Uptown (Mary Poppins)

Miles, Noah and I went to see Mary Poppins today Uptown.  It was an incredible performance.  Loved all the music, loved seeing Mary Poppins fly through the theatre, loved sharing it all with the boys.  They did great for such a long performance (the 1st half in itself was almost 90 minutes!).  Looking forward to many more musical theatre outings (hopefully they are too :).

After the event we walked around Uptown, had dinner at Brixx (Mike and Griffin drove in to meet us), then I took the boys part of the way home on the lighrail and Mike drove to pick us up.

When we left the Belk theatre, an impromptu band starting playing some Jackson 5 music.
 

(check out the little guy on the end! he was not a day older than five.)

We walked around and tried to get a snack at Reid's grocery store. It was gone! We snapped some pics in front of their empty store windows instead.




The boys worked out their energy and just ran up and down the sidewalk.


Miles wasn't really in a picture mood.  I teased him that he was more in a "high five" mood since he kept putting his hand in front of the camera.




Noah was feeling smiley (I know - too many of these -- but I have about 20, so I am paring them down.)





I wish Charlotte had some abandoned train tracks that we could photograph. Do we?

The kids were ridiculously excited to ride the light rail. They practically slept with their tickets tonight.



Check out Miles' face. Who knows what freaked him out (I really didn't want to call attention to whatever he was wary of, so I didn't look over.)

At every stop they would say, "is this our stop?!"...."this isn't out stop!"....Noah asked if next time we could take the train on a "long trip." Love that their childhood includes access to a lightrail on a normal Sunday afternoon (though hard to imagine ever feeling comfortable letting them ride it alone when they are older!)

Soccer

Noah and Griffin started a soccer clinic for 3-5 year olds at the Y on Saturday. The 3 and 5 year olds are technically in different groups, but since I was there solo (Mike was doing a triathlon) Griffin rolled with the (mostly) 5 year olds so we could all be together.  (I forgot my camera at home, so thanks, Kate for loaning me yours so I could get a few pic!!)


Things started out touch and go, but the session ended great.
1) The coach started the group out with some stretching exercises. During this time, Miles, Noah and Griffin were all attached to me like velcro. Zero stretching from the Brown boys.
2) The coach encouraged the kids to play a red light-green light game (yellow, slow dribbling; green, fast dribbling; red, stop). Somehow, Noah got up the courage to play and when the coach transitioned from green light to red light Noah didn't stop right away (he was too busy laughing and kicking). The coach said, "hey, buddy! stop!" Poor Noah was so embarrassed that he burst into tears.
3) Noah begged to stop. He said he didn't like playing and was all done. This mama was determined for him to see it threw and told him to "be brave" and assured him that we weren't going anywhere. He got back into the clinic (at this point it was a new game) and enjoyed the rest of hour. Griffin followed his big brother and warmed up to it too.

They played a super hero game where the kids would dribble until they heard "super man!" at which point they would turn around with their ball and dribble in the other direction.

The kids also practiced trapping and kicking with their parents. Their favorite game was where they were asked to dribble and "score points" by kicking the ball against their coaches feet. Huge hit.

Here they are waiting in line to take shots on goal. Their coach taught they to "dribble - little kicks and shoot - BIG kick." Seriously, so cute.


Miles starts an after school soccer clinic tomorrow, taught by a professional soccer player (from the Charlotte Eagles). I'll have to try to sneak over to his school one Monday with a super zoom lens on my camera. :)

Friday Night

I bought a new (used) 85mm lens and I have two weeks to decide if I like it. While we played outside after dinner, I snapped a few pictures. After using either a 50mm lens (5% of the time) or a 17-55mm lens (95% of the time), its really bizarre to have an 85mm lens on the camera (which is more like a 125mm+ lens on my cropped camera). I have to be REALLY far back to get more than someone's face (or ear!) in my frame.

Its a huge change to get a shot like this and have my camera not be practically touching the person's face.



And these, seriously, I was so far away!




And this one cracks me. The capture of Noah's expression is emotionally perfect to me. And, yes, Miles is in his pjs. He stayed home sick from school and by 6:30pm he had still not changed, but felt well enough to go outside and get some vitamin D.


I do like the look of the pictures, especially for my first time using the lens, but its hard to tell if its a huge difference from the 50mm (other than I need to be farther away). Anyone else have both? Like one over the other?  (I'll definitely have it for another week, so if you have a Nikon and have been wondering whether or not to try one out, you can try mine. :)

Apple Picking

We closed out the Labor Day weekend in Flat Rock, North Carolina for some old fashion apple picking. It was a fun day spent as a family with some sweet friends. It was a perfect way to wrap up summer.




The kids were cute, carrying their own baskets.





They picked apples, sometimes sampled the apples, and picked some more. Noah was pretty hot that day. He wiped his brow a bunch.





We went with our neighbors and friends, the Reece's. Griffin loves his buddy Jack.


And we love Allison & Thad

Allison & Miles won the day's award for getting right up in the tree to grab the best apples.
(Miles was SO into finding the best apples. He loved it.)


The kids loved all the extra play stuff too.





(and of course we had to try the apple donuts while we were there either :)

After Church

The boys spend so much time in ratty t-shirts and gym shorts that I called an impromptu photo shoot after church today (golf shirts and khaki shorts define serious dress-up attire in the Brown house).

I love this picture, because it is a perfect snapshot of the reaction I received when announcing that the boys couldn't change out of their church clothes right away. If you know these boys well, you've seen this spectrum of faces before. (Miles was highly irritated. Noah tried to show allegiance to Miles, but you can see a smile bubbling in his eyes. Griffin is happy, going with the flow.)

(One click in: Miles, still irritated. Noah giving in to his smile. Griffin, still happy.)

(Two clicks in: Miles is giving in. Noah is getting silly. Griffin is getting the tickles.)

(Three clicks in: Miles is on board and starts seriously posing :)


We had a little sidewalk added in the backyard last week and we all put our hand prints in the concrete. I was worried that they would fade as as the concrete dried, but you can still see them.

Sweet Noah. He ended up being the most into the camera today.



I pulled out a blanket, since somehow our grass turned into straw this week.




(and as we neared the end of our 5-minutes of snapshots, you can see the original emotions returning...)

(even griffin was longing to take off his shoes and have a snack. miles closed his eyes in silent protest...haha)

so we let the boys run inside, and got a quick shot of me, mike and bodie. and yes, by the time we got inside, the t-shirts and gym shorts had returned. :)