Baby Madeline

Our friends Jessa and Ben Smith just had their beautiful baby girl on 7/11/08. We were so excited to see her and of course I was excited to take pictures of her too. I instantly fell in love with this little girl.

Jessa's sister Jamie was also in town this weekend. We went to her open house on Saturday night and I was so bummed I forgot my camera. So unfortunately I did not get any pictures of baby Isabelle. She is also a wonderful baby that I adore. It was so fun seeing the two babies who are not more than a couple of weeks old, meet for the first time. Here are some of my favorite pictures that I took of little Maddie last night.

The iPhone 3G Cult

Yes, we joined the ever rising i-phone cult yesterday. We decided it would be best to put some of our tax stimulus check to a good cause, to boost our economy. Or something like that... Hehehe, what ever helps to justify it right?

We were told that the Apple Store had an 8 hour line just to get into the store. CRAZY!!!! We did not want to mess with that so we went to our AT&T store in Santee and they said they were sold out of i-phones after being open for 3 hours earlier that day. So we just ordered them and they should be here in 7-10 days!!!!! I can't wait. It is so pretty and full of yummy technology! I can't wait to play with it. I bought the black one and Don bought the white one. Yah, we had to be different. I thought about getting the white one so I could match my Macbook computer, but than I thought, 8 Gigs is just enough for me. I don't need 16 Gigs... Here are the specs on the phone. I have resorted to reading about it until it is in my hands!

Warrant for my arrest, or something like that...

So this morning on my way to work I am driving through Santee minding my own business & a cop starts to trail me. Just as my luck would have it, he pulls me over. I was wondering why he pulled me over since I wasn't speeding & my registration is all up to date. So I roll down my window & the cop asked "do you get pulled over a lot?" I thought that was a weird question. I haven't been pulled over by a cop in over 6 years. He proceeds to tell me that in the State of California you have to have a license plate in the front and back of the car. Which on my car I am missing the license plate in the front.

So he takes all my info and goes back to his car. He took forever and in my head I am thinking he must have pulled me over for something else. Finally he comes back & said he was letting me off with out a ticket, but the real reason he pulled me over was because someone stole a silver Jeep earlier that morning & my Jeep looked kind of silverish. Depending on the light it changes colors. So needless to say I was late to work because some jerk decided to steal a Jeep this morning. If I was a criminal I would have picked a better car to steal. They could have had mine & the outrageous gas bill that goes along with it!

Shoes, Glorious Shoes!

Here is my latest little project. It also made me realize that I want to buy more shoes to take pictures of. That can be dangerous...

4th of July Fireworks

For 4th of July Don and I went to his Mom's house in Santee. She lives next to a huge field where they shoot off the fire works. The day before 4th of July I woke up thinking "Sweet I have a high end camera now and I can take some pretty sweet shots of fireworks this year." So I spent Thursday evening researching what I needed to do to obtain the perfect firework shot. Which by the way for those of you who are interested in how to do it visit my photo workshop blog and it will explain every thing. Feel free to visit or subscribe to that blog if you guys are interested in photography. I started a photo group at church and each week I will try to post something up to further everyone's knowledge in photography and in the future I will be including tutorials for Photoshop as well. Here is the link:

http://mhornphoto.blogspot.com/

Anyways, I had a lot of difficulty at first. You have to do this all on manual mode so there is a lot of thought process that is involved with it. After I figured it all out, it was easy... of course! My brother in law Mike was so nice to accompany me while I did this. We had to walk up a steep hill in our sandals (I wouldn't recommend that.) There was brush and weeds everywhere so lucky us, our ankles and feet were eaten alive by bugs! Hey the sacrifices you make for a good shot. My husband punk'd out on me and decided to stay down on the side walk where it was safe. Thanks Don! What happened with for better or worse!?!?! :o) Hey at least Mike toughed it out with me. You rock Mike! Looking at this slide show makes me feel like I am watching the fire work show all over again! Now we just need music to add to it. I wasn't able to figure that out... oh well. You guys can listen to your own music while watching it.

Father's Day

This year my parents came to San Diego during Father's Day weekend. I was very excited because usually I don't get to see my parents on either Father's or Mother's Day very often. For my Dad's gift this year I found this old photo of us. My Mom took this photograph of us when I was about 5 years old. I was told I used to like to walk to work with my Dad when I was younger. Since we lived on base we lived pretty close to where my Dad worked at. So I decided to scan this picture into my computer and edit it through Photoshop to give it some artistic flair. It kind of makes me think of a photograph during the World War II era. My Dad said that helmet he is wearing was from World War II, so I guess some part of the picture is. Anyways, here is the end result:



We celebrated Father's Day at my sister's house and the kids and my Dad went swimming while my mom and I worked on a sewing project together. Well... let me rephrase that. My Mom worked on it while I gave her moral support! I kind of botch my way when sewing things so I left this one up to her. The shrug we were working on is for my bridesmaid dress for my brother's wedding and I wanted it to look nice, so I had her help me.

Here are a couple pictures of my Mom sewing. She is so talented! :o) Go Mom!!!





This one is a picture of my neices being silly. I think they were going for the pitiful look... They had just gotten out of the pool and I think they were cold...



The next day we went to Daddy Don's house to celebrate Father's Day. To accommodate both families we spent father's Day with my Dad on Saturday and we spent Father's day with Don's family on Sunday. In addition we celebrated Grandma Horn's birthday on Sunday as well. Here are some pictures from that day:

Here is a picture of Grandma Horn and Daddy Don eating their strawberry shortcake desert.



Here are a couple of pictures of Shadie and her Grandaughter Kylie.





This one is Daddy Don. He was caught sleeping! Actually he seems to have a large collection of pictures with him sleeping. Towards the end of the day we realized we didn't get a picture of him sleeping yet, so we posed this one. Daddy Don should get an Academy Award!



This is a picture of my brother in law Jon. He is always good for a funny picture. I was surprised I didn't get a picture of him sticking his tongue out! That is his usual trade mark. :o) "One million dollars! Muuuuuhahahaha, Muuuuuhahaha, haha..."



And last but not least, this was my latest project I was working on. I have been wanting to create a silky water effect with a waterfall for quite some time. Luckily Daddy Don has a pond with a small waterfall in his backyard so I practiced on that while we were at his house. I had to leave the shutter open for a LONG time to get this shot. I achieved the silky water effect, but I will still be working on this technique to perfect it...

Gage's Birthday

On June 1st, 2008 we went to my Father in Law's house to celebrate Gage's birthday. For those of you who don't know my husband's side of the family, Gage is my husband's step brother. Here are some pictures from that day. This first one I thought was funny because Don and his Dad are matching... how cute! I think they planned it! Hahaha...



This second picture is Aunt Shadie and her Grandaughter-who is the newest member of our family. Little baby Kylie... She is so precious!



This is a picture of Gage blowing out his candles on his birthday cake.



And this last one is a classic... Yep, hands off, that one is mine! :o)

Mandi's Birthday

So I am doing a little catch up on here. These are some pictures from my birthday back in April. This picture below cracks me up. My neice Kaylie never ceases to amaze me. She says some of the grossest, and funniest things. I am sure this is one of those moments. She definitely keeps things interesting!



Here is Kaylie and the kids being silly.





Of course, you have to include the birthday cake!



And last but not least, my brother in law Jon doing his famous tongue picture. Every time a camera comes out, a rendition of something like this happens. It always involves his tongue sticking out...