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We don’t do much for Halloween, but our kids love to hand out candy, so we let them “take turns” (read “fight over”) handing out candy. This year Nana got some good deals on costumes, so our kids dressed up. They are currently having a great time racing to the door to shove candy at everyone who comes to our house. At least this year they’re not chasing kids down the sidewalk with candy. Here are a couple shots of our Halloween kids…

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It was a great day at the conference and on the way home…but now I’m exhausted! I hardly took any pictures the whole trip, but the fall colors in Spokane were just amazing. There were some maples that were such a vibrant red! The whole area was just beautiful. Spokane is a city I’d like to spend some time in – all my trips so far have been very short.

Anyway…here’s one of the lovely trees…

It was raining so the bark of this tree is soooo dark – I loved the contrast with the amazing leaves.

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I am in Spokane with the ladies from our church for a Beth Moore (http://lproof.org) conference. Tonight's session was great. I'm looking forward to tomorrow!

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

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The Daily Shoot assignment was “Make a photograph today that has a strongly centered composition.” This dandelion is so odd to me…it’s blooming on October 28. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a blooming dandelion this late in the year. What a weird fall we’re having.

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Day 300!!! Whoohoo!! I can’t believe there are only 65 more days to this project and this year! That’s crazy!

Today’s photo is a milestone shot – at least for me. I have known this wonderful man for almost 24 years. I met him on November 13, 1986…that’s quite a lot of time and quite a bit of hair ago. When I met him he had a mustache, and since then he has always had it – I had never seen him without a mustache until today.

I think he looks great without it, but it certainly is different! I keep staring at his upper lip. Sorry, Honey. It’s only because you get better looking with every passing day.

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I’m still not quite up to full speed, but I’m heading in the right direction. Unfortunately, my tummy troubles and lack of energy are not good for my photo efforts. Anyway, I did take a few shots today – not good ones, but they were pictures! I was so excited this morning – there was snow in the mountains!! Whoohoo! It’s quite unusual for us not to have snow in the mountains in late October. In fact, in the 18 years I’ve lived here this is the longest I’ve ever seen petunias survive…so you get snow in them thar hills, and still blooming petunias…
 
(We’re gonna call that grain “artistic noise.” I took this shot at 6:30pm – 1600 ISO.)

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I’m under the weather today, so Dale’s jack-o-lantern is all you get…

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We had a wonderful lunch at Nana’s, and then the kids got to paint pumpkins. They thought it was great! (And I didn’t have to clean up pumpkin carving mess!)

(This is not my best photo, but it’s not often I capture this many members of my (extended) family in one shot!

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TDS-plastic
Originally uploaded by snaphappee.elli

Today's Daily Shoot assignment was "Plastic is everywhere. Make a photograph that illustrates a use of plastic in your life today." I thought this was an appropriate subject.
I used a white sheet of printer paper for the backdrop, and bounced my flash off the ceiling. It's an uninspired photo today - I haven't been "feeling" this blog thing lately. I need to get my groove back!

295/365

Today's Friday challenge for our Project 365 group was to take a portrait and show some character. Here's the one I submitted for that challenge...

I thought about having him wash his face before taking the portrait, but since "character" was in the challenge guidelines, I decided he should just be "Andrew."

Here is the triptych I made from the shots I got of Andrew...

(Oops - I see a boo boo in this layout, but it's too late to fix it for today. Oh well.)

And here's a whole group of Friday characters...

If you're feeling a little conflicted after viewing this shot it could be because a couple boys want you to live long and prosper, and a couple tyrannosaurus rexes are out to get you. That's life in Scrivnerburg. 

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Quick post with some fall colors...
 

Our fall has lasted a long time because the weather has been so mild. It's been wonderful because last year we didn't have any fall colors. The kids have been making leaf piles and nests out of the wonderful maple leaves. I love fall!

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I just had to snap the first shot of Nathan this morning – he looked so cute and so different…

…and then I took the second shot just to show what he normally looks like. I used a bounced flash for the first shot as it was still dark outside. The second was shot with window light.

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Here’s my “glint or sparkle.”

I bounced the flash off the ceiling for this one. I’m gonna go watch some tv with my honey…have a great evening everyone!

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How 'bout a video today instead of a photo? The basketball hoop from our neighbors was such an awesome gift! The kids have had to be dragged inside since we got it! Whoohoo!

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Today's Daily Shoot assignment was to take a picture of a pleasing composition of 3 items. My neighbor brought over a BUNCH of tomatoes, so I picked out 3 with different colors and used them as my subject...before Nathan and Austin could eat them! The oblongish ones are romas, and the red one is a cherry tomato. Yummy!

The same neighbors also gave us a basketball hoop! We really have great neighbors all around us. The family had a good time playing with the hoop and all the balls we could find...

I'm sure the reason this shot went in the hoop is that Kristi was jumping along with Ken.

I just loved the expression on Nathan's face as he watched his ball go in!
It was a happy Sunday in Scrivnerburg.

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I liked the Daily Shoot photo I ended up with today - especially because Rose really met the challenge! The Daily Shoot assignment was "Make a photograph of an edge of something." Rose was standing on the fence, and I got this shot just as her feet were tipping over the edge (no worries - she landed on her feet in a large leaf pile).

This has been a lazy day for me. I have done almost nothing today. It was fun!!

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A quick, late post of a boy and his (my) dog. My settings weren't right, so this was seriously underexposed. I used Adobe Camera Raw to bring the exposure up, and then used someone's ACR preset to add a bit of texture (allowing the noise to show) and vintage/honey tone to it. The only editing I did in Photoshop was a slight sharpen before saving for web.

Time for me to head off to bed!

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The Daily Shoot assignment today is "Make a picture of a flame or something changed by fire or flame..." I must admit that I didn't spend much time on photography today, and this was just about all I got. I just did other things today, I guess.

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Today I decided to try a fall recipe just for the fun of it. I haven't baked just to bake in ages and eons. My friend Nancy posted this easy recipe for moist, chocolately muffins, and since I had all the ingredients I decided to see how they came out. The pumpkin puree gives it a very different texture, but from the reports I had from my taste testers, the texture is a good thing. Ken and Felice both had to test them more than once (or twice) to see if they really liked them. Thanks for your help, guys!

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No Daily Shoot photo for me today. The assignment was “stairs” but I didn’t have time to hunt up an interesting set of stairs. I did find a couple cutie patooties in my front yard though. While we were in Hamilton for therapies we stopped at the thrift store to see what was what and found a bunch of hats and gloves/mittens for winter. It was nearly 70 degrees outside, but that didn’t keep Kristi and Caleb from wearing their new winter garb!


True to form, Caleb’s hat is on inside out. He likes the way the brim sits when it’s turned this way. He was absolutely thrilled with his “colorful mittens” too!

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The Daily Shoot assignment today is “Let's start out the new week by making a photo with a red point of interest. Make sure your subject really stands out.” My neighbor’s 3-year-old has thoughtfully filled this wagon with leaves – I’m sure she did it just for this photo!

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I barely took any pictures today, but the ones I took were special to me. Our second oldest son, Andrew (the recent birthday boy) was baptized today. Ken got to baptize him, and Andrew was so excited about the whole thing that there were almost 2 of him! A couple months ago Andrew went forward at the end of church to pray for “someone.” He didn’t know who it was at first, but Ken talked with him a bit, and it turned out that Andrew wanted to pray and ask Jesus to be his personal Savior. What a precious day! God sent His only Son to be a personal, intimate Savior to each one of us, but we need to accept that gift. Since that day Andrew has asked and asked if he could be baptized, and today was finally the day.

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We had (yet another) birthday party today! It’s been…weeks (three) since our last party! I am so (very, very) glad this was the last kid party for this year. At this point I’m thinking Ken’s birthday party should be only grown ups and not involve me cleaning anything. His is the only birthday left for our household this year, and it seems like dinner and a movie would be much better than a party.
Anyway…we had the normal fun – outdoor games, fun, frivolity, chaos, cacophony, presents, cake (read=frosting), and then the inevitable clean up. You have probably seen it all before, so I’m just going to share a couple shots from the party…

Everyone’s favorite game – teams of two keep the balloon in the air with their light sabers. We were one person short so I teamed up with Austin and I think we actually won!

This one cracks me up because all the kids are blurry, and it’s not bokeh. All but the one closest to the camera were in motion. They were like that ALL afternoon! (Rose, in the red/flag shirt may look sharp enough in the small version, but in the full res photo you can see motion blur on her too.)

The birthday boy is the very blurry one in the fatigue hat. He was zinging with excitement from 7:00 this morning!

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Today’s Project 365 challenge was “slow the shutter and show some motion.” I did slow the shutter for this, but because I wasn’t using a tripod I ended up with too much motion blur to the background. Oh well…Andrew enjoyed skateboarding for me.

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The Daily Shoot assignment is "abandoned or discarded." Here is a shot of my neighbor's unloved trailer - it's been sitting there with this flat tire for many moons.

I also had to shoot Molly enjoying the leaf pile...

Fall is awesome!
Oh! We had a little visitor for a few hours today. This little guy wandered out of his neighborhood and into ours. He was happily playing in our front yard when we discovered him. He had a collar with an ID number on it, so we called the vet's office and they eventually contacted the owner. Turns out this little guy's name is Bentley and he wandered across Main Street to get to our house. Scary for a little beast like him. He was adorable and funny, and we had a good time with him while he visited. His mommy had been looking for him, and was happy to locate him. Yay for ID tags!

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The kids made a big leaf pile today and had a great time jumping into it...

I took a few pictures of Kristi this afternoon, too. She's looking way too grown up to me.


Okay...I took a good nap this afternoon, but that means I didn't work, so I must get to work now. Thanks for stopping!

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Today is Andrew’s 12th birthday, so I asked him to help me with The Daily Shoot assignment - “Paper can have texture, be folded, made into an airplane, or crumpled/torn. Make something with paper, then make a photo.”
He was quite happy to make a paper airplane for me.



For all of these I bounced a flash off the ceiling because it was nearly dark outside.
Happy birthday, Andrew! (If you’ve never seen our family story before you can read more about this miracle baby there.)

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This was the ONLY picture I took all day. Kristi had a neuropsychology eval today, and that took most of the day. At lunch time Kristi, Caleb, and I checked out the newly remodeled Pizza Hut. It looks really "hip" and cool.

I've gotten my 3+ hours of work done, and tidied the kitchen, so I'm going to go watch Chuck and relax.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

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We went to a baby shower today – a friend of ours is expecting twins in a month or so – and I found my TDS photo while we were at her place. The Daily Shoot assignment was “Make a photograph that emphasizes the horizon. It's your choice whether to place it on the third lines or to center it.” I love the range of colors in this view…

I took a bunch of photos of the baby shower too, but I don’t feel like delving into those this evening, so this is it.

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I hosted a Pampered Chef show today. I really love their products, so I host shows about once a year so I can get PC goodies! This is Pampered Chef's Antipasti Pull-Apart Pizza. Unfortunately, the recipe is only available in the current Season's Best book (which is only $1 from PC). It was yummy!

I managed to get my house clean (at least the front part) today. I’m exhausted this evening, but my house looks nice! Ken and the 6 younger kids were very helpful, and I was actually done cleaning, showered, and had the beverages ready before the party guests got here! I don’t think that’s happened since I became a mother!
Today’s photo was taken with window light only, and was taken hastily because everyone wanted to dig into this yummy thing!

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I may be over the worst of the cold, but I'm not back up to full speed, for sure. I'm exhausted. Today's Friday Challenge was "Fill the Frame," so here's my shot. Austin was showing off his Yellowjacket pride for Homecoming.
 
(It's a bit blurry because he wouldn't stop moving. lol.)

I'm hoping for more energy and more creative photography tomorrow. Thanks for stopping in!