My Favorite May Picture

Wow,  I haven't been around in a while. 

I haven't been taking many pictures.

I haven't had much to say...

But I wanted to share my favorite picture from May.  Courtney from Click it up a notch (awesome website) is hosting another contest. 

I chose this picture because I learned something new this month.  How to meter someone's face.  I think that I was a little off and got it too bright but I LOVE that her face isn't dark!  I can't wait to keep trying!

Kids Clothes Week Challenge :: Ruffled Halter

Last week Elsie Marley hosted a Kids Clothes Week Challenge where you are to sew for an hour a day and make some new spring/summer clothes for your kiddos.  Last year I got a shirt done.  I am a very slow sewer.  This year I totally fudged on the rules.  I still only made one shirt but I did it the week before and in two (maybe three) nights.  I have no idea how much the whole thing took but my husband was on a trip and after the kids went to bed I could do what I wanted without feeling bad that I was ignoring my "better half".

If you want you can check out the flickr pool.  The things that these women pump out are amazing!  I do wonder if they really only sewed for an hour each day.  I don't think that they are counting all the prep work like washing the fabric and laying the pattern and cutting the pieces out. I could never work that fast!

So here is what I made:

It is the Ruffled Halter from Oliver+S.  I've always wanted to make something from one of their patterns and this one is free!  I also want to make her a pair of matching Knotted shorts.

Bethany is so willing to have a photo shoot.  Enjoy!

Ten on Ten :: Take Two in May

Last month was my first time trying the Ten on Ten.  It was hard.  Lugging my camera around on a Sunday was awkward.  I was looking forward to this month to try again. 

Tuesday!
Then I found out that this month's ten on ten coincided with our churches pastor's conference. Ugh.  I was hoping for some outside time.  A little nature would be nice.

Turns out that the conference only went until lunch and it was the hottest day!  I did manage to get some outside shots.  I had to fudge on the times.  I really couldn't do one every hour.

So here we go...


6:30ish

I crept outside when the dandelions were still sleeping.

The lilacs are almost there.

7:00am

Made it over to the pastors' conference to have breakfast with my eldest daughter.

7:30am

Driving to school.  Gotta love the shoes.

During the conference.

This note fell out of the pew Bible.  Gotta love it.  NOT even from my own kid.

Picture of the shoes.  Just like last time.

After the conference.

I got home and we all dashed out the door to spend our time in the yard.
We were out there a good couple of hours.

 The rhubarb is going crazy!

 

This is why we don't mow our lawn until very late spring.

The seed pods look ready to burst.

My favorite kind of play.

Arboretum

I love the MN Arboretum.

It took me a year or two of living here before I finally visited to see what it was all about.  I really didn't think that the kids would like it.  I was wrong and I am so glad I was wrong.  The kids had such a great time.  I was grinning from ear to ear!  Don't you just love it when the kids enjoy something that you enjoy.

One Christmas we were given a family year pass by a dear friend that has since past away.  I've been buying family passes ever since.  Last year I had this strange feeling when I was buying the pass.  It felt like paying the heating bill or the grocery bill.  Not in a bad way of paying the bills.  More like you don't have to think twice kinda paying the bills.  Of course you are going to pay for heating your home, you can't go cold can you?  Of course you are going to pay what you need to in order to feed your family, you can't go without eating can you?  Of course you are going to get that family pass to the Arboretum, you can't go without seeing the crab-apple trees in bloom and seeing the dahlia's bloom and...
 

See what I mean.  Easy as pie.  As simple as breathing.

Now that it is spring I will be posting about our adventures in this lovely place more often.
Stay tuned!

Hello from Skating show land.

Just wanted to show you a few pictures of my skating girls.  The first show was tonight and we have two more to go.

Emma is a twins baseball player and Caitlyn is Lucy from The Peanuts Gang.

Pretty gorgeous.

"Mom, can you hurry up.  I want to get inside."

"Snap all you want."  (This one is a ham.  She gets it from me.)

I'll be back again soon!

My Favorite April Picture

I'm so excited about this new-to-me site.  Click it up a notch is such an amazing resource.  If you have been wanting to learn how to take better pictures this is the place to go. 

And guess what?  Courtney is hosting an April photography contest!

I decided to take a risk and put one of my pictures out there.  The photos entered in the contest so far are beautiful!

I picked this one because I love how the smoke from the fire softens things up.  I love the warm afternoon sun.  I love the color of the chair with the purple flower in my daughter's hair.  I love that I took it in manual.  Oh, and I love my daughter!

So what do you think?  Seriously, tell me the truth!

Knitted lace and if I had time to sew...

So I missed the Yarn Along yesterday but I still wanted to post.  I know not a lot of people come to visit the blog without me linking up to something but I still want to keep things up.  It is so hard to know if people are really out there and if people really care about what I'm writing.  The blogger stats are very unreliable.  AND when it comes right down to it, I'm not writing to gain a public following.  I'm writing because I like to write.  I like to share pictures and I like to share the things I love.  I have a blog because it's fun!

So lets have some fun, shall we?

Knitted lace and Paddle~to~the~Sea.

I call that fun.

(Ok, ok, I never said I was cool, nerdy fun is still fun you know!)

Here is a close up.  

The lace sorta looks cable-ly to me.  I still haven't tried cables but it's on my list!

Taking pictures in manual mode is also fun.

This isn't the prettiest of shots but I would have never gotten this on auto mode.  I am such a newbie at this I still have the f stop at 5.6 all the time.  I have a few books and resources and I'm getting better.  I'm itching to be able to learn how to fix pictures (I'm actually shocked to find out that most of the awesome pictures I see on the internet are "doctored" in photoshop.  Picasa has a few tools and I lighten and darken and change the color temperature on some of the pictures but know that MOST of the pictures on my blog are "Straight out of the camera"  I just learned that people call that SOOC.

All right.  That was nerdy too wasn't it.  Maybe the title of this post should be "All the Nerdy Things I Do"  Would it shock you if I said I LOVE Lord of the Rings and X-Files?

AND

If I had time to sew I would love to make this, and this, and this.  ALL the things those ladies make are Ah-maze-ing!

So, on the drawing board (or blogger dashboard) are a few posts.  One about photography, one with a picture to enter this, one about the Arboretum, and hopefully one "writing exercise" post.  As I said in my intro post, "I blog in my head".  Too bad it doesn't just flow right out into the computer!