Week 49 in Pictures

I know I probably say this every week now but ... one week closer to the end of this year's Project 365!  WOOT!  :)  At this point in the year, I'm so ready to be done.  Even with all the pretty Christmas lights and decorations.  I'm sure I'll look back at my photo books one day and be glad I did this for three years in a row.  And, who knows, I might even decide to do it again another year down the road.  But for now, I'm excited to be almost done.  Have I said that already?  :)

This week was another busy one.  (When aren't they busy anymore?!)  Meetings, sick kids, doctor appointments, and birthday celebrations, just to name a few things I was busy with.  Doug was on vacation and we had planned to go shopping, but that didn't happen.  We're planning to try again on the 18th when he has the day off for Keira's Christmas concert.  Her concert is at 8:00 a.m. so we'll leave straight from there.  Unless, of course, I have all the shopping done by then.  Which is highly possible.  I'm more of an online shopper these days.  I can take my time and very often get better deals and free shipping.  Gotta love it when Christmas presents get delivered right to your door.  And I can shop in my jammies.  :)

Anyway, let's take a look at what last week looked like ...

{Sunday}

Keira made this sign in "shop" class and asked me to photograph it, along with a few other items she made.  She needed to make a display board documenting her time in class.  

{Monday}

I picked up this cute ornament at Target.

{Tuesday}

Tuesdays are one of the few days I'm up early enough to see the sun rise.

{Wednesday}

Alex turned 7 today!  Seven!  My baby!  I did a little tribute post to him.  You should go see it.  He was so stinkin' adorable when he was smaller.  He still is, but you know what I mean.  :)

{Thursday}

We had some cupcakes left over from Alex's birthday celebration at church Wednesday evening.  So I photographed them for the "colorful" prompt for the Scavenger Hunt.

{Friday}

When all else fails, photograph some bokeh.  :)

{Saturday}

We celebrated Alex's birthday with family today.  I made his cake again this year.  I didn't want to, but my cake-making friend was all booked up this weekend.  I need to remember to ask earlier.  Her cakes are incredible!  Although mine wasn't bad for whipping up on the fly.

This week is another busy one.  Fun stuff, but busy.  We already had our church's Christmas dinner, had a quick photo shoot yesterday, and Bible study this morning.  Coming up are: prepping for Wednesday night church (yes, I tend to wait until the last minute), painting my living room (I hope), craft night with the girls, my birthday, possibly a girls' movie night out if I can swing it, Praise & Coffee, and the Toby Mac concert with Keira and the youth group.  I think I might just sleep all next week.  :)

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Week 48 in Pictures

One more week down!  Have I mentioned how happy I am to be almost done with my third year of taking a photo a day?  :)  I think it is starting to show in my photos.

Here's what last week looked like ...

{Sunday}

Alex drew this picture of me and him.  I don't know when he's ever seen me dressed like this, but I must look like a princess to him.  Or Lady Gaga.  :)

{Monday}

Doug put the outside lights up over the weekend so I captured some bokeh from the ones on our snowball bush.

{Tuesday}

Woke up to a dusting of snow today.  It melted pretty quickly though.

{Wednesday}

I bought a little craft kit on clearance and made one of the poinsettias with Nick's help. {ahem}

{Thursday}

We belong to the coolest credit union.  They sent Alex a birthday card with a $10 Barnes & Noble gift card inside!

{Friday}

I woke up early enough to see the gorgeous sunrise.

{Saturday}

I took this for the Scavenger Hunt's "purple" prompt.  I bought some artificial flowers a while back to decorate for fall.  Along with the purple flowers are some burgundy and olive green ones.  They match some fabric that I bought which was supposed to be made into a table runner, but that hasn't happened yet.  Hopefully I'll have that ready for next fall.  :)

Lastly, my favorite photo from November ...


Well, I best get back to my children's ministries prep work.  Hope you have a wonderful week!
     

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Week 46 in Photos

Another week down!  I have to admit, I'm really looking forward to this being my last year for taking a photo a day.  Some days are just hard!  Especially after three years of doing this.  I'm all out of ideas.  But I do enjoy documenting our lives and plan to continue to do so next year.  Just not with the pressure of taking a photo a day.

We are looking forward to the Thanksgiving break the kids get from school.  Hopefully that will give Keira enough time to shake this illness that has been plaguing her for the past week and a half.  She's on her fourth day of missing school and I don't see her going back this week.  Poor thing.  She had to miss the Washington DC field trip this past weekend.  :(

Nick is looking forward to going deer hunting with Doug on Monday, which should be interesting.  They've gone hunting for squirrels a couple times and Doug said Nick did a pretty good job of keeping his mouth quiet, but he walks with heavy feet.  Nick blames that on his boots.  :)

Alex is looking forward to the "feast" at school on Wednesday.  The first graders and the kindergarteners get together to celebrate Thanksgiving with soup, cheese, and crackers.  That should be fun!

{Sunday}

One of the flowers in the bouquet that Doug bought me for our anniversary.

{Monday}

Nick and I went to the Veteran's Day parade.  Keira and Alex were sick and stayed home, much to Alex's dismay.  Plus, if I recall correctly, Alex punched Nick in the nose that morning, soooo ...

{Tuesday}

Alex stayed home from school today.  He wanted to watch a movie and sat Woody down to decide which one.  (And, as you can see, I hadn't swept the floor yet.)  :)

{Wednesday}

Keira managed to go to school today and brought home this keychain she made in Shop class.  She said she needs photos of all the things she's made for a display board assignment.

{Thursday}

Our snowball bush is one of the last trees/bushes to still have leaves on it.

{Friday}

I was asked to go take photos at a masquerade dinner at our church for a group of teenage girls.  The hostess made a bunch of different masks for the girls to take home.  The food was great and the message was uplifting and inspirational.  I'm honored to have been a part.

{Saturday}

Between Thursday night and Friday, we threw together a family photo shoot for this lovely lady and her family.  She was referred to me by a friend.  The weather was chilly but nice.  The shoot was challenging, mainly getting the little ones to cooperate (and keeping my assistant, Nick, in check).  I hope the mom is pleased with what I was able to get for her.

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Week 44 in Pictures

Last week was probably the looooooongest week in the history of weeks!  The rain started on Saturday, October 27 and continued until Saturday, November 3.  Eight straight days of cold, miserable, windy rain.  We did get a break every now and then ... and the sun even tried to come out a few times on Friday and Saturday.  But overall, it was a very blah week.  We are blessed in the fact that Hurricane Sandy didn't leave much destruction in her path in our area.  Things were predicted to be much worse than they actually are.  I wish I could say the same for those east of us.  We are keeping those folks in our prayers.

I predicted that I would struggle to pick up my camera during the rainy weather and I did.  Several of these photos are "cheats".  I took all of these photos this week, but some were taken on the same day.  We'll just pretend they are from the day I say they are, okay?  :)

{Sunday}

Gross, rainy weather.  I even added a colorful gradient to make my original photo more appealing, but it didn't help much.  :)

{Monday}

The nuttiest Nuthatch that frequents my feeder.  I just love this little guy.  He's so fun to watch.

{Tuesday}

I decided to play around with some low-key photography since I don't do it often.  I'm not sure I did it right, but I like the way it turned out.

{Wednesday}

Despite the fact that my kids don't go trick or treating, we still seem to end up with a huge bowl of candy.

{Thursday}

Poor Blue Jay.  Soaking wet in all this rain.  I was pretty pumped to have gotten this photo of him though, since he is pretty elusive and usually flies away as soon as he sees me.

{Friday}

Very rare to have another photo of me so soon (just featured one last week).  Especially since I hate self-portraits.  :)

I set out with the intention of getting a much-needed haircut and ended up having my perm straightened.  It had grown out 5-6 inches anyway so it was either get another perm or go straight.  I thought I'd try straight for a while.  The girls at the salon kept asking me if I had colored my hair at all.  Strangely, no, I don't color my hair.  The light and dark streaks are all natural.

{Saturday}

Keira got invited to a costume party at a friend's house.  And they ended up going trick or treating.  Fourteen years old and she finally got to go.  :)  Anyway, after much costume searching and deciding, she went as a gypsy.  The clothes were found at Good Will and most of the accessories were borrowed from my MIL.  (And as you can tell, the sun was out for a bit.  But on our way to drop Keira off at the friend's house, it was raining and sunny and we got to see a gorgeous rainbow).

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Week 43 in Pictures

It is Monday evening.  Hurricane Sandy is upon us now.  It has been raining almost non-stop since yesterday.  The strong winds are just arriving and we are bracing ourselves, praying we don't lose power (or if we do, we don't lose it for long).  Since we are in Western Pennsylvania, we don't expect to have too much damage - at least not nearly as much as our neighbors to the east. But the powers that be are predicting wide-spread power outages due to trees pulling down power lines.  The kids have a two-hour school delay tomorrow and are hoping school gets cancelled altogether.  We are keeping all those affected by this hurricane in our prayers!

On a lighter note, my new laptop is almost up to speed.  There are still some things I would like to transfer from my old laptop, if I could only get it to turn on.  I try it several times a day - no luck yet.  But I'm not giving up.  One of these times it will work.

Aside from having a cold this past week and really starting to feel human again on Thursday, not much happened around here.  The weather was gorgeous all week, which made it even harder to be sick.  Thankfully I was able to get out and enjoy the warmer temps and sunshine on Thursday and Friday.

Here's what last week looked like in pictures ...
{Sunday}

My new laptop was delivered on Saturday, but I was on my way out the door when it got here, so I didn't get a picture that day.

{Monday}

Even though I wasn't feeling great because of the cold I had, the kids and I went to a local park where I managed to get a picture of them together.  It's not the greatest, but at least it's something.

{Tuesday}

After we played in the leaves for a while, Alex posed for me with his pumpkin.

{Wednesday}

Picked up some Indian Corn and mini pumpkin candies today.

{Thursday}

Starting to feel human again so the kids and I went to a local farm.  We had fun playing in their corn maze.  Keira took this pic of me to prove I was there.  :)

{Friday}

I went to Living Treasures to get one last peek at the baby leopards before they get moved to another zoo.  I didn't get to see them since they were hiding, but I did get treated with some up-close views of the lions.

{Saturday}

The only photo I took this day - for yesterday's Scavenger Hunt.

I almost forgot to include my favorite photo for October.

I really had a hard time choosing a favorite for October because I took LOADS of pictures, but I kept coming back to this one.  This is totally not my normal style, but I love this hazy photo of Natasha.  Especially since I was able to achieve it IN CAMERA, not in post processing.

That's it for me.  I will really have to push myself this week to take pictures.  Cold, rainy weather zaps me of my photo mojo.  :)

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Week 41 & 42 in Pictures

Hi there!  Remember me?  I'm finally back in business now that my new laptop is here. I ordered it on Thursday evening after finding out from the computer repair guy that he could not fix my Gateway.  Well, that's not entirely true.  He could have replaced the processor.  But after spending around $300 on parts and labor, that may not have fixed the problem.  So I opted to have him not fix it and we bought a new laptop.  An ASUS.  It shipped on Friday and was delivered on Saturday!  And I didn't even pay for expedited shipping!  I was glad I didn't since it came so quickly anyway.

Of course it didn't come until around 4:05 p.m. when I was planning to leave at 4:15 to go to my friend, Laura's, for a girls' night filled with hot soups, fresh breads, games, and fun.  So I ended up leaving a few minutes late 'cuz you know I couldn't leave without at least checking it out first.  :)

I spent most of Sunday getting it ready to run.  Burning recovery discs, updating Windows, installing Photoshop Elements, etc.  It felt good to be able to edit some photos today but it took a while to get back into my normal routine.  I had to re-do a couple because I forgot a step or two.  I'm blaming that on my cold which is making my head sort of foggy.

Anyway, I hate to overload you with pictures, but since I didn't post last week's pictures, you get two week's worth in one post.

{Sunday, Oct. 7}

I had taken this for the October 14th Scavenger Hunt prompt "water drops", which I ended up not participating in because of the laptop.  Or lack thereof.

{Monday, Oct. 8}

Woke up to a foggy morning.  Glad I didn't have anywhere to go.

{Tuesday, Oct. 9}

I had the pleasure of photographing Anna at her family's beautiful farm.  We had a great time!  Here are more photos from our session, if you are interested.

{Wednesday, Oct. 10}

My not-so-great attempt at foodtography.  :)  I was excited about making homemade dinner rolls and tried to capture that.  Obviously I need more practice.

{Thursday, Oct. 11}

Alex had helped me try out a new location for photo shoots.  We took Nick's little pumpkin along since Alex's is huge.  I truly have no idea what he's doing in this picture.  I do know that we had fun though.

{Friday, Oct. 12}

My sister-in-law, Terri, had asked me if I'd take Jordan's school pictures this year since the ones you get at school aren't so great.  We had a good time.  I even managed to get Terri in a few pictures.  More from this photo shoot will be coming soon, now that I can edit again.

{Saturday, Oct. 13}

My friend, Lindsey, asked me if I'd take some family photos for her.  It was challenging but fun - trying to get four people (including a 4 year old and a 9 month old) to look at me and smile at the same time.  And I just love the color combinations she chose!  More from this shoot coming soon also.  (Yes, I will be an editing fool this week.)  :)

{Sunday, Oct. 14}

Pretty grass.

{Monday, Oct. 15}

While out running errands, I stopped at a local park to see if it would be a good place for a photo shoot.  While I was walking around, I happened upon this mama deer and her two fawns.  Notice that the mama only has three legs.  It didn't seem to slow her down though. She grunted, snorted, and stomped at me a few times but eventually ran away when she realized I wasn't going anywhere.

{Tuesday, Oct. 16}

A friend asked if I would take her daughter's senior pictures.  Natasha was so easy going and would do just about anything I asked.  This photo isn't my normal style, but I thought I'd try going for the hazy look (in camera, not in processing).  I like it.  More of Natasha's photos coming soon also.

{Wednesday, Oct. 17}

Sometimes I just walk around in my yard to see what I can see.  This day I saw this wasp.

{Thursday, Oct. 18}

Doug found another stick bug while he was cleaning out the flower beds.

{Friday, Oct. 19)

The leaves are just so pretty this fall.

{Saturday, Oct. 20}

You'd think I would have taken a photo of my new laptop since this is the day it arrived, but I didn't have time.  In fact, I didn't take any pictures this day.  I even took my camera to Laura's for girls' night but never got it out of my bag.  So instead, I give you a cheat picture of the mums Keira bought me.  I just love the soft pink/purple colors.

     

If you made it this far, thanks for sticking in there with me!  Hope you have a fabulous week!  I plan to be back to my normal posting schedule soon.

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