May 18th

OK..it's not Mount St. Helens. I did the last part of the paper route this morning and it what a lovely morning it was! We have some amazing scenery to look at now that the days are longer.

May 17th

I went to the baby shower for a friend's daughter-in-law. My friend had learned to quilt in order to make an heirloom for the baby. Our mutual friend Rebecca had patiently taught her this new skill. Here is Rebecca with a baby Rebecca!

And here is the quilt. Yes, all those flowers and trim are HAND quilted!

May 16th

Starting in early April, Elina starts asking "when will they open the pool??" The official opening is Memorial Day weekend, but if the weather gets exceptionally warm, they open it early. Well, it got EXCEPTIONALLY warm! Record breaking warm. I took Elina and Gage to the pool in the evening so we wouldn't burn. I wasn't swimming, and Elina was so wonderful with Gage. He had a LOT of fun. But he wasn't so sure at first....

May 15th

Gage and I went to Tim's work. Gage had great fun talking to all the patrons...he especially charmed a woman two tables over.

May 14th

May 13th

I took one picture today..and this is it.

May 12th

Tired of driving....

May 11th

Aiden and I had a very nice time driving up to the church building in the evening. There was a beautiful pink dogwood nearby.
When we got home, I put the flower behind Elina's ear. I was looking for somewhere to take her picture without a distracting background. So we opened the front door and took her picture in the hallway using the light from outside. I was going for the look of a spanish painting.

May 10th

I love new growth, whether it's watching Gage do something new, learning something new myself, or spring buds on the cherry trees. Today the sun through the new photinia leaves was so pretty.

Gage had played so hard once he was feeling better, his face really shows it! He scraped his face on the ground at least 3 times yesterday. Today we played at the playground after a light rain. He told me the slide was wet.

So I asked him if he wanted to look at the flowers and he yelled "YES!!" and he ran.

Gage went down the big bars all by himself for the first time.

May 9th

Gage decided to climb through the computer desk today. He's feeling MUCH better!

May 8th

I drove Aiden to a hula/tahitian dance practice. It was in a back yard at 7:00 on a cold, windy evening. Aiden invited me to stay and watch since I wouldn't see the actual performance. Noone was there yet, so I figured I'd get some photos. Everyone got there, and the hilarity ensued. Dances that have a lot of hip motion seem to bring out the silliness in some people. Go figure. But considering how great they looked dancing in coats and shivering a little, the performance with banana leaf head and hip wreaths and lava lavas is going to be amazing!

May 7th

I had a shot that I felt was composed better, but the light just wasn't right. Even this shot is not great light. I'll keep working on this one during the month since these flowers are right here in our parking lot.
And here's my boys. Connor is such a fabulous big brother.

May 6th

Still on my experimentation with red flowers.......

May 5th

My lovely Connor changed my brake pads. Gage was feeling a bit better. We had some lovely soft tacos for dinner with the missionaries and Aiden and I got to eat MEAT because we used some of the deer (Aiden and I recently went vegan - making exception for game).

May 4th

A sad birthday for Gage. Still feeling under the weather, he and I stayed home from church. But Aiden was feeling quite well as she headed off for services, after which she helped prepare pancakes for around 200 young single adults.

May 3rd

The only time I got out was to go to the store in the evening. So I took a picture of a flower from the displays out front.

May 2nd

Well, with Gage feeling so under the weather, he wouldn't sleep and was very cranky on the 1st resulting in the late night photo shoot. But luckily it meant that I took a couple pictures AFTER midnight. Lucky because he was so very, VERY cranky the next day that I never got another picture that day and one of the post midnight ones will have to do!

May 1st

I thought I was doing SO well to remember that it was the first of May. I even remembered to grab my camera as I was leaving the house for the seemingly unending parade of errands. I saw something that looked like a good photo op. Ahh, the first picture of the project! But no, the batteries I had snagged off the charger as I was leaving apparently hadn't taken the charge. Zip. Nada. So the first day of May passed in one frustrating missed opportunity after another. I put batteries on the charger that evening when I got home and then lapsed into the zoned out state of the errand running Mother at rest. So the first picture of the project almost didn't happen. I snapped back to reality at about ll:45!! FIFTEEN minutes to get a picture after dark with a camera that's flash doesn't work. Great. So I took the shade off the living room lamp which happens to have that good old full spectrum bulb in it, threw a tablecloth over a chair, and tried taking a picture of one of these nice tumblers a friend gave me. But Gage is feeling sickly and not sleeping and wants to play in the water with one of his cars. I give up on the glass, putting it on the kitchen floor so he hopefully will stay distracted. He had left Elina's Liberty water dome so I thought I'd try and get a shot of it with the confetti floating around but the camera lag time results in the shot always happening after the confetti settles. Besides, now he's back and grabbing the dome. Oh bother. Why even try and fight it? "Gage, can you set the dome right there?" And he DID!