New Lens for Christmas!

Dave got me a new lens for low light pictures and let me have it early!  I'm SO excited and have been playing with it a little bit.

We had Owen's birthday party this weekend because so many office parties are scheduled for the rest of the month.  We ended up with 9 kiddos over a year old and 5 under...it was a bit much, we thought we were toning it down this year because we bought him an ipod.  I'm not sure we accomplished what we set out to do, but, I could not be happier it is done and over! ;O)  There was so much chaos, these are the only pics I got of the whole party.  My uncle took a few others thankfully!

This one makes him look so much older I think.  It's so hard to watch him grow up!  He had a lot of fun though and enjoyed spending time with all of our family.

Then there's this one! ;O)  Talk about growing up!  So, they say a picture says a thousand words...do you get anything out of this one?  Hehe, poor Max!  Both he and Daisy have been really good with Olivia, even more so than with Owen.  She's usually pretty gentle, but, every once in a while she get a hold of a chunk of fur and really pull.

 We've been trying to get her to crawl to no avail.  Here her dad has propped her up in the starting position...and just a few seconds later...

She has slid her legs out behind her and is on her belly shocked that nobody is racing to grab her up and give her the toy she wanted that is just out of reach.  Check out that hair!  I don't know what I did to her the night before after her bath, but, her hair stuck up like that all day long!  By the way, she was in a cute outfit earlier that day, but, poured water all down the front of her, so, we put some comfy clothes on to tide her over until bath time...thats why the mis-match! ;O)

With the new lens, it is MUCH easier to get the effect I wanted with the lights.  Now the only problem is getting my unwilling "subjects" to hold still long enough for me to get them in focus!  Here's a couple test attempts...I think I'm going to end up super imposing the kids in front of the tree, its just nearly impossible otherwise! 

I tried snowflakes with Owen, the lights themselves should have been in better focus too.  I have some practicing to do!