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Late, late post this busy Friday. The Daily Shoot assignment was “Double your art today. Make a photo of something you've created or crafted.” Well, I haven’t been too creative or crafty lately, so here’s a quick shot of my two greatest creations…

I didn't actually create them, but my husband and I were instrumental in the process, so I'm claiming them! Doesn’t God do nice work? How do you like the fudgesicle faces?

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Thankful Thursday! Here are two of my precious blessings – the two who were willing to come out for pictures. :-) The Daily Shoot challenge today is “Shoot wide open today. Make a creative photo that uses a shallow depth of field to good effect.” For those who aren’t familiar with these terms, that means that the subject will be in focus and the rest of the photo will be blurred. For this photo I used my 50mm lens at 1.8 (as wide open as it will go) to keep Nathan sharply focused and throw the “stuff” in the background (trees, tires, etc.) out of focus.

Here’s another one. Is Caleb growing up too fast, or is that just my imagination?

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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.

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Here are a couple Sunday Snapshots. We had a pretty low-key, lazy day. We spent some time outside with the kids – Ken played catchish with Austin, Kristi, and Nathan. There was a lot more ball chasing than ball catching, but they all had fun.

(::sigh::)

Nathan got distracted from the game – Hammy came to visit, and Nathan had to chase him.

(My kids call every squirrel Hammy after the squirrel in Over the Hedge.)

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It’s Thankful Thursday! I’m thankful that I can get out and do silly, fun, pointless things with my kids. I found a monstro poofyhead today when I went to check the mail, so I took a bunch of my kids back there to see it. We had fun blowing poofyheads and admiring the monster dandy. (It looked like 3 or 4 dandelions had grown together.)

(These photos were taken with my Palm Pre Plus and edited with Adobe Camera Raw.)

100/365

It’s day 100! I’m so pleased that I have made it all the way to day 100 and I haven’t forgotten a single day! This project (and this year!) are passing so quickly!Today we celebrated Nathan’s 7th birthday. I can’t believe my first birth baby is 7! Seven years ago right now I was in labor and just hoping this baby would come OUT! He was turned sideways and making me much more miserable than he had to. But all that misery was well worth it. Nathan is an amazing, funny, clever, adorable kid (no bias here). It was a 14-year wait to have my first birth baby, and it’s incredible to think that it’s already been 7 years since then! Happy birthday, Beanboy. I love you!

1. Nathan didn’t appreciate our version of the birthday song.
2. This beanbag toss game was hard! The holes are so small!
3. I loved how the row of goodie boxes looked.
4. The tire roll was a challenge for the smaller kids, but they all had fun.
5. This game was the Tire Toss – the kids tried to toss their beanbags through the tire as it passed by them. Only 3 or 4 made it.
6. Nathan got some great gifts, including Madagascar Kartz for the Wii.
7. Yummy chocolate cake with Boston Cream filling.
8. Happy Speed Racer Birthday Nathan!

(This fun storyboard template is from CoffeeShop.)

Monday Meanderings

Monochrome Monday! As Caleb and I were taking our photo walk today we passed by these air conditioning units (I assume – they’re sticking out of windows in a building). Caleb pointed at the filter portion and said, “That’s black and white!” He was absolutely correct, so I shot it for my monochrome Monday photo. I like the pattern.

Word of the day – Catkin.  We also discovered these wonderful treasures on our walk. I knew they were the cottonwood flowers but I could not remember what they were called. Caleb and I talked about it for most of our walk, and when we got home the first thing we did was Google it. Catkins! That was it!

Amanda Hill shared this nice, simple storyboard on her blog recently– thanks Amanda! I put a few photos from the weekend in it just to test it out. I’m sure you’ll be seeing this layout often!

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It’s Snapshot Sunday! So I took, retook, and reretook this photo to get it just right. I guess that’s not really a snapshot. Oops. Well, here’s my sick little man snuggling in for a nap with Daddy.

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Today is Snapshot Sunday – so what do I do? I go to the studio to do real portraits. The kids are all watching movies today and we have a few sickies, so I didn’t take a snapshot of the family.

This little man just cracks me up!

These two are just so goofy!

I am amazed at how our Facebook group is growing! It’s awesome! I’m so glad to see so many people on this fun photographic journey!

Day 345

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.

Day 313

Here’s a shot I took of my youngest boys and my new bench. And Molly – she’s so cooperative. Hmph.

And here’s a shot I took of Caleb asleep…I love the way he copes. He doesn’t like to sleep alone, so he makes sure he’s not alone…

Oh, and one more note about Caleb and his funniness…those marks on the wall were made by him. He scribbled on the wall with crayon, and those are the marks that the Magic Eraser couldn’t erase. For the longest time he was afraid of the “skeletons” on his wall – even though he had put them there himself!

Day 306

I loved the way Nathan looked in his blue hat and blue shirt today, so I asked him to let me take his picture. I told him I didn’t want the goofy faces this time, I just wanted my sweet Bean to show through. For once, he complied!

Here’s one more…

(Does he look waaay older than 6?)

Caleb wanted his picture taken – it’s amazing how quickly a photo-op will dry his tears! Here’s the photo – if you click on it you can see it on Flickr, where it has notes about his booboos.

Day 288

After the sad demise of my 50mm lens on Saturday, I’m having to try to get good shots out of my other lenses. I can tell you that low light is not conducive to good shots when using the Tamron 28-80. Hmph.

Day 276

I was practicing sunflares again. This time it was evening. Why don’t these turn out as well as the morning ones? Here’s the early-ish one (around 7pm)… 
 

And this showed up while I was working on sunflare shots…

No, this is not the victim of a horrific crime. This is a boy who had fresh cherries for dessert.

A sunflare as the sun was about to set…

And one more as it was going behind the peak…

Day 273

This day started really, really early! On Sundays (now that our church has 2 services) I have to be up and moving around 5:30 am to get everything done. I get to church at 7:20 or 7:30, after getting myself ready, getting everyone else moving, and feeding them. All of that means that Sunday afternoon is my nap time!! That’s why I often don’t have super-duper photos on Sundays. There’s just too much going on.

Anyway…

At church today the children’s sermon was about treating each other nicely and saying nice things. Hmmm…

Today we went to my in-laws’ for lunch. While lunch was being prepared Austin and Nathan got into a disagreement and were not saying nice things, so Ken reminded them of the children’s sermon, and then he pulled an old (for us) discipline method out of his hat… 
  
The boys had to stand in Nana’s front yard and yell, “I love you, Brother!” until Ken heard them in the house (or they started laughing, which actually happened first). It turned into a fun game with two other kids involved! LOL! That idea came from a great book that I highly recommend to all parents – Creative Correction by Lisa Whelchel. There are a lot of really great discipline ideas in that book. It has been so very helpful to us!

This evening we had a fabulous thunderstorm! Rain was pouring as hard as I’ve ever seen it, and the thunder was LOUD! Some of the kids thought the heavy rain was an invitation to bathe, and since it saves on our water bill, who am I to complain?

It must be noted that the water was deep enough to cover Nathan’s feet and ankles here, but there was no water in this place at all just 5 minutes before this was taken.

Gotta love a good thunderstorm! (Unless they scare you – in which case you hide out in the house!)

Day 264

Ken thought I should get a photo of Nathan before he washed up for dinner… 

When I went out to find him I discovered their “fort.” Getting there is an obstacle course, but they seem to be having fun. 

My settings weren’t right for this shot, but I kinda like this wall! Almost thinking about moving that wood so I can use the wall as a backdrop… 

(I truly believe Nathan is incapable of having a normal portrait taken.)

Day 257

We spent all day at Nana’s house (my MIL) helping her with her garage sale. I didn’t take my good camera because I knew I was going to be busy all day, so I took these photos with my cell phone. The kids had a great time at Nana’s house – of course!

The kids were thrilled to have watermelon! (Except for Andrew, who does not like watermelon – he had an apple.)

This hat was a treasure from Nana’s sale. I love it on Caleb!!

Day 253

Okay, another warning for those who might be squeamish. This is just a loose tooth – not a nasty injury.

Yesterday we tried and tried to get Nathan to pull his loose tooth or let one of us do it. He just couldn’t. Here’s yesterday’s photo…

Today he came in the house and said, “Mom, I can pull my tooth!” I don’t know what the sudden change was all about, but I gave him a napkin to use to get a grip on the tooth, and seconds later he was holding the tooth in his hand. Yay!

(There’s a bit of motion blur on his eyes – there’s always motion blur with Nathan! – but look at those catchlights! lol.)

Day 234

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!

Day 233

ARGH! I had my ISO all the way up for a shot inside my dark trailer, and I forgot to change it back before taking shots for a challenge over at Digital Photography School. All the shots I took for the challenge are so grainy I wouldn’t dare submit them. GRRRR! But I really loved this one of Nathan, so I played with it in Picnik. I used the 1960’s effect on it since it was so grainy anyway.

You may have seen this on Facebook…

Ken split kindling and tied it in bundles in preparation for our camping trip. He’s such a good guy!