What do I love lately?

I was going to do a "Lately" type of a post and figured I would do that but combine it with some recent photos that never made it into my blog because there seems to be too much to blog about and not enough time!!

So Here's what I love lately -

 I love that Julianna loves the aquarium fish - she could watch them for hours on end. (So can mommy!) 

My husband and I babysat this little cutie a few weekends ago while his aunt got married! He was so much fun and such a good boy. He would make a good friend for Julianna, too bad he lives 3 hours away! 

This is J's beloved giraffe. I am loving this giraffe simply because of how much it calms Julianna down and how much love she has for this little thing. It's always with her when we are home and he makes the occasional trek out to the store as well. 

I love watching Julianna play with other children. When we babysat little Jack, she wasn't too eager to share her toys and only let him play with some - but I am loving that she is getting the hang on sharing -sometimes- haha! 

I am loving that Brian and I decided to buy a pontoon boat for next boating season. We took a boat out for a test ride on labor day weekend and fell in love. We have been living by our lake for 8 years and have always talked about getting a boat but it was never the right time. Now is the right time. So this winter, we will be looking at our options and probably ordering a new boat for springtime. Yay! 

This is a area called Byram Bay on the lake- everyone goes here and drops anchor to hang out. On a hot weekend day, you can walk from boat to boat practically because it gets so crowded! 

Brian looks good as the captain - Lovin it! 

I don't know if I could deal with a sailboat. Too much tipping and uncertainty for me. Looks like fun though! 

And who doesn't love this house? It's my favorite house on the lake. It's an old castle. There are many large homes on this lake with tons of history - but this is my favorite- Lovin it!! Can you imagine sitting on that porch overlooking the lake sipping a glass of wine? Now that's living. 

Loving this little seagull sitting on the buoy

I am loving how much my little girl loves her daddy! 

I am loving this shot of Julianna. A lot of you said you liked this one... 

Here's what I did to get this effect. I have been practicing panning because I saw a similar shot like this over at "Click it up a notch" and I had to try it out.

I set my ISO to 800 (kind of indoors).  My 18-200 lens was pulled to 18mm (that kind of gives it that wide angle look a little)- My shutter speed was 1/15 ... Fstop was F16 to get as much detail as possible. I took a shot every time she came around - and moved with her (swinging my upper body with camera from left to right as she went by, if that makes sense) as she came around and tried like heck to focus on her face. I took about 15 shots and maybe 3 were decent, although they are not too sharp, it's still a fun picture!!