Day 26

Day 25

Day 24

Realized late at night (again!) that I hadn't taken picture for the day. So I went in the bathroom with the vase of roses off the dining table and a little flashlight borrowed from connor. I put the flashlight in an empty toilet paper tube to sheild the light more from the lens. I think this one was a 30 second exposure.

Day 22

The children have discovered "Due South" on youtube.

Day 20

After getting home in the wee hours, then leading book group and THEN cub scouts...well, not much life for picture taking. But these are my scouts. Aren't they cute?

Day 19

Gage likes to bring me flowers. I think he looks so sweet here, messy face and all!

Day 13

Camping!



















I needed to drop off the van for new tires and an alignment. Since I'd be walking home and Aiden takes Gage and Black for a walk every day, they all came with me. It was a long walk home and Gage was a real trooper, but we stopped at the Donut shop downtown. Hey! We needed the fortification!
We saw the camper on our walk and I thought it was funny.


And now for just an idea of the volume of pictures I take:
We got home from our walk and here is a sampling of the pictures I took in our front yard before walking inside.

Day 12

We took Black to the park and I got to see him on the slide. Such a funny dog.















I showed this picture to Gage and said "in this picture you look tired." "No. I not ired. I yust inking."

Day 11

A self portrait:

Taken in the visor mirror while waiting for Tim. But then Gage and I decided not to wait and went into our insurance agent's office after all. She's very sweet with the most amazing blue eyes. She also had a cool orchid in her office!









The afternoon was one of those breezy, light through the leaves, sweet blossom spring days of perfection.


A great day to go to the park.



A little outrage. That bad slide dumped him on the ground!


With Dad on the kinder, gentler slide.

Day 10

Mother's Day! After church the girls placed a flower wreath on my head and whisked us off to the Rowena overlook. It was beautiful but we didn't stay long as so many other folks had the same idea.














So we traveled on and found a nice picnic spot. Aiden laid out a red and white checked table cloth and we enjoyed deviled eggs, pastrami sandwiches and delicious potato salad. They even brought a bouquet for the table!





















Later in the evening Tim and Gage and I met Aiden, Connor and Black down by the river. I didn't know that there was a cool light display under the bridge!
















Goodnight to a lovely day.

Day 9

A couple days ago Aiden brought me a hair style magazine and said she found a cut she liked. So to the kitchen we went armed with scissors and a plastic cape (tie it in the FRONT Aiden!)
Yesterday I took some pictures of her. The picture we like best doesn't show the haircut much, so I'll post some extras, too ;-)







Lily of the Valley eyebrows!



















Of course the real question is: "How did I get such attractive children???"



It's all in the genes, man.

Day 8

We have gorgeous pink dogwoods in our front yard. This arrangement of Aiden's was on the little shelves built into our dining room window. I really like the way exposing for the dogwoods overexposed everything else.

Day 7

Aiden took Gage and Black to the park. That was great because then I could get ready for scouts and Gage wasn't there to be upset when I left! While I was doing some pre scout meeting errands (buying plaster of paris and treats!) Aiden called to say that Black had 'figured out the slide'. I still haven't seen it but she describes some of Black's adventures in her blog. What I HAVE witnessed is how much Gage loves his "goog oggie lack". And how much Black loves his boy.

Day 6

Connor was filling out an application and needed to know the date he stopped babysitting for our friend Vera. So I called her in Hawaii to ask when she had moved. It's so nice to call friends and get caught up on the little things of life: Do you have a garden? What has Jason been doing? Gage just had a birthday. Celeste did what?!? Oh, that's so funny.
It's three hours earlier in Hawaii.
I got off the phone and folded some laundry and then noticed that it was LATE and I only had a few MINUTES to get my picture of the day!
Aiden posted a list of the things that grow here at our new house. We almost always have some sort of arrangement on the table, the work of Aiden's hands.
This is the one we have at the moment.

Day 5

Squeamish alert. My photo of the day is a dead mole. A rather beat up one at that.















Beautiful? Not really. Fascinating? To me, yes. I'd never seen a mole in reality. I was surprised by the 'hands'; they are so big.

Day 4

Doesn't that make you want to eat some fruit? This is more playing with holding camera steady without tripod. 1/5 F5.6 ISO 100 overcast outside the window. I suppose I could (should?) have arranged the fruit better, but I just was walking by and took them as they were sitting there.







And....it was Gage's birthday!!! He's 3 years old!

Day 3

This is Elina's kitty. Her name is Jessa. Our cats like to look at the birds in the front yard. I took this in available light without a tripod! I braced myself on couch and wall. 1/25 F5.6 with ISO 400!! Connor helped me pick which would be my pic of the day.


Connor and I both like this picture too.

Day 2

Saturday we celebrated Gage's 3rd birthday which is on Monday. He loves the movie "Cars" and anything related. When he wakes up he says "now we play!" He offers me my choice of two toy cars and then gives me the one that he wants me to have. The two cars introduce themselves, "hi! I'm Li-ween!" (Lightning McQueen for those of you who have not watched Cars 13,452 times) "I'm Mater!" "Ka-chow!" "Oh! That's too bright!" "oh, I'm sorry" "VRROOOMMM" "AAAAAGGHHH!" "Oh No! Frank's gonna get us, we better run!" "AAAAGGGGHHH!" The script hardly varies. Some mornings Frank chases us at least 40 times. Really.
So of course we had a car birthday. When Aiden and Connor were little, their uncle Matt made them cars like this:



His cake had cars made out of mini ice cream sandwiches:













Most of the guests had left and we were having a nice chat with our next door neighbor when we noticed that Gage was on the table licking the cake.




It's lightly sweetened whipped cream, not frosting!!












After our bath he was 'air drying' while I got dressed. This is where I found him






Good thing I hadn't pulled the plug on the tub yet!!