his blessings, confident! I can't say enough wonderful things about him! Here are a few photos from this morning. Toomas took the morning off so we could open some presents and celebrate together. The weather is GORGEOUS, as it was 8 years ago today. How I remember that morning so well! Just like yesterday in so many ways! Tonight Toomas will bring home pizza and we will celebrate with the very special cake that I baked Erik....more photos to come! Enjoy!

Happy Easter!

Had a fun outing today with the kids..the annual American Easter party for our club of local Americans in France. This year...a big treat for the little ones.. THE REAL EASTER BUNNY was there! I got some fun shots...pretty much my ideal afternoon-the kids dressed up for photos, a full battery, my nifty fifty lens and 8 gigs of memory! :) I had a blast. Luckily the rain held off for the event, but it is raining now so we'll have to see what happens for tomorrow's hunt! Evan was in his hayday today---running freely and eating chocolate. Happy Easter!