Aperture 1.4 {focused blur}

busy, busy!

To say that my life is a whirl wind of activity lately would be a serious understatement. It's been so busy, but a good kind of busy.  I kept putting off writing here because wanted to write about everything that has happened and that list became so big I knew I couldn't write it quickly.  Now I think I'm just going to have to give a quick update or people might think I've left the blogging world.   So here is a modified update of the last week or two.

  1.Last weekend was the stationary so and there were so many, many cool things to see.  I will post a few things I loved later.

  2. So, so many projects and deadlines my head is spinning so much time was devoted to that!  It's October in my publishing mind and focusing on Halloween these past few weeks was a bit odd but very fun!

  3.  Umbrella #3 in the series. These people came to stay with us for a week!

I'm not sure if I like the color or the sepia...still deciding on that one.  I guess I'll wait and see how the rest of the photo's go.  ( if you didn't read about this before, I am taking a picture of everyone who visits with an umbrella somewhere in NYC and then I'm going to fill a wall with them)

This is my sister Stephanie, her husband Larry and their baby Creed!  If you can't tell he is the sweet baby from below.  We did so many things with them! And it was really fun to have them visit.

4. One of the things we did was shop!  Larry watched the boys so Steph and I could head out.  One of my favorite stores here in Brooklyn is City Foundry.  They have a ton of cool letters off of old buildings but they are all really old and super out of my price range.  However this week they had some foam core letters made to look like metal that came from Broadway and were priced just right!  How cool is that?  A big letter S from an old Broadway set!  Perfect for our family right now!  Here is a picture of the shop I borrowed from my sister blog.

  5. This weekend was the Brooklyn Bridges 125 Birthday!  So to celebrate they had a bunch of activities in the park next to it.  One of them was an outdoor showing of Enchanted.  Here are a few pictures so you can see how cool it was!

Lying on an old flannel blanket with Grant and Cole cuddled up in between Mark and I as we held hands, with the Brooklyn Bridge all lit up( it changed colors to match the movie) a musical playing on a big screen and the Manhattan skyline in the background.  Could anything be more romantic or lovely or magical? Not to me.  It was an amazing family moment that I know I'll remember forever.  I guess it doesn't take much to make me happy if a free movie does it!

Well, that's about it for now!  I have to run and get back to work!  Hope everyone had a great weekend!

CK Contest

I just wanted to write a quick little post to let you all know that Creating Keepsakes is giving away a Nikon D60.  I'm may not be a Nikon user myself but it's a great camera and would be a fun thing to win! It's a package worth about 750 dollars and all you have to do is go here to sign up.

http://www.creatingkeepsakes.com/contests/contest.ihtml?contest_id=351

  The contest runs until July 15th and you can only enter once so tell all your friends!

More photos

I've been behind on editing photos for a while and I came across these in my attempt to catch up.  These are of my sister and my nephew Creed.

I love this one of the two of them.

Stephanie had a great idea for this picture and I love how the shot turned out. His shadow is perfect!

I'm not sure how I feel about these two. he looks adorable,don't get me wrong, I was just trying some new processing.  I wanted them to have a vintage feel similar to some photo's that we have of my Dad as a baby.  I think I achieved that I'm just not sure that I like it.  What do you think?

Last one, Creed in his very fun and bright nursery my sister designed.

Hope you like them Steph!

Is that a real Picasso?

So, the Stringham family had a very excellent weekend!  We spent Saturday at the Tribeca Film Festival.  They have a family street fair every year and we though it would be fun to check it out.

  The boys got to play lot's of games and win prizes like NY knicks tee-shirts and posters of the Giants team. They watched magic shows:

Cole LOVED the magic show.  He was clapping and laughing.  It was so fun to watch.

  They also had their faces painted. I wasn't sure how Cole would like it because they did it with air brushes but he insisted and he was did a great job sitting still, even the artist commented on how great the boys were.

The results were Fabulous!

Here they are all standing in the street and Cole hamming it up!

The food was also great.  The boys chose pizza as always but the rest of us went for Indian food!

  Wait, are you wondering who the extra person is in this photo? Meet Matt. One of my very dearest friends. I don't think that I have ever even talked about him here.  I met him on the third day of school in Drama class my senior year of High school he asked if I wanted to be his scene partner for a Shakespeare assignment and I was so grateful.  We moved to Utah the day before my senior year started from Hawaii. I was a total fish out of water in that high school. It was so different from school in Hawaii and I really didn't know anyone.

  We preformed Othello, and have been best friends ever since.  Even in college we worked together at a Mexican restaurant as servers for two years.  Good times people, seriously good times. I spent all of my waking hours outside of studying and working with Matt and our other best friend Jerusha ( yes that was her name, people were always asking her if she was joking when she told them it). And we caused much chaos and had many adventures.  He was my model for like half of my photo assignments in school. He was a great partner in crime.

  And lucky for me he lives in New York!  As he has for the last several years with his boyfriend Andy.  Isn't he fabulous looking?  I have to say he turned out much cooler than I could ever be.  And that's okay, because it's fun to have someone randomly call you and say, " Hey what are you doing right now, we are having a party with the models from Australia's Next Top Model. Wanna come over?"  Ummm, I was in my pajama's at home so I turned that one down.  But still it's fun to know someone who is doing crazy things like that!

  His boyfriend Andy designs the sound for Michael Feinstein's shows. ( He's a famous Jazz musician) and so Matt housesit's whenever they are all gone on tour for Michael.  He took us to the townhouse so that the boys could play with the cats.  It was the most beautiful home I have ever seen and as we walked in Matt casually throws in..."Oh yeah, I don't think children have ever been in this house so...."  Nice.  We didn't stay long but the cats did love the boys and the feeling was mutual.

You could seriously have a photoshoot in every room it was beautiful but I felt strange being there so the only other picture I took was of this:

Yeah it's a picture of one of the bathrooms.Why, you ask? Because those are Picasso's.  As in actual Picasso's not copies. Hanging over the toilet. What else can I say about that. lol.

After that we decided to head on our merry way home.  We had such a fun family day and it was great to see Matt again!

So last year I did a Spring Music mix post

And someone asked for a new one this year, it was fun to go through some of my new favorite songs and find the upbeat springy ones so here it is:

My 1st NYC in spring mix:

Love is Free  Sheryl Crow

Stupid for You  Marie Digby

Umbrella  Marie Digby

I'm in Love  Janet Seidel

SO-So  Brooke Waggoner

From My Heart to yours Laura Izibor

Sweeter than this  Katie Herzig ( my new theme song and repeat fav.  I love her voice and this song)

Back in Your Head (Live) Tegan and Sarah

Hideaway  The Weepies

Overboard Ingrid Michaelson ( no mix could be complete without one of her songs!)

Foolsgold Katie Herzig

I listened to this all day yesterday while walking around Manhattan and it was lovely, both Manhattan and the music were perfect.  Hope you like it!

  Also Stacy I just wanted to say thank you for all the tips you have been leaving me.  I don't have your email address but I wanted you to know that they are very encouraging!

  And Aude, email me!  I'd love to meet up for french pastries!