Okay, it’s not actually monochrome, but I like what Totally Rad Action’s Troy action did for this photo.
Here’s the full color version – it’s my shot for The Daily Shoot assignment, “Leave something out today. Be visually brief. Shoot tight. Make a photo that's direct and to the point.” 
Here are a few shots of people I am thankful for. 
1.) A nap overtook Caleb. 2.) Andrew is silly, but adorable! 3.) Nathan is a cool bean. 4.) Mr. Fixit. 5.) Nathan loves me! Or something.
It’s not that I’m not thankful for the other 4 – they’ll just have to show up in another post.
It’s not midnight yet in my time zone, so I still haven’t missed a day! Whew – this one was really close!
Here are a few shots I took of the kids and their antics today…
Miss Virginia with her new basketball. She’s very proud of it! (For those who haven’t been following me for the last year+, this sweet little lady isn’t one of my passel of kids, but she’s here often enough to be considered part of the family.) 
Andrew was having fun with shadow puppets. He’s kinda funny about having pictures taken, so I couldn’t ask him to move more into the light, or even let him know I was shooting. This was taken through the dirty dining room window. Gotta catch the moment, right? 
Dale was inventing things again. He says the only drawback is that this design hurts his nose. I’m sure he’ll work on that. 
Thanks for stopping by!
Sunday snaps! Here are a few snapshots of my boys and Molly playing a game. The game is called 5,000, and the point is to get 5,000 points by catching the ball at the time the thrower calls it – either in the air, bounced off the ground, or whatever. Dale was throwing while I was watching, and I saw Andrew get points, and I saw Austin get points, but Molly didn’t seem to understand all the rules. She seemed to be under the impression that she would gain points by grabbing the ball and running with it. The boys didn’t give her points for that. Dale did say that she got 5,000 points during one round because she got the ball on the ground.
In that first shot, notice that there is a boy on the ground with Molly. They were fighting over the ball. I guess she untied his shoe in the midst of the fracas. I love that she plays like “one of the boys.”
I wanted to see how my new stuff works…I got these two treasures at the auction last night. Andrew is sitting on my new stool (showing off his new Rubik’s cube). It’s shorter than the others I have, so it’s great for these in-between kids. 
And my sweet mother-in-law bought this adorable little wheelbarrow for me! (She also bought the stool – but it’s not adorable.) Caleb settled on a place with lots of leaves for his play, but unfortunately the spot didn’t give me much room to back up. I was stuck in a fence corner and my new 50mm lens requires a little more space than I had. Oh well…you can get an idea of what the adorable wheelbarrow looks like. 
I hadn’t really noticed it before, but my friend Cassie pointed out recently that all my photos of Caleb have motion blur. Too funny. This one does too, if you look closely at his hands. What a great point! He truly is always in motion. Even when he sleeps. I’ve often said that sleeping with Caleb is like sleeping with an octopus tangled in a windmill. I’ll make sure this photo links to its Flickr page (don’t tell Flickr that I usually forget) so you can see the blur. :-)
We finally got to celebrate Andrew’s birthday today! We went to Qwivals again. The kids really love going there, but I think we’ll do all at-home parties next year, just for something different. Here are a few snaps from the party. 
I had a hard time enjoying the beginning of the party – Caleb is sick today and couldn’t go. He stayed home with Fancy. When I left he was sobbing his little heart out and saying, “I want to go to Qwivals!” It was terrible! But he soon fell asleep again, and was fine when we got home.
Here’s a snapshot that I thought might amuse a few of my regular readers/viewers… 
Does Ken ever get to use his own chair?
Oh, and one more of me and my miserable little man this afternoon… 
What a day! I took a few photos of my aunt and Andrew… 
But my favorite was this video of Ken reading to Nathan…
Please click here to see on Flickr – this embedding doo-bobby doesn’t work with Windows Live Writer.
What a day! It was Andrew’s birthday, and I didn’t get a chance to take any birthday photos of him, but I did shoot the homemade pizza I made for him! 
This photo was taken moments before Kristi came in the house shrieking like we’ve never heard…she was obviously in great distress! After just a few minutes it became clear that whatever had happened was not your run-of-the-mill bump or bruise, so we took her to the ER. Sorry we couldn’t celebrate, Andrew!
It turns out the Kristi broke her collarbone when she fell. The dr. said she did a pretty good job of it too! 
Kristi came home, got ready for bed, and went to sleep immediately. At this moment she is sleeping peacefully!
I’ve spent so much time waiting at kids’ appointments lately. This waiting room has some books and puzzles for the kids as well as a TV. I thought it was great that these two chose puzzles (working together!) over TV! I didn’t have time/inclination to pull out my big camera, but my cell phone works to grab a sweet moment. 
I only took a few shots today just to test out my diffuser panel. I used it to diffuse the full sun. Andrew just stood there for me – this is a good thing. He wanted to pose like a bodybuilder or something, but I told him to just stand there while I was trying stuff out, so he did! Yay for obedience!
I think I mentioned the challenge at Digital Photography School yesterday. Here are my shots (retaken today at the correct ISO) for the challenge. I was really happy with a few of them, considering that I could not shoot, chimp, shoot again, adjust, shoot again, etc. (For those who are wondering, “chimping” is looking at the camera’s lcd screen.)
We will be off camping Thurs-Sat, but I will probably post photos from my phone, just because I can. “See” ya on Sunday!
Oh! One more note – I won the bi-weekly challenge at OPS! It’s exciting! Here’s the photo that won it for me… 
If you’re an OPS member, make sure to enter a photo in Challenge #21 – the theme is Summer Fun!
(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!
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?
I just totally spaced posting my 365 yesterday! I took a bunch of pictures – nothing spectacular – so I had photos to post. I just didn’t! So here it is for Saturday…
I like the clarity of this one, and the fact that Virginia (neighbor’s daughter) isn’t posing for the camera. When she sees the camera come out she strikes a pose, so it’s very hard to get a natural expression from her.
We took our kids and the two neighbor girls to the park to test out Ken’s (and Andrew’s) catapult. They were catapulting Easter eggs…
Their best distance was 14’6”. Ken wants to get better bungees on there to improve the distance. Fun stuff!
We were all outside enjoying spring weather…enjoying it the way it was meant to be enjoyed – watching someone work! Ken was seeding what IS GOING TO BE A LAWN! We have tried for 3 years to have a lawn in the front yard, and this year it IS going to happen!
While Ken worked, the kids were all watching, and I got an opportunity for a rare snapshot – all 7 kids in one frame!
Andrew and Nathan were trying to jump at the same time so I could get a shot of them in the air…
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I never did succeed in catching one frame with both of them jumping. Oh well.
Caleb didn’t want to miss out on the photo fun, and begged me to take a picture of his pose… 
He sure knows how to work it!
They’re all just family snapshots today, but that’s just the way it goes.
E & S, I don’t quite know what to do with Bootcamp Assignment #3…I guess I’ll need to use one of my “same old” models and try to get it done this week.
I took some photos today, but they were indoors when it was too dark…no flash…really bad…
So instead of a shot taken today, you get photo(s) from yesterday, but edited today…
The cloud cover was soooo heavy, and by this time my flash trigger had stopped working again…so it’s darker than I was hoping for. Oh well. I’ve wanted one of these images of Andrew for a long time. Next time I’ll try it in a better location – better background.
We took the kids to the park today. We live on a fairly busy street, so there’s no good place for the kids to ride bikes and scooters. The park has a blacktop parking lot that’s great for scooting! There’s also a playground and some great space for kite flying…
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