NEW YEAR BLOG SWAP by Simply Stavish

Today Mindi from Simply Stavish and I are swapping our blog posts and sharing with our New Year Resolutions.
We are both participating in the New Year Blog Swap hosted by A Grande Life and got matched up out of 26 bloggers to swap blog posts. 

With a new year, comes the desire to want to try new things and meet new people. I am excited to be participating in the New Year Blog Swap hosted by the lovely Steph of A Grande Life. 

One of the ideas behind the New Year Blog Swap is to get to know a blogger who is new to you. I immediately was drawn to Lusine's blog posts, particularly all the wonderful teaching printables. I'm a sucker for printables that I can use with my own children or my patients during speech therapy. 
 One of my many goals for 2013 is to improve my photography skills. Last year I set out to learn how to finally shoot in manual mode. After taking a four week class in February, I slowly improved my skills. I love shooting in manual mode, but have so much more to learn. Since the goal of "improve my photography skills" is so broad it's time to narrow down what I want to learn.

 1. Set my white balance before shooting- I purchased a gray card last spring and have yet to actually use it. I have watched several videos on how to set the white balance, but haven't taken the time to pick up my camera and do it! Instead, I spend countless minutes fixing the white balance with every single photo. I really could be saving myself a step in editing if I just learn.

 2. Take more photos of myself with the boys- I bought a new tripod last summer to take photos of a gorgeous sunflower field. I didn't even use it for the shoot, but have pulled it out a handful of times since. This year I want to learn how to take better photos of the boys and I together, using my tripod. This time with them is precious and we need more family photos together. Sadly we didn't even get one family photo of us during Christmas.

 3. Find a great location for sunset photos and learn how to take amazing sunset shots. 

 4. Complete Project 365, posting all my photos for the week to my blog. I am finding winter to be such a hard time to be inspired to take photos. The light in my house is not great and there isn't a whole lot of scenery around here in the winter. At least if it snowed a few times I could get some fun photos of the boys in the snow. Not to mention some great shots of the sights of DC covered with snow. Sigh...a girl can dream, right?

 I think those are more than enough photography skills for the new year. They should keep me plenty busy! Since I feel that a blog post isn't complete without at least one photo, here are a few of my boys over the past weekend. Xander, my oldest, will be four in just a month. It's hard to believe how fast time goes!
  Noah, my youngest, will be two in April. He has started using full sentences lately and it just makes me smile.  

Thanks for letting me crash your blog Lusine. It's great to mingle with other bloggers and I loved all of your new year blogging resolutions.