Project 64: Yellow

The color at Project 64 is yellow, such a happy, sunny color for the drabness all around us this time of year.

I have been waiting for yellow to be able to use this photo.

My daughter and her school friend before their ice skating recital.  Ironically, the show's theme was "colors" and their number was "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini".

Best photo for January

I'm entering the contest over at "Click It Up a Notch" for the best photo taken in January 2012.

I'm going to go with this photo of my daughter. She is a playing a game called Kanoodle which she received for Christmas. There are 12 oddly-shaped "noodles" which need to be placed in different configurations to fill a two-dimensional board or build a three-dimensional pyramid.  She has really enjoyed the challenge of these puzzles.

Frame-A-Day '12 Week 4: 1/22-1/28

How is it that we're already finished with the first four weeks of 2012?  That in a few days, January 2012 will be history?

January 22--He's Got the Moves--Earnest had two birthday parties to attend today. The second one was at a roller skating place. Did I mention that Earnest does not know how to skate? He gave it a try, but I don't think it's the sport for him.

 January 23--Ride 'Em, Cowboy--A friendly little canter around the family room before school is how we started off the week in our house.

January 24--Tickle Me--Somehow, the boys ended up in our room tonight, and were begging to be tickled.  Who could refuse such a request?

 January 25--Just Dive Right In--Well, maybe not dive, but Earnest definitely enjoys jumping during swim class at the Y.  He's been taking swim lessons off and on for about a year.

 January 26--Slimed!--We went to the library for the second installment of "Jammin' Science".  (Read about the first visit here.)  Today the scientist performed all types of cool chemistry demonstrations, including colorful displays of acids and bases, invisible ink writing, an active volcano, and slime, which the kids enjoyed mixing and squeezing after the show.  The entire audience was very animated and I wished that my students could show half as much enthusiasm.

January 27--A Hot Date--Chretien took Trust and Earnest skiing, so Imp and I had a hot date.  We went to a local pizza place, where he charmed the waitstaff and everyone at the hostess stand, and then we moved on to window shop at Toys R Us.

January 28--ROAR!!--Lowe's Build and Grow Workshop had the kids creating their own "Buildasaurus" dinosaurs. We tried to tell the kids that the dinos needed to sleep after a few loud, vociferous ROARS, but neither the kids nor the dinos would have any part of it.

Project 64: Brown

This week's color was brown.

 Plenty of this color outside these days, but I turned to my kitchen:

These were delicious!  Peanut butter and Nutella cookies.  The edges of some of the cookies and some of the Nutella stripes best match the brown.

Frame-A-Day '12 Week 3: 1/15-1/21

January 15--What Goes Up--I took the kids to a local children's museum. Here, Earnest enjoys the 'ball room', which is similar to the one at the museum that we frequent but with a few more tracks of varying complexity.

January 16--The Box Stitch--The kids and I went over to my sister's house today for a few hours.  Their older cousins have many games and toys that we don't have, so it's fun for my kids to pull out different things to play with.  Here, my niece is showing Trust the finer points of the box stitch with gimp.

January 17--Bedtime Stories--Often, part of the bedtime routine is for me to read the boys a story or two on Imp's bed.  Earnest's favorite author these days seems to be Robert Munsch.  The stories are cute and usually have unexpected endings, and the illustrations are colorful and engaging.

 January 18--The Internet to the Rescue--Tonight when I had a craving for peanut butter cookies, I searched the Internet for something new.  I unearthed a recipe for Peanut Butter and Nutella Swirl cookies.  In my house of peanut butter lovers, these won't last long.

January 19--We're #1--...or at least, Earnest is.  We receive the Wii for Christmas and of the three kids, and without a doubt, Earnest has excelled at it.  In particular, he loves Mario Kart.  When I arrived at home tonight, he was so excited to tell me that he had unlocked new worlds, characters, and vehicle options.

January 20--I have photos from today, but they'd give away our location.

January 21--Winter Wonderland--The kids had a lot of fun playing in the new fallen snow in our backyard. Here is my entry for "chill".

Project 64: Blue Green

The color at Project 64 is blue green:

This shade reminds me of Pacific Blue and Cerulean from last spring. I never realized how many hues of Crayola crayons are very similar.

Anyway, I found Blue Green when I took the kids to a children's museum on Sunday.

This is a huge Candy Land game board.  It's the original, probably from the 1950s.  The blue green is in the title banner as well as the squares.

 See?  Life-sized!

This is my submission, where you can see the title banner a lot better:

Frame-A-Day '12 Week 2: 1/8-1/14

Week 2 is in the books.

Last year, I decided to work on better learning my Pentax and I think I was fairly successful.  I shoot almost exclusively in manual mode, which was a huge departure from staying on green.  This year, I decided I wanted to learn about post-processing, since I essentially didn't do any last year.  I received Photoshop Elements for Christmas and have done a little bit of playing.

I am not sure what to say.  What a difference a little bit of tweaking makes.  I am going back and fixing all my photos from last year's Project 365 before making my Blurb book.  At least this year I can edit them in real time.  Of course, I only know the very basic edits right now, but even those are making a big difference.  With that said, most of this week's photos have not yet been edited, but I will get to them as I have time.

Anyway, here are this week's photos.

January 8--It's Not Your Mother's Hopscotch--The kids made a hopscotch board today. Notice that the numbers go beyond the basic 8 or 10. What can't be seen in the photo is that the board goes around the corner and ends at 42! Trust mentioned that if she could open the gate and go around to the front of the house, she could probably reach 100 blocks. Hee!

January 9--Do You Kanoodle?--Santa brought Trust this Kanoodle game. There are 12 oddly-shaped "noodles" which need to be placed in different configurations to fill a two-dimensional board or build a three-dimensional pyramid. She has enjoyed completing the various board puzzles and today moved on to the pyramids.

*January 10--What are Little Boys Made Of?--Although the song says "snips and snails and puppy dog tails", in our house it appears to be masks and sheds and Build-A-Bear friends, at least for the resident five year old. Today Earnest was "Star of the Day" and as part of that role, he gets to bring in some items from home to share with the class.

January 11--Leave Me Alone--Cats have it pretty good, no?  Days full of contented napping, unless you've got an intent photographer in residence who won't leave you alone...

 January 12--Physics is Phun--The kids went to a science show at a local library today.  The scientist demonstrated different physics principles and all the kids had fun trying out some of the demos after his performance.  In this experiment, Earnest is about to push the pan, which will topple the stake and the ball will neatly fall in the glass of water.  The fact that all three kids were enthralled with the show made my day, as I teach college-level science!

January 13--Breakfast for Dinner--A dinner that is consumed with gusto (and sans complaint) is breakfast.  Tonight I treated the kids to a meal of chocolate chip pancakes, which I fashioned into dog faces with whipped cream for the eyes and mouth and sausages for the ears.  They decided to kick it up a notch and put their PJs on and switch their cups and plates around.  It was a fun way to wind down on a Friday night.

 January 14--Figure 8--Whenever we go to Lowe's for the "Build and Grow" workshop, the kids like to walk down the aisle with the house numerals and pull out their ages.  For various reasons, this was the first time since Trust's birthday where we've had a chance to take that walk.  She excitedly pulled out the "8" and I snapped this photo.

Project 64: Wild Strawberry

The color at Project 64 is Wild Strawberry.

I found some in both her shirt and I think the heart on the necklace is an even better match.

Frame-A-Day '12 Week 1: 1/1-1/7

First post of the new year's project.  A clean slate!

January 1--The Sky's the Limit--I took the kids out to ride bikes/roller blade at a local school this afternoon, and there was another family there who was shooting off a rocket.  Of course, my kids had to get involved with chasing after it, too.

January 2--I've Got a Brand New Pair of Roller Skates--Yesterday Trust tried out her new roller blades at the middle school with little success; today we hit her elementary school and the poured concrete sidewalk was a much better surface to roll along on.

January 3--Kickin' Back--Imp was just chilling with some favorite things--a show ("Despicable Me"--also known as  "The Yellow People" in Imp-speak) and an orange lollipop that tasted just like orange juice, according to Imp.

 January 4--Wild Strawberry--Trust just happened to be decked out in "wild strawberry", the color for Project 64 this week, so I had to capture this image of her for my submission.

January 5--The Mitten*--Imp and I went to the library today where we heard Jan Brett's "The Mitten" and then had a chance to stitch up a pair of our own.

January 6--Mixing It Up--Imp had a gig tonight where he mixed up some tunes...or, perhaps, he was just trying out the boards at our children's museum.

January 7--You Can Build It...He Can Help--First Home Depot kids' workshop of 2012!  The kids built "savings sheds" (aka banks) with a bit of help from Chretien and I.

Project 366 Rewind Introduction

It's a new year! As I did last year, I'm linking up with Sarah here:

every week. It was fun last year to do a Project 365 and visit with the other participants, and I'm looking forward to my second year as well.

This year's theme is "Project 366 Rewind"; we will have prompts to try to incorporate into our photos each week.

Here is my carryover photo from December 31, 2011, which didn't really fit in week 52 of last year's project and isn't really part of week 1 for this year, either.

It's actually a good photo to serve as my introductory photo for this year's project, as all the key players are present and accounted for during our New Year's Eve "fundue" meal.  There is my husband, Chretien.  We've been married for 9 years and have three kids--Trust is 8, Earnest is 5.5 and Imp is 3.5 going on about 13.  My family was my focus for my project last year, and I figure, they will probably comprise many of the photos this year as well, although I will try to incorporate the themes that Sarah suggests.

I'm looking forward to another great year and meeting some new bloggers.  Welcome!