30 Day Photo Challenge~ Day 20 & 21

Day 20-Water....
E is getting to such a fun age! He's turning into a little boy instead of a baby. You can actually ask him questions like, "Are you ready for your bath?" or "Are you ready to go to bed?" and he'll take off running towards the bathtub or grab your hand and lead you to his room. He's really sweet and it's very exciting for me to watch him grow and learn. He absolutely loves his bath and when he's in it I make sure to get all the un-fun stuff out of the way, like the cleaning and washing of the hair, butt, and itty bitty toes, that way he can spend the rest of his time having some fun in the water!!

CAUTION: COMING INTO ENEMY LINES!!
Day 21~Macro

This is a picture of one of my most dreaded enemies that actually enter our garden. SQUASH BUGS! I don't have a huge problem with them, at the time....but the problem is, they can be incredibly hard to get rid of. If you're even attempting an organic garden and start becoming infested with these little fella's then you might as well give it up. So far so good-I've been able to swipe off all these nasty little eggs to keep the nymphs under control.

30 Day Photo Challenge~ Day 18 & 19

We've had a great weekend. I've seen the inside of my kitchen more this weekend than I have in a really long time. I now understand why women didn't work back in the day. I understand where the saying, "I've slaved over a hot stove all day!" came from. I have canned until I can't possibly can anymore. It's been great fun and I plan on writing a post and sharing some pictures just as soon as I get time.
In the meantime, I'm running behind on my photo challenge. I did manage to get my picture yesterday-I just didn't get a chance to post it. So here's to day 18 & 19. Eyes & Summertime.
These are my sweet baby E's eyes. I love this little man...Such a sweet sweet soul he has!

And our sunflowers...WOW! They are amazing. They have grown well over 9 ft tall...Now I'm just waiting until they actually bloom. This little guy (and I call him that because he is only upwards of 5 ft tall) looks as if he's going to bloom any day. The sunflowers remind me of hot...sun...summertime. I couldn't resist taking a picture of them.

Here is a picture showing the height of the flowers!!

30 Day Photo Challenge ~ Day 17

It's been quite the busy day. I woke up this morning thinking it would be like any other Friday but after being at work for only an hour I get a call that E's temp is running around 102.3 and that he needed to be picked up. Not what I wanted to hear! After taking him to the doctor just to be told what I already know-he has another ear infection, we then came home and started getting busy. I'll save all the details for another post because you know I took pictures along the way! In a nutshell though I made my first ever blueberry jam and dill pickles. I also had plenty of time to get some cleaning done and to work on day 17's picture. This one was hard. Day 17 is "Bokeh." Basically if you don't know what that is-its a fancy Japanese way of saying blur or more specifically something like a uniform disk blur. Anyways, here you have it-Day 17...
It's a picture of one of our many peppers growing out back.

30 Day Photo Challenge ~Day 16

Day 16, Mason Jar-Aaron's Cherries....

I'm tired.
G'night.

30 day Photo Challenge~ Day 15

LIGHTS....CAMERA....ACTION...

Not much action goes on in my life on a work day. I wake up at 5am, head to work, sit at a desk for 8-9 hours, come home, make dinner, get the kids ready for bed, get myself ready for bed, wake up and do it all over again.

I was pondering over and over again what action I may be able to capture and all I came up with was the action going on at the gym. While I should have been working out-instead I was snapping a picture of the machine as I do as many crunches as I can while lifting 20lbs at the same time. I wonder who saw me & hope that no one did. I'm sure they would be thinking, "What kind of vain person takes a picture while in the gym....?" At least it was with my phone/"Ipod" so maybe it wasn't quite so obvious. :)

30 Day Photo Challenge~ Day 14

Day 14...Someone you Love.

My first instinct was to take a picture of my entire family....but then I noticed that family is coming up in the near future. I decided to just set my camera down and wait until something caught my eye. I didn't know if it would be E, K, Boodro...Aaron. Who knew...But when the time was right I would figure it out.

The night was hectic. We were trying to have a father's day dinner for Aaron and it just wasn't going well. The kids were tired, cranky, crying....We're all running around like crazy and then out of nowhere, silence. I look around and K's on the couch watching TV and E's sitting on the floor watching K. A moment of peace. I knew this was the time to go grab my camera and capture a picture of someone I love. Perfect! My sweet big boy with the normal dirt stains on his face. :) I love you baby!!

30 Day Photo Challenge~Day 13

Today-day 13 was "Reminds you of childhood." I thought about this one a lot while I was at work. My first thought was to take a picture of a Curious George that I have....or maybe Patches, my very first teddy bear. I even contemplated taking a picture of my very old heart pillow that my grandma made me. In the end though I kept going back to the ring I remember my mom always wearing. When I went to take a picture of the ring and I noticed how perfect the star in the middle was shining-I knew I had made the right choice.

Oh and how could I almost forget. It's been awhile since I've entered a photo into a photo challenge but this past week with time off I had a little spare time to do just that and I'm happy to say I was chosen as a favorite over at Trendy Treehouse. It makes me feel good to know others enjoy my pictures as much as I do. :)

Makin' Jelly

It's been a pretty cool day.....We were sitting at Nanna's house with Uncie Tye and Aunt Jeni, who we hadn't seen in a while...I was looking through a canning book and stumbled across a recipe for some Jalapeno Pepper Jelly. I'm not sure if you've ever tried that jelly but it is SO GOOD! As soon as I saw it I decided that this would be my challenge for the day. We have plenty of homegrown Jalapenos and we have no clue what to do with all of them. I've never made jelly and of course I haven't canned the first thing but I figured it couldn't be that hard....Right!?

Daddy & K picking some peppers, potatoes, and zucchini.

Today's photo challenge for June 12th was "Sun Flare".....Perfect!

Preparing the peppers.....Maybe I should have worn gloves. My fingers still burn!

Cooking the "jelly." I truly had no clue what I was doing. Looks pretty though, right!?

WOW, that's a lot of sugar!!

Stirring, stirring, stirring....the whole mix.

Jars are loaded with the jelly. Now it's time to boil them.

What a mess!! This seriously took more pots and pan then I could have ever imagined!

The finished product. I'm so impressed, proud, excited...can I just go on and on!?!?
One Jar for Nanna who helped supply the jars, lids, and the pot.
One Jar for my Dad...Happy Father's Day!!
One Jar for our neighbors Mr. John and Mrs. Betty who we love.
and the rest for us....YUMMY! :)

30 day Photo Challenge~Day 11...My 2nd

So I'm continuing on with my June photo challenge and I'll be honest, I was a little worried about capturing a silhouette for day 11. We have family in town and I didn't know how much I'd be by camera so it was weighing on my mind a little.
No worries here though.. The first shot I got was of our sunflowers. They still haven't bloomed but up against the dusk sky they just look beautiful.

Photo taken with the FxCamera App on my Droid.

The next shot was of my sweet husband grilling us dinner last night. I wonder what was going through his mind...

30 Day Photo Challenge~Day 10....My Day 1

I am so excited to be doing another 30 day photo challenge. I did two back when I was still writing under Schrocksters Live. One was a 30 days of beauty challenge and the other was a 25 days of Thanks challenge. I loved having the motivation to pick up my camera everyday and to discover how easy it was to find something to photograph whether I felt up to it or not. This challenge that can be found over at Our Feathered Nest started on June 1st. Yes, I'm a little late to the party. I may just do 20 days or heck....I may even extend it on into July and finish up day 1-9 then. :) Also life is busy, as we all know, so I may not get on to post my picture(s) each day but you can guarantee that I'll be taking my picture and I'll catch up on all posts when I get a chance. Here is the list:

Day 10: So day 10 (my 1st) was pretty easy to me. Animals. K has been outside in his pool playing all day today. It's only a measly 95* outside. I think all of us could use a little cooling off.