Frame-A-Day Week 43: 10/22-10/28

Another big milestone was attained this week...we hit day 300!  We're in the homestretch.

October 22--The Yellow Jelly Beans-- Last tee ball game of the season.  Here are all the mighty members of the Yellow Jelly Beans--and a few of the dads-- with Chretien.  Everyone got a trophy and a "good job".  See you in the Spring!

October 23--Orange You Glad We Visited the Pumpkin Patch?--Earnest had been asking for a few weeks when we were going to get our pumpkins this year.  Last year we missed out because he was sick the day we planned on going.  Today we went and came home with a few good ones.

October 24--Just Hangin' Around--Earnest taught himself how to hang upside down and flip over today, purely by accident.  Once he got the hang of it, so to speak, he tried it again.  It likely won't be the last time.

October 25--Improvisation--Just about a month ago, on September twenty-sixth, we saw Earnest scaling the deck's railing rather than using the steps.  Now we have both boys using the railing as their own personal workout station.  Who will be next?  An entire gymnastics team?

October 26--Dig Those Shades--I had my annual eye exam, complete with pupil dilation, two hours before my virology class.  Not only did I forget to bring my sunglasses with me on this rainy Wednesday, I forgot that I even owned prescription sunglasses, which would have been more stylish than these disposable lenses from the doctor.  I had a few more minutes to kill before walking over to class, which went fairly well, despite the challenge of lecturing with dilated pupils.

October 27--I do have a photo for today, but in the interest of maintaining privacy, I cannot share it.

October 28--Say It Ain't So...Snow!...Last night, we had our first dusting of snow of the season.  This morning, it was in the 30s and the snow was lingering for a bit.  I captured evidence of this early snow on the last of the hydrangeas.

Project 64: Catch up for weeks 38-41

I mentioned in my Gold post today that I missed four weeks.  I sat down tonight and went through the photos I took during these weeks and found some that fit the bill.  I did have to bend time a little bit in some cases, but I'd rather be caught up from here on out than be still looking for these outstanding colors.

So, here we go...

Week 38:  Bittersweet

This one I shot on October 23, so about a month late.

I just love the mums in the fall, don't you?

Week 39:  Periwinkle

This is a tough color.  I had to go all the way back to July 17th, our vacation, to find this color at all, and I don't even love the photo in that there are wires cutting across the photo, but in the interest in moving on, I'll go with it.

Despite the technical issues, I do think the clouds and sky in the upper part of the photo match periwinkle.

Week 40  Brick red

This does not seem to be the color I think of when I think of brick red. It almost seems too pink.

Here is my match. I took this on September 5:

My older two kids were getting ready to enjoy one last boat ride of the season at our local amusement park.

Week 41: Burnt orange

Interestingly, this photo was taken on October 10, which was in the correct time frame!  Too bad I wasn't paying attention very closely to the website.

My daughter, mom and I went to a botanical garden and took a hay ride. 

I feel good, now that I've caught up!

Project 64: Gold

I knew when school started again things would be crazy.  I'm not sure what happened, because I didn't anticipate things to be so crazy that I haven't been able to keep up with the Project 64 contest, which is too bad since all those wonderful fall colors have been in the weeks that I've missed (FMR: bittersweet, brick red, burnt orange as well as the non-autumnal periwinkle)  .  I fully intend to go back and see if I have captured any of them in the past few weeks or just shoot them when I have time.   I want a full crayon box.









Anyway, I actually do have a nice gold photo, which is the color this week. 

Today we went to get pumpkins at a garden center, which has an extensive gift and toy shop.  They have many Christmas trees decorated, including some that are decked in fall tones.

However, I got this shot which is more Christmasy than not, but it does fit the bill for gold.

You can see some of the fall trees reflected in the ornaments behind me. You can also see me!

NOTE:  I did my catch up weeks in the subsequent post.  You can see them here.  I feel good to be caught up and back on track for a full box of crayons come the end of March.

Frame-A-Day Week 42: 10/15-10/21

October 15--Safe!--A tee-ball game in action.  As you'd expect, it's pretty amusing to watch a bunch of four to six year olds who have no concept of the rudiments of the game play.

**October 16--Ready for Action--(This is not the original photo)--Trust's Brownie troop participated in an animal day and got to see and handle animals such as a chinchilla, turtle and even a python!

October 17--Pretty Boy--Trust and her brothers spent some time getting ready for school with some new 'dos.  Not sure if this is quite the right style for Imp.

October 18--Right In His Own Backyard--Time to make a sandcastle. Imp really enjoys playing in the sandbox at school, and now that Chretien made one at home, he can have fun in his own backyard.

October 19--Little Chocolate Donuts--I received a mini donut pan for my birthday and tried out a yummy recipe for baked chocolate donuts. I doubled the recipe and it made 48, and these were topped off with a chocolate cream frosting. Needless to say, these were a big hit among all of us.

*October 20--Lego Loveliness--Another early release day, and we headed to the library as we did last month for some fun. Today was Open Lego Build, which involved a whole lot of Legos in a room with a bunch of creative kids. Earnest and Trust both enjoyed building cars and then hunting for a whole stash of library books.

*October 21--Halloween Party--Tonight was the Halloween party at the kids' school. The proceeds will go to the fourth grade class for their fun activities next year. The kids were so excited to put on their costumes for the first time. Earnest's actually glows in the dark, and we can see him prepping it here before we entered the party.

Frame-A-Day Week 41: 10/8-10/14

*October 8--If I Had a Hammer--Oh, wait, they all did have hammers this morning, at Lowe's "Build and Grow" kids' workshop.  Each made a "Monster Machine", a little box with blocks with monster parts which rotate on a dowel, where one can mix and match body parts for crazy combinations. Too bad they didn't learn how to do kitchen renovations.  Maybe next time.  (This photo is cropped since Trust and Earnest had name tags on).

October 9--It's Magic--We went to our amusement park today and attended a magic show.  The magician showed us how a particular table just levitates on its own; it came down into the audience with the magician in tow.  The table "selected" Trust to come on up and help with the magic.

October 10--Autumn Fun--Trust, my mom and I went to an autumn festival at a local botanic garden. The garden itself is lovely as it's perched on a hill with a view of the mountains.  There were crafts for purchase, kid crafts, a hayride and alpacas, a goat and chickens to visit.

October 11--Little Fishies--We went to get our flu shots tonight.   The boys enjoyed looking at the aquarium while we awaited our turn.

*October 12--The Summer Olympics--This is part of Trust's poster; the actual photo for today has her name prominently displayed.  She had her first non-fiction book report/project to complete.  It wound up being a bit of a group effort, what with my printing the letters and a real photo of Chretien and me on the podium at the stadium in Sydney, and Chretien's help in doing the layout.  It turned out pretty well in the end.

October 13--Happy Anniversary to Us--Chretien and I celebrated nine years of marriage today.  He made a wonderful dinner of apple maple chicken, similar to what was served at our wedding reception.  We finished it off with this special yummy cake.  It was such a nice surprise.

October 14--You Can't See Me--At least, that is what Imp thought as he buried himself under our two very soft blankets.  So funny how little kids think that if they hide their faces, we can't see them.

Frame-A-Day Week 40: 10/1-10/7

October 1--Score!  No!--Trust has been playing soccer at the YMCA for a few weeks.  There is practice on Wednesday and games Saturday afternoons.  There are only about seven kids total so the word "game" is used loosely.  The nice thing is that all the kids get to play the different positions.  Here we see a great save that Trust made as goalie.

October 2--Climb House Craftiness--A somewhat quiet afternoon in the climb house.  Trust was working on new drawings, but she took time to show the word search she has created for her classmates for Halloween, similar to last year.

October 3--Cat Nap--Moe takes a snooze on a lazy Monday afternoon.

October 4--Crazy Hat Day??--Not quite, just Trust deciding to be goofy when she was getting ready for bed.

*October 5--Amazing Technology--I am teaching my biennial virology class this fall. The classrooms at the medical campus have always been fairly nice and up-to-date, but I was very surprised at the change which greeted me this semester. The classrooms had all been renovated and supplied with awesome technology. I likely won't use it every week, and I definitely won't use all the capabilities, but it's nice to have the option(s).

October 6--A Castle To You, Mommy--Imp entertained himself with building this tower and announcing that he built "a castle to you, Mommy". Such a good boy, that Impy.

October 7--Look What's Popping Up--Took the kids to the First Friday Night at the Children's Museum. Earnest loved getting the ping pong balls to pop up when he blocked the other exits. Technically, this photo is awful, but I am not sure what else I was supposed to do as the area the exhibit was located was very dark. This is ISO 1600, f/1.4 and 1/180 shutter. I suppose I could have slowed the shutter speed, but then the balls probably would have been blurry. I tried a flash but that wasn't much better.

Quarterly Top Five Photos

I mentioned in my last post how busy things are for me right now.  Although I've dropped the ball on my Project 64 posts for now (although I hope to catch up soon), I don't want to miss out on the Quarterly Top Five.








Of course, this was tough!

 

Here is Earnest, on our vacation when we made a stop at the USS Alabama. I really liked how he had a flag T shirt on and was playing with the bell.  I didn't realize it until after I was looking at the photos, or I would have made more of an effort to not cut the flag off.

I love this photo of Imp. There is such a fun memory associated with it as well. He loved, loved, loved the birds and couldn't get enough of them. 

This photo was taken at a local farm.  Imp was being tough, but then he just stopped and decided to pick some flowers.  I figure he won't be this sweet forever, so I may as well enjoy it now.

This was taken with my new Smartphone. I'm still getting the hang of it (this was taken about a month ago) but I like Trust in her glasses.

This photo just makes me laugh.  Look at the expression on Trust's face.  We were on a swamp tour and we all got to hold a baby alligator. 

Frame-A-Day Week 39: 9/24-9/30

Craziness abounds!  This semester has been really tough, since I'm not used to having 8:30 AM classes four days a week.  If my commute weren't so bad (about an hour each way, but only if I leave prior to 6:45--otherwise, it's well over an hour), this time of day wouldn't be tough, but I'm dragging, since I'm not going to bed early enough to get up at 5:15 on a regular basis.

Anyway, enough of this.  Onward to the photos for the past week.

September 24--Victory!--The kids were practicing T-ball in the yard.  It looks like Imp attacked the tee and won?

September 25--Climb Every Mountain--...or at least, the steps to the 'climb house'. The expression on Imp's face just kills me. Hee.

September 26--Doing Things the Hard Way--Not sure why Earnest was climbing over the deck railing rather than taking the conventional steps, but it probably made sense to him.

September 27--Star of the Day--In Earnest's kindergarten class, each child has taken a turn being the "star of the day".  This entails bringing in an object for show and tell and other privileges, including leading the line for lunch.  Earnest opted to bring his favorite blanket, a superhero blanket that he received for his birthday from Nana and Grampy.  This amuses Nana, since this gift was a last minute grab.

September 28--The Many Faces of Apple--Earnest has been studying Johnny Appleseed and apples in general for the past few weeks.  This was a book he brought home today.  Chretien and I got a good chuckle over the expressions, including 'sleepy' and 'mad'.   Earnest didn't devise those expressions on his own, but they were still amusing.

September 29--Tongue Tied Times Two--When I arrived home today, I had two little boys greet me with a "Hi, Mommy"; the scene I saw made me feel good.  They were doing a puzzle together, and from the looks of this photo, focusing quite intently on the task at hand.  Just look at their tongues!

September 30--Riding a Bike!--Trust capitalized on her day off today by finally learning how to ride a bike.  I was so surprised when I rounded the corner onto our street and saw her on her bike.  Go Trust!