Day 217

It looks like a kinda rough day around Scrivnerburg…Kristi looks exhausted…

…and Caleb is unglued about a tiny scratch on his finger…

(btw, I used off-camera flash for these – first time in weeks! bare flash, 1/16 power) 

Day 216

Felice hosted a Slip-n-Slide afternoon! Whoohoo! My big boys were off working with Dad, but Kristi, Nathan, and Caleb got to go romping in the water with Felice and her girls. What fun!

(Nathan)

(Caleb)

(Rose)

(Felice!)

Day 215

Kind of an odd photo today, but it’s my new favorite. The post-processing was done with Picnik again.

Day 214

I only took 4 photos today, and 3 were out of focus. Not a banner photo day. I just realized that it’s been several weeks since I tried any off-camera flash stuff too. Hmmm… I need to get re-motivated!

Well, anyway, here’s my photo for today. The grain and the yellow tint are part from effects I used at Picnik.com.

Day 213

I decided I was sick of my desk.

Here’s the before:

Here’s the after (still some work to do, but I ran out of time):

Day 212

Sandra suggested that I get out and shoot more flowers, so I went out flower hunting in my yard…

Aren’t my flowers lovely? :-)

I did find these…

and I also discovered that some peonies survived the attack of the killer testosterone a couple years ago. (My boys destroyed every single peony plant in my yard. The flowers were just starting to open up. I was heartbroken.) They’re stunted and delayed, but they’re there!

Here are a couple Caleb shots just because I could…

(Oh, and for the 365’ers, it seems as if Eric’s internet is still down. I heard from him briefly yesterday, and he still didn’t have internet access.)

Day 211

We went for a walk today. We saw a lot of pretty flowers along the way…

(This huge tree full of blossoms was amazing!)

We also saw a lot of flags out today – demonstrating appreciation for those who gave their lives for our freedom…

After we got home this little guy ran himself into our dining room window and knocked himself silly! He’s still out there trying to collect himself, I think. I don’t understand how he could run into that window – it has more dirt and hand smudges than glass!

Day 210

These photos are unedited except to put them in this slideshow. This was as fast as I could get Windows Movie Maker to run them. Ergh. Oh well…Caleb and the other kids all had fun in the “Rainy Day River.”

Day 209

(This is a very long post for my 365 because I just used the same one I posted on my family blog.) It has been busy, busy, busy around Scrivnerburg today!

The day started with Andrew concocting a new recipe…would you like some Fried Honey Dinosaurs?

Dale came up with an invention today – not a new thing for him, but I thought this one was pretty clever. One of these days he will be able to make some money off his inventions! This particular one is a new way to fill a water balloon…
 
The first photo is just to show what the contraption is (water bottle with a water balloon nozzle attached). The second shot shows him successfully filling the balloon without getting everything wet. Please also note the lovely grass behind him. Isn’t that wonderful!?!?

Tomorrow is Fancy’s 16th birthday, so we’re celebrating it today. Ken and I sent Fancy and three of her friends on a treasure hunt around town that ended at Fiesta En Jalisco for dinner. It took us a lot longer to prepare the excursion than it took them to finish it!

After dinner, Fancy and her friends came back to the house to celebrate with the rest of the family and extended family.

Here are most of the grownups who attended (I was busy taking the photo)…
 

Fancy opened her gifts…

(This necklace was a gift from Grandma – she had received it for her 16th birthday.)

(Fancy loves art, so this was a great gift for her.)

And then she and her friends went down to the basement (dark, dark basement – sorry for the grainy photos) to watch movies.

But it wasn’t all fun and games in Scrivnerburg today. Caleb had a crash-and-burn on the sidewalk today, and scraped his knee up pretty badly. It has been a terrible trauma for him.

This injury didn’t occur today (it actually happened 2 days ago), but I finally got a shot that really shows Austin’s poor eye. He and a friend collided on the playground, and it looks like Austin got the wrong end of the collision.

(I’m amused as I look at these last two photos – Caleb and Austin look like blood brothers, but they’re not. God knew what he was doing when He put this family together!)

So there you have it. A very busy day in Scrivnerburg!

Day 208

I had a trio of Hollywood-worthy starlets in my yard today!

 

And a trio of tough guys…
 

Here’s a closer shot of Austin’s shiner. He and a friend collided at school. For some reason I couldn’t get a better shot of it – it’s much more impressive in person. How does one get a good shot of a black eye?

Day 207

I am a bit disgusted with myself this evening. I had a very short period of time to try to get a few photos of Mom and her two great friends. I guess my brain was in a rush, because I missed so many important details when shooting. I hate that! I wish I had just slowed myself down, thought things through, and been careful to get the shots I really wanted. Oh well…another lesson learned, right?

I really don’t have any good shots to share, but I laugh at this one because they were all enjoying the goofball antics of my two youngest boys. My boys were taking their job as smile-creators very seriously, and being total goofballs for the enjoyment of the portrait-sitters. My camera was on my subjects, so I didn’t get the boys rolling in the grass, making funny faces, jumping out from behind the reflector, etc. But here are some sincere smiles…

Day 206

I got a few photos of Rose recently, so I thought I’d better take the opportunity for a quick shot of two of Virginia. In case you’re new to my blog, Virginia and Rose are twins that live right around the corner. Her mom curled her hair – I think it’s so cute! (Rose’s was curled too, but I didn’t get pictures of her. Sorry.)

Day 205

Just a couple snaps again today…

Goofball Crunch

Do you suppose he’s preparing the soil for flowers?

Yesterday Kristi and Caleb told me they’d been picking strawberries in the backyard. Knowing that we didn’t have strawberry plants back there, I immediately said, “Don’t eat them!” and then asked them to show me the strawberries…

Whew. I don’t think they’d hurt them if they ate these, but I can’t imagine that baby pine cones taste very good anyway. I hadn’t ever seen these so brand new – and they do look like strawberries! 

Day 204

My poor little man is sick. Not desperately ill or anything, but not feeling good. When I took this shot he’d been asleep for 2.5 hours – this is the boy who hasn’t taken a regular nap in over a year. We spent a good portion of today cuddling and laying around together. When he feels like laying down he comes to me, tips his head to the side (he knows my buttons!) and says, “Will you lay down wit’ me?” What’s a mom to do?!?

Day 203

We had a couple baptisms at church today. One was Miss Virginia, who has shown up on this blog on several occasions…

What an exciting day for Virginia!

Caleb insisted that I take some pictures of my hanging flower basket today. I love the flowers in this basket!

Day 202

I took some photos today! I haven’t done much with my camera lately, but I did get outside a bit today. Here are a few random shots…

We truly do have grass growing in our front yard! Whoohoo!

“Go to the ant, thou sluggard” – or run from it, in Caleb’s case. 

Caleb thought Daddy’s bare foot was very funny.

Day 201

Here’s a photo for today. When we were at the park Caleb was having a grand time with the bubbles. I snapped just a fraction of a second too late to catch the little lady’s eyes actually being on Caleb. Oh well…

Day 200

Day 200 is actually coming on day 201 because my DSL was down yesterday and this morning. This shot not taken yesterday either…it was today. I never had a chance to pick up the camera yesterday.

So here’s one from the park today – Caleb and I had lunch with a whole group of kids and a few moms…

It turned out to be a beautiful day for the park! Yay! Finally!