This last one reminded me of an episode of Seinfeld you might be familiar with.

Booty Shakin' Baby

Easter Egg Making Competition Results

So here are the final entries and winners of the 2008 Hopkins Family Easter Egg Competition.
From top to bottom: Honorable Mention: Natasha's first entry
Honorable Mention: Steven's first entry
Honorable Mention: Steven's second entry
Honorable Mention: Cassandra's first Entry
Honorable Mention: Darvil's only entry
Unfortunately we didn't have any winners.

Dave Hill Look

So I've been learning a little about Photoshop. I spend quite a bit of time learning stuff (probably too much). I found this tutorial here and followed it to get this picture. It is supposed to match Dave Hill's look. I did a few things different. So it's not quite the same.

Bath Time

Here he is in the bath tub.

Body Parts and Passions

I figured that there were a few of you that wanted an extreme close-up view of Elliot. So I took some pictures. This first one is his right eye. It is really close to the actual color of his eyes. For the first month his eyes kept switching back and forth from brown to blue to green to gray. They are blue just like we figured they always would. Natasha was hoping for brown eyes. But, he has the same color as me.

The next picture is his head. He has my hairline and his hair is kind of red, though it doesn't really look like it in this picture.

This is his freaky not-outty-not-inny belly button. The umbilical cord healed quickly and fell off really fast. It was gone in four days after hanging on by a thread for a day. So now he has this thing. I hope it looks different when he grows up. Or not, I guess it can just be a quirk. He definitely did not inherit it from me.

This last one is a compare and contrast. A lot of people make a big deal about how much he looks like me. I don't know. I'll let you decide for yourself.

Another Photo Shoot

I figured if I put these three pictures up I would have to write enough so that I didn't have more pictures than words. So here goes.
Things are going great with us. Elliot's body is healthy, especially the lung area. We know this because starting around 11 o'clock and ending around 3:30 or so he displays exactly how well they work, usually about every 45 minutes or just when we fall asleep, whichever comes first. They should tell you how much babies cry. All I have to say is thank heaven for wrinkly foreheads because if he didn't look at me after a huge wail with something cute, I don't think I could handle it.
Anyway, we are doing well. This semester has been the hardest and busiest. I am definitely getting the worst grades I ever have. This is my third semester in a row, and I am getting burnt out a little. We still haven't heard back from the grad school in Oklahoma I applied to. Our future is still up in the air. These are hard times, but as you can see, we still take the time to enjoy a sunset and take some pictures.
Natasha stays home all day. I feel sorry for her, especially on the occasional pretty day we have here in Rexburg. I wish there were things you could do outside in the cold with a baby. But unfortunately cold air makes babies cold and that is a bad thing (or so Natasha has told me). We go to Idaho Falls and walk around the mall and target, but it costs $8 in gas to get there and back.
So we spend a lot of time watching DVDs of Alias and singing songs and making faces at the baby.
All in all, we are just moseying along in life. I try everyday to take better pictures and Natasha tries everyday to not get cabin fever. Sometimes these two things coincide like in these pictures.
I don't really know how to end a blog, so see you later.

First Photo Shoot

I bought/made a flash sync cable for my birthday and this is my first attempt at taking off-camera flash pictures. it was a lot of fun. The temperature was about 36% and Natasha did so great standing out in the snow while I figured it all out. Elliot was warm in his two-inch thick pram bag outfit, so he didn't mind. I have gotten really into photography ever since I've been the assistant photo manager for the scroll. They've got nice cameras for me to use whenever I want. I've got a semester left of school and we don't know what is going to happen. We are waiting to hear back from Oklahoma State University for Grad school. If I don't get in, I think I want to get a job as a photojournalist. Anyway, that was a quick update.