america's next top photographer?

I have two really good excuses for not-blogging this week. Well, actually three.

1) Christmas decorations.
2) New phone.
3) New camera.

Can you blame me?

 I feel like the whole world was in on some Christmas-decorating conspiracy this year. I am all ABOUT some Christmas decorating. And I usually do it the week or weekend after Thanksgiving-- what I consider to be a totally normal, regular time to decorate. But what's with all the people this year who decided the be totally "Christmas-ed" by like...Thanksgiving afternoon? Therefore making me, who didn't have the first lick of Christmas up by the Sunday after T-day, look like a total slacker Grinch? Seriously, people. It wasn't even December yet! 


With all that peer pressure, I made sure I started decorating ASAP on Monday after work. No gym for me, I have decorating to do!! But then what happened was I got home and MY CAMERA ARRIVED...so I had to spend lots of time getting THAT ball rolling first. But then it took an eternity for the battery to charge, so in my spare time I actually decorated. Which would prove to be a good choice later, when it meant that I actually had something to take a picture of.


Are you ready to see my FIRST PICTURE EVER on the new camera?? Can you handle the excitement?? Here we go!!

Awww...isn't Mattie so cute?? Don't worry, I didn't get to see that smiley face for long. Apparently he got tired of being my model pretty quickly. So did Lola, who mainly seemed interested in eating the camera slash was scared to death of it when it made its loud clicking noise.

Good thing I'd put the nativity up already. Here's one of my first attempts at doing that (sorry for the technical terms here, non-fellow-professional-photographers...) thing where you make one thing focused and the other things blurry!!

So the rest of the week was pretty much a repeat of Monday. Play with camera. Decorate. Take pictures of whatever you decorated. Or take pictures of the person doing the decorating. (Alternate schedule: take picture with PHONE camera (oooh, different and exciting!), post to Facebook and/or Twitter so that other people can share in the moment with you)

Matt practiced with the camera too, capturing such exciting life moments as this:

And I also practiced the delicate art of Taking Pictures Of Yourself in a Mirror. This will be an important skill to have one day if and when I ever a) start dressing fashionably and want to show off, or b) get pregnant and need to document the bump daily occasionally. 

Look, more "artsy" pictures of Christmas decorations!

Wednesday was great because it finally quit raining so we could get a tree! Which was great because it gave us a whole new thing to take pictures of!

I know...you are SO GLAD you're seeing the boring details of our life documented. You are so lucky you read my blog!! I promise I won't over-share ALL my now-crappy-but-hopefully-getting-better pictures in the future...this was just our Honeymoon period with the Camera, so I'm sure you understand. Oh and also we decorated for Christmas...so that's at least semi-noteworthy.

Saturday (yesterday? Was it really yesterday? Seems so long ago.) was a super productive day. Too productive to write out in detail, but trust me: if you knew how productive we were (like Mollyanne, unfortunately for her, does...since I bored her with every single detail this morning) you would be jealous slash amazed. In the midst of our productiveness, we managed to cook a fantastic meal...which gave me a chance to be a FOOD PHOTOGRAPHER.

Nom nom nom. I miss you, food. You were so good. Better than my picture of you.

OK well...this has been one of my more pointless blogs. I just wanted to prove that I'm still alive and kicking and have actually been doing something...even if that "something" is actually just "nothing, only I'm taking pictures of it." I am having loads of fun decorating this year, since I am Way Craftier than ever before, which means I have more decorations and more creativity about how to display them. 

And also, since I managed to go drop another $20 at Michael's today...that means I need to go because CRAFTS AWAIT! And I have yet to document a good craft with the New Camera, so...now you can look forward to the future, too. 

Goodnight!! And happy ONE WEEK UNTIL MY BIRTHDAY, also, just in case you needed a subtle reminder.

PS. Relevant Christmas Card 2011 Stats:
-# of Christmas Cards Received to date: 4. 
-# of Cards sent by fellow bloggers: 4. (in order of receipt: Amanda J., Allison, Jessie, Amanda M.) 
-Black&White to Color Photograph ratio: 2:2
-Gold Star Award: Amanda M. for hand-writing a personal note on the back.


Stay tuned for the rest of this season's exciting Christmas Card Stats!