Valentines Day

I hearted Jordan. And he was really cute and brought me roses at work, and then afterwards came and got me and we went to eat dinner at LuLu's Noodles, a noodle shop in oakland...my fav. Afterwards we went swimming, which was really fun, they had this mirror on the bottom of the pool in our lane so we couls watch our selves swim over it...it was a huge mirror. And then we went dancing!!!! Overall it was a wonderful night and really really fun. I can actually say it would be my "perfect" date. Everything I like to do and with my fav person. Then this is a video of our cool crafty thing that Jordan and I created together, we actually got the shudder from construction junction...which is like a junk store, but its made an awesome picture frame.

Loni's Big Belly

So here are the pics that I have taken of being pregnant.
At about 20 wks right before christmas



Around 6 months, these were all after christmas,




Most recent at 27-28 weeks, or 7 months

Loni's Black and White Photography

I am posting pictures that I have taken for my black and white photography class, every week he assigns a subject matter and you have to expose one roll of 36 exposures, develop the negatives, make a contact sheet (which is a page that shows all of the pics on that roll) and then blow up two pictures and develop them. Its really cool cuz I have improved a ton, and its really fun to develop negatives and pics. So besides the obvious that I have learned, I have also learned how to make pictures blury on purpose as you will see, and what aperature and shutter to use to stop really fast moving objects, but mostly I have learned to pay attention to lighting and what makes a good pictures, where to center it (cuz most pictures actually look better off center) and the biggest one for me was to pay attention to other things besides the main object. As in I am finally learning to look at the background of every picture so that the whole picture is asthetically pleasing. Oh yeah so last week we had to turn in our midterm project, which was our favorite two pictures from each assignment, they were to be perfectely centered on the 8x10 sheet with no dust and proper array of whites and blacks and grays. So below are the ten that I turned in.

The first week was Edge of Frame I actally have 3 for this one, the first two are obvious but the one with jordan in the carr is actually a really good one because his head is perfectly within the frame but on the edge and the ceiling of the car frames his face perfectly and leads your eye to the stearing wheel which is also perfectly next to the next edge of the pic. I had to manually lighten his shirt for this one because it came out too dark in the negative but I made it look white.

The next assignment was depth of field, which is basically making some objects look closer to the camera by the way you take it and others look farther away, some blury and some clear.

Then there was quality of light, which was just playing with lighting, I learned the most from this assignment I think.

Then movement or exposure times, so the teacher really likes these ones and in general I do not really care for them, its supposed to be the art of showing movement in a still pictures, as you can see with the car you can imagine that something was moving, thats what the blur shows, howeverI dont care for blury people even if it is artistic. the second one was showing motion stopped, and this guy was running full speed about 2 feet from the camera so its pretty cool that I shot the pic perfectly to get him on the numbers and stopped his motion so that he is not blury.

The last one was texgture and reflection, the one is texture of the building and the clouds, I had to really darken the sky on this one so you could see the texture of the sky, and then its a reflection of myself taking a picture of myself, so it was a three way mirror, notice the camera in the relctions is perfectly next to the edge.

Anyway I love this class, its really fun, and it actually is pretty hard to get pictures to develop prefectly with perfect negatives first and then to get the lighting good in the dark room with no dust spots, i had to redo 5 of these about 2-3 times before I got them perfect, mostly becuase I was manually changing them, but alot of the time it was just stupid dust spots on the negatives that show up really bad on the pic once its done.

See my article!

I wrote an article after hearing enough crap about evolution from professors, everyone go and read it. its sciencecantkillgod.blogspot.com

Nothing in Particular

Well I don't feel like anything big has happened but it has been a whole month so I will update you on our un-interesting news. Its been snowing in pittsburgh like crazy the last couple of weeks, enough so that mutual and church have been cancelled, mutual was cancelled twice in a row. And of course it had to be cancelled right after planning an awesome scavenger hunt and challenge for my beehives to do that wednesday. So we did it that saturday instead. The challenge was: to read the book of mormon in 100 days and then to give that book of mormon (I gave each girl a missionary one) to someone at the end. Jordan is also doing it with us, along with chelsea :) And I am already so glad that we are doing it. Last sunday all of my beehives got up and bore their testimonies during YW about reading and how grateful they are to be doing it with everyone else. They havnt ever gotten up before, so thats already doing something for them. And I think it is doing a ton as far as unity in the beehive class, they all go to separate schools so we have a problem with the girls feeling "bonded". And thats not to mention how great it is for me, Jordan and I just finished reading it together but its fun to read it again by myself. As usual the lessons you learn from it are different, and it seems so much MORE applicable to today than it ever has to me before.

Oh and I finally actually LOOK pregnant. My stomach has literally doubled in size in just this last 3 weeks. My prego apppointment last month I was told that I was really small for where I was but they werent measuring my stomach yet, so I was interested to see where I would be when they did measure it. Well I apparently made up for all smallness in 3 weeks. I just went to my appointment before work today and I am 25cm. And I feel like my belly is huge. Its so weird, although my belly button hasnt popped out yet, but I can actually see the bottom of it for the first time in my life. Jordan and I are curious to see if it ever actually pops out. For those who dont know my belly button has always been really deep set, and is really sensitive and hurts if you touch it or it gets poked. Oh and I found out that Jordan had an outie his whole life until he had his hernia surgery....that made me sad, I love outies. My weight is finally normal, I have gained a total of 15 pounds in 26 weeks. I can feel the little bugger kick all the time. Especially right after I wake up, but he hasnt ever kept me awake at night and there has only been a few times where it was annoying because he was landing on my bladder. For the most part I kinda forget I am pregnant and that the thing moving inside of me is a baby! Jordan can finally feel him tho, which is fun.

Jordan started working for the orchestra band now too, so he does that every wednesday night in addition to the Jazz band. For our final writing project Jordan decided to write about epilepsy....specifically neuron channels suspected to be causing seizures in epileptic patients. I chose to write mine on Autism, mainly becuase it is the neuro disorder I know the least about. Mine is focussing on fMRI studies and conclusions about which brain regions are responsible for the disorder. Its been really fascinating to study for both of us.

We took our first biochem and neuro disorders tests and they were way EASY...which is way EXCITING. Its so nice to come out of a test and feel happy again....I havnt felt that feeling since BYUI. And its really nice to feel like we actually have learned things and know something after 2 years of torture. We both have come to the conclusion that studying Chemistry and Neuroscience straight for 2 years makes learning everything else cake. And Jordan has been on this kick lately about how rewarding science is because it actually has answers and definitives, whereas most other subjects are all subjective and relative to the situation and dont provide solid conclusions. Which I agree is pretty much the case. Despite that, he is loving his econ class because he gets to learn all about the economy right now and hear what others have to say about it, I always get a great energetic report of the state of our economy....or how brainless/inexperienced other students seem to be in his class...either one is really interesting to listen too. Whereas he gets a report about my photography class and how cool pictures are. The only thing he doesnt like, and is not cooperative at all with is letting me take pictures of him! I have to take 2 rolls every week and I always have to fight him to let me take pictures of him. I think he secretly likes having pictures of himself. Alhtough its great revenge for having my face posted everywhere in our house. Our fridge is covered in pictures of me, I am on the window seel above the table, I am above the sink, I am on the coffee table and in our bedroom! Every time I put up a picture (really good ones too) of us at cool places, he replaces them with one of just me. But since I have to be taking the pictures for my class, he is forced to not have any pictures of me.....HAHAHA.

I got to complete the process of developing negatives and doing a contact sheet and then a test sheet and then printing an 8x10 of one of my negatives. They came out really good. I love black and white photography...although I am rather confused on which I like better, negatives vs. digital. Negatives are way more fun, but digital is way more practical. Who wants to pay to have them all printed off anyway? you only develop the few you want on your wall. AND I just got a super sweet movie/pic program that makes DVD's or anything else you want of all of our pictures and home movies. Its way fun to play with, I prefer it over doing the traditional scrap booking cuz I can get way more pictures out on a slide show, and I can still make comments and I can watch the movies intermingled with the pics. And yet having your own dark room would be really fun. but it wouldnt really save any money...but I guess thats all hobbies are when you boil them down....money sucking fun activities. So perhaps when we are rich and can throw money away and I am super bored (wow...the likely hood of having all those things at once is very low)....and dont have little kids to ruin things I will have my own dark room. They are very easy to have.

We have decided that we are going to totally dec out our upstairs room (if we stay here that is) in a tropical ocean theme. My mom just sent me fabric too that I think is really cute for the crib bedding and stuff. We are going to paint half way up the wall with a cool teel blue color with cute ocean curls at the top and paint killer whales and fish all over the room. I am going to make matching curtains and bedding and my mom is going to make an ocean baby blanket and then last an ocean wall paper border near the top of the wall. I think it will be way cool...And i will probably be jealous of our baby for having a cooler room than mine! :) Below is a pic of how it will be painted with the wall paper at the top, and then a pic of the wall paper, it might not be that exact one but one similar to it.

Well besides that there are only the unkown things....that are driving me bonkers...to dwell upon. We STILL dont know about Jordan getting into school, and are unsure about plan B, that one is always changing. We still dont know what our baby is, or what girl names we both agree on. We dont know when ethan is leaving on his mission, so we dont know what our schedule this summer is, even tho we keep trying to plan things for it but cant set any dates for anything because they all depend on when the baby actually comes and when ethan really leaves and what job we have or where we will be living. I HATE unknowns!