Home Improvement & Photographing Middle-Schoolers

It's been a while since we've posted, and unfortunately I haven't taken pictures of Lincoln within the last week. Jenn and I have been very busy around the house. We hired a friend of ours to tile our kitchen, downstairs bath and laundry room, and boy does it look nice! A major improvement from the ugly linoleum with the holes in it. Jenn started pulling wall paper in our bedroom, but that was put on hold while we re-painted our TV room. If you've been to the Hopwoods, it's the same color as in Emily's kitchen. Now we're in the process of hanging window treatments (it's been almost three years, can you believe it!). And after the windows are dressed, we'll hang my Christmas presents (Washington Crossing the Delaware, TR & the U.S. Constitution). So you'll be in for a surprise the next time you visit the Gates Home.

Lincoln has been making great strides lately. He's waving "hello" and "good bye," he's napping less (bummer) but remaining happy and playful longer while he's awake (yea!), and it seems he's on the cusp of saying his first "real sounds." Jenn's been working on, "da da," with him, and so far he's been able to produce, "da." So it's a start.

The EDGE games finished this past Friday, and my contribution was to be the "official photographer" because their regular couldn't make it. It was a blast, and it allowed me to practice with a few different techniques. First of all, the room was pretty dark, even when the lights were on, and this presented a challenge. Also, because of the games (more on this below) and the talent show, there was a lot of movement to the night, and I had to stay on my toes. Thank goodness my Canon has a quick auto focus. The 50mm and the 28mm (both presents from the Parkinsons!) were perfect because of their low aperture settings. The evening concluded with the talent show, and holy cow(!), those middle-schoolers were good... lots of singing, dancing, and some comedy. I was impressed. Back to the game, it was called Chocolate Milk Machine. A relay, each kid had to run to a table, have Hershey's Chocolate Syrup squeezed into their mouths, then take a drink of milk, jump up and down three times, and then spit the "chocolate milk" into a pitcher. The first team to fill the pitcher won. It was gross.

As for my previous post, YouTube is not processing the video, so unfortunately, the pictures will have to do for now. I'll keep working on it. Lincoln is back with his Grandma Paulette for the day today so who knows what fun things he'll learn!