Tag Archives: winter

Forced Creativity

January 4, 2014 Molly 2 Comments

One of the best parts about doing a Photo 365 so far is the forced creativity. There are so many days when I would not pick up my camera, out of laziness, lack of time, lack of inspiration or lack of light. But, committing to do it reminds me that I must find a few minutes every day to shoot something.

I’ve been hanging out by my back window, hoping to catch some cardinals. Today, I saw several!

Female on the left, male on the right. Someone, my mom I think, told me when I was very young that the male birds are almost always the more colorful, interesting ones.

I made two different kinds of soup for dinner. Ham and Potato Soup and Creamy Broccoli Chowder. I can’t give you a personal review of the Ham and Potato, but the Broccoli is so, so good. Andrei told me that it was new to him and very good. Lena, Gus and I all had seconds. Aaron told me he liked it better than the Ham and Potato. Oh, but it looks unpleasantly greenish brown when done, so Reed won’t touch it.

Back to the subject of photography, I had a huge pot of soup on the table and Gus discovered his reflection. He was very entertained.

Now. Star trails. I posted about my star fails a few weeks ago, and I’ve been meaning to try it ever since. But, the truth is that I have to be feeling pretty dedicated to want to spend AT LEAST a half hour out in the dark to take these. So, I copped out. I mean, I decided to see what I could come up with in my backyard, where I could retreat to the warmth of the house.

I’m pretty pleased.

Everyday Life, Project 365

New Year, New Hair

January 1, 2014 Molly Leave a comment

Two little boys got haircuts today.

And here’s December’s 365 calendar…

I think I did pretty well with December’s Must Capture list.

~~Aaron’s birthday~~
~~Lena’s birthday~~
~~Advent Calendar activities~~
Getting and ~~putting up Christmas tree~~
~~Kids with Christmas tree~~
~~Opening gifts~~
~~Winter weather~~

We “got” our tree from the basement this yet, after realizing how little time we had to go cut one down ourselves. I crossed off winter weather, although I didn’t shoot a ton of that, just snow after it fell. Oh well, I think I did okay!

Everyday Life, Photography, Project 365

Sunday

December 30, 2013 Molly Leave a comment

We spent the day celebrating Christmas with Aaron’s family. Unfortunately, we missed last week when all of his siblings were there, so it was just his parents and brother.

It’s a long drive to their house. Which apparently means I take selfies with Reed and my dogs.

I’m super cool.

Lena and Gus have bucket seats next to each other. I tickled Gus’s feet for awhile, but he wanted more, more, more and I quit. Someone else took over.

And this adorable thing happened.

This makes me happy. In the midst of people and many toys, I found her with her nose in a book. I can’t imagine how much more she’ll enjoy books when she can read all of the words.

Lena just adores her Uncle Micah.

Presents were opened. Lots of presents. Including envelopes which probably seems odd, but I promise you, Reed and Lena will use them up fast. And maybe we can even use some of them to write thank you notes!

I went out for a brief walk with my dogs, and saw several cardinals. I love their bold color against the starkness of winter.

And my dogs are ridiculous. Ridiculous.

Everyday Life, Photography, Project 365

An Elk in Kansas

December 29, 2013 Molly 2 Comments

Aaron had to work this morning, but I wanted to do SOMETHING today. It was a bit warmer and a good day to go somewhere. I love Kansas for its wide open spaces and general tranquility, but it does seem to lack tourist attractions. Unless you want to visit the Agriculture Hall of Fame, the World’s Largest Ball of Twine, or the Geographic Center of the Contiguous United States.

I settled on the Maxwell Wildlife Refuge, a bit of a drive, but we’ve never been there before and it has both bison and elk. Aaron and I have seen both in the wild several times at various National Parks, but our kids haven’t. In fact, the only National Park they’ve been to so far is our trip to Great Sand Dunes back in August. We probably should fix that soon.

The start of our trip. Reed told me that he wants a camera like mine. I explained that it’s something that could easily be broken or damaged by little hands. But, he can start learning and handed him the camera manual.

This quickly happened. Gus took the best nap he’s taken since he moved to a big boy bed. Score!

Unfortunately, we missed out on the tours, as it was so late in the day. We could see both a herd of bison and a heard of Elk in the distance.

We decided to drive around, hoping that we’d see something. And we spotted these guys.

We drove around a bit more, and unfortunately, the only additional wildlife we saw was some geese.

On our long drive home, we stopped for some Barbecue. It was on my bucket list of things that we needed to do with Andrei. Have I told you that Gus is in this adorable phase where he comes up to me often and says “I want a hug, please”? He’s started doing it with Lena, too.

He just presses his little body into hers. And, I love her reaction.

Everyday Life, Photography, Project 365

Merry Christmas!

December 26, 2013 Molly Leave a comment

Ah, Christmas. I told the kids that they weren’t allowed to get up until it was light out. Of course, they were downstairs the second any sunlight came in their windows.

My favorite memories of 2013 present-opening:

Reed and Lena handed out gifts. When they tried to give Gus one of his, he just said “no”. They had a brief stand-off, where they tried to hand it to him repeatedly, and he kept calmly saying “no”. Until I finally told them to just set it down and he’d open the rest of his gifts later.
Another was when he opened his Yo Gabba Gabba DVD and stared at the case in wonder and confusion for about one whole minute. Finally, he smiled.
Reed and Lena exclaimed “all of our pictures!” when they looked at their photo albums that I had made from one cent Snapfish pictures and dollar store albums. They took time to look through them before moving on to the next gift.
Reed’s reaction to watching Gus and Lena open the gifts he had picked out for them. He was so, so excited to see them open what he had picked out for them. He got Lena a “purse”(makeup bag?) and Gus a Hot-Wheels car.
Both Reed and Lena’s reaction to Reed opening Lena’s gift to him. She picked out toy nunchuks for him, because he loves ninjas. And he loved it.

After the present excitement had died down, we crossed 3 things off of Reed’s winter break to-do list by decorating gingerbread men.

Gus told me he wanted to decorate a cookie, but I knew that would happen. Lena told me that she “accidentally ate part of it”. I knew kids + cookies + candy = inevitable munching, so I just asked them to decorate more than they ate, which Reed and Lena did without a problem.

The toy-of-this-Christmas is definitely Reed’s remote control car. Lena also got a remote control car and Gus got a little remote control robot, but Reed’s is the big hit. Gus loves it so much that I’m tempted to get him one of his birthday.