Let the gaming begin!

The new Halo Reach (video game) has arrived in our house, Dylan went and got it at midnight when they released it and payed for a special edition box with a statue and other collector items. Great thing about homeschooling, we just take a week off to enjoy something they love. Since it's after midnight, this is my pic for the day! I'm off to watch them play...I'm not good enough to play myself! LOL

You sank my battleship!

Home is where the tree is...

;)

Had the whole day home today, this is a big deal as I've been uberbusy lately. I took a pic of one of my favorite things, my tree in the back yard. The moment I saw this tree (it was the middle of winter, btw) I told them I wanted the house!

I was out very late last night and then Robbie woke me up very early. I was annoyed with him until I realized he'd woken me so I could see the visitors outside our bedroom window.

These shots are taken through the screen and in auto mode. I was half alseep and afraid I'd miss the shot if I took the time to worry about my settings. As a result the focus is on the tree instead of the fawn and the screen makes everything a bit blurry. But I still wanted to share our morning guests. :-)

Here comes the bride...

Today's pic was actually taken last night, but I'm gonna cheat and I'll do it again next weekend with the wedding! Summer's bachelorette party was last night, we had a great time and she looked stunning.

I'll post something wedding related as well in honor of the bachelorette party! Here are some of the flowers & bouquet.

I wanted to post early because we're going out tonight for a good friend's bachelorette party and it'll be a late night! ;-) I didn't have much time for shooting today but I finished the pocket squares for the wedding and the colors are beautiful so I figured I'd just share those.

Fall (and rain!) has arrived! Ok, not officially, but it looks like it's on its way!

This bell was put up as a memorial in front of the school where my great-grandfather was principal. Recently the school was remodeled and expanded. They kept the plaque but didn't have a place for the bell. They contacted my dad and today it got a new home in my parent's flower bed.

I just couldn't choose so you get three today! The first two I took at the park while Kya was in dance class. I had so much fun and thought I was done shooting for the day but then on the way home I couldn't stop seeing photo ops! The sun is setting earier and we just happen to be driving home during the magic hour. And today it was even more magical because a storm was coming in; the clouds and lighting were so perfect that I pulled over several times to take pics. Good thing Kya's a good sport about these things. :-)

Played around more with letters today...Z is a hard letter to find and shoot! hopefully I can put them one on top of each other and it will work, I didn't have the time to make them into one side-by-side shot. It's my last name for those that don't already know it!

This evening I downloaded a free trial of an add-on to my Capture NX2 photo editor. I wanted to see what other things were available with editing, Hope & I had been talking about this today. I'm still playing with it, there are lots of fun options, but still not the shiny option I was looking for (I don't think) Here is a shot I took today on the way home and I played around with it a bit but I couldn't tell you what I did, I was trying so many different things! LOL

I had lots of fun with my camera this afternoon! I couldn't decide so you get two shots today. This first is one of my favorite attempts at the alphabet photography Karen posted about yesterday.



And this one is a different perspective of my two favorite subjects. :)

Kitties GROW...

Remember this picture?
Well, the seven kittens have grown, here is the same kitty this morning:
I couldn't help but get a ton of shots and they even climbed a tree, which made for even more interesting shots! Smart kitties! (btw, they all need homes, my client probably will not keep all 7 of them, they are used to being outdoors. I'll be sad if she separates them and gets rid of them, they are a sight to behold all together! Too cute!)

Letters

So this wonderful idea was introduced to me in Hope's Disney Pre-trip report about taking pictures of things that are in the shape of letters to make a word, so I thought I would mess around briefly tonight and see what I came up with. Granted, I was just in my back yard, not Walt Disney World, so I struggled a bit to see letters in the things all around me. I'm not sure if this will be harder or easier in WDW, but I would love to take a bunch of shots that make the word "CHERISH", "VACATION", "FREEDOM", or "DISNEY" when we finally make it back there next fall...

Karen is the coolest mom evah! She had a FABULOUS party for the girls tonight for the premiere of Camp Rock 2. The girls had a blast and we had lots of photo ops. (Though I missed a few of those taking Jace to his sleepover!)

Camp Rock 2!

Tonight we had a Camp Rock2 movie premier party. It was (is...still a few girls here!) fun and the girls seemed to enjoy themselves! I have two pictures. One b/c it's hilarious and I loved all the shots I got when the girls let me take a *Rockin'* picture of them.

The second is the prettiest shot I got tonight when the girls were making collages.

I had a couple good shots I went back and forth on choosing for today! In the end, I picked this one b/c I loved the lines and artistic look.

Not posting tonight, I hurt my knee today and I thought I might pick up the camera and just take a quick shot of something, but the battery is dead...no motivation to charge it tonight. I'll post two tomorrow or something! LOL

I admit it, I did drag Karen down the Disney road... but to be fair she drug me there first! I spent the day finalizing some plans for our upcoming trip- Karen helped in person yesterday and through email today. I don't know how I would have planned this trip without her! <3

and thanks to Hope, my mind has been on this all day today!

PJ Day

It's been a long time since I didn't have a petsit, lesson, grocery store, or homeschool event to go to and I can't see another day for most of September that I will get again, so I stayed in my pjs. Hope came over and we chatted away the afternoon, I quickly realized why she got her pic posted so early! After Hope left and we had dinner, we popped in the Netflix that arrived, Colonial House, which we watched years ago and wanted to re-watch. It was a great evening, but I realized 5 minutes ago that I hadn't picked up the camera, so you get my lazy-day-pj-day-off-netflix-watching-evening shot!

They guy Robbie carpools with left his bike parked in our driveway today. If that's not an invitation to take pictures I don't know what is!!

It's a big day in our house! About eight months ago Kya started sleeping in our room. We don't really know why or what triggered it but at around the same time she also stopped sleeping over with friends. We didn't worry too much because she seemed fine otherwise and didn't think it was caused by anything- she just knew she felt more comfortable in our room so that's what we did. Today she asked if we could set up the bunk bed that was in the basement and move her mattress from our room onto the top bunk! We worked all afternoon to rearrange and make room for the bed. She's planning to sleep up top and is using the bottom for storage (she has waaay to much stuff in her room but that's another story). I'm gappy she's feeling like trying this out but I must admit that I felt a little sad when she was in her room with the door closed and music up loud. As much as I want her to be independent I can't help but feel a pang as she grows up.

September's coming...

It's still warm, but I can see fall coming in the plants and flowers when I go out to shoot.