Which one???

For my macro class today we were given a "challenge". Everyone was given a rose. Then we all had 2 hours to shoot the rose in the most artistic way possible. We have to hand it in by next Wednesday. Then our instructor is going to have other classes vote on which one they like the best. The "winner" will have their picture made into a large print and displayed at the school, then they will be able to take it home at a later time.

I was given a pale pink rose. Here is what I came up with, let me know which one you think is the best. Then I can decide which one to hand in. (the number is above each picture) Please use the survey to the left to choose your favorite.
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Photo Shoot

Yesterday I had my first of 2 photoshoots with Ed's cousins daughter. We went to the bluffs in Red Wing. It went so well, and was so much fun! Erin was easy to work with; a natural model. We took 600+ pictures, it is going to be tough to narrow it down to just a few. Her mom locked her keys in the car, so we had to wait for her dad to come with the spare set. It was nice though, because it allowed us to take our time and get a good variety of poses and backgrounds. I have one more shoot with her in two weeks out at their house. I am guessing that one will go just as smoothly! She was beautiful and great to work with...Thanks Erin it was a lot of fun!!! Here are just a few of the shots we got...

Cooperative Models!

Advice...

In my last post I told you about all the baking and canning I have done, well I have encountered a problem...
Most of you know how I feel about washing dishes. I love the dish washer. My general rule of thumb is that if it doesn't fit in the dishwasher then we just don't use it. I HATE washing dishes by hand. Why should I anyway if there is a machine that can do it for me? Well, while I have been doing all of this baking I have been using a cutting board to cut all the fruits and vegetables. I have a wooden one that has grooves around the edges to catch the juices. I put it in the dishwasher and washed it. It's just a cutting board right, whats the harm? When I opened my dishwasher after the cycle, I pulled out the rack and my cutting board was broken right in half!
Well, it could be the fact that wood isn't suppose to go in the dishwasher right...So, I went back to the store and bought another one. I spent 2 hours last night cutting and peeling tomatoes on my new one. Before I went to bed I loaded the dishwasher, when I got up this morning to empty it that board too was split right in half as well!
So, here's my advice: It probably is a good idea to hand wash a wooden cutting board. What am I going to do you ask? I am definately not going to break my "rule of thumb". I will buy a plastic cutting board next time...Anyone know of any that have the groove to catch the juices?

Trying to be Domestic...

So, the last few weeks I have been canning and canning and canning. I have made 4 batches of salsa, 4 batches of dill pickles, 1 batch of spaghetti sauce and still have a ton of tomatoes to do something with. Hmmm...I am not sure what else I am going to make with them. It'll be interesting I am sure.

This past weekend we to the kids to Faribault, there was suppose to be an airshow, due to the weather a lot of it was cancelled, but we were able to check out a fighter plane, see a demo of a RC airplane, and check out a army truck. Since that was not as exciting as we had expected we took the kids to the apple orchard on the way home. We got a couple bags of apples and some popcorn. The kids did have fun there. We think we will go back in a few weeks and when it is nice out. Anyway, to get rid of the apples I baked an apple pie this morning...It smells and looks really good. What do you think???

On Sunday Mom and Dad took the kids to church with them and Phil and I went up to St. Paul to the farmers market. I love that place. There is sooo much produce and a ton of beautifull flowers. We usually make it up there a couple of times each year. We bought a ton of stuff; tomatoes, potatoes, onions, zucchini, and green beans. So, to prevent it from going bad I needed to use the zucchini up. I made two loaves of bread with it. The kids LOVE my zucchini bread. I have that baking right now.

Yesterday, just Ness was home. We had to go to Apple Valley to take some lenses back to the school, and I needed to develope some film. After that I remembered that it is raspberry season. So, then she and I went to the raspberry farm and picked 7 1/2 pouds of berries. When we got home I washed them and made 2 batches of jam. We also had raspberry milkshakes for dessert last night...What a treat! I still had some berries left so this moring I also made a raspberry pie.

By the time my streak is over we are all going to weigh 500 pounds. I also made several batches of Strawberry jam and Apple jelly in the spring. We also have jalepeno pepper jelly! We are going to be eating PB&J until Jesus comes! The kids are thrilled about that...They could eat it for every meal everyday! Well, better be going I have to clean up my house I have a meeting with another client about senior pictures this afternoon and due to all my baking the kitchen looks like a tornado has gone through!

Funny Video

I was sent this in an e-mail this morning. I thought it was kind of funny. I am proud to say that my husband knows better than to do anything mentioned in the song!

One more funny today...

The kids just got off the bus. The new thing around here has been catching grasshoppers and observing them in a petry dish that Austin got with his telescope for his birthday. Anyway, this morning I noticed a grasshopper in a dish, he looked almost dead. So, I opened the dish carefully and ran the other way so it could get away without getting me!
Well, the kids just got off the bus and Austin threw a fit because I let it go, he wanted it dead so he could disect it or something. Belle came running over with another petry dish and said, "Here Austin I have two that you can have. She had the two grasshoppers in the dish together, one of them was "on top" of the other one. They were so excited that the bigger one (ie the male) was giving the smaller one(ie. female) a piggyback ride! They were cheering and everything (I am sure that the whole neighborhood heard them). I just left them be, no birds and bees talks here today!

Funny...
We have tons of flies in the house. It is a pain. They are constantly circling everyones head. Nobody realizes that if they would keep the door shut, the flies and other bugs would stay out. I am always saying "shut the door". Anyway, when Nessa sees them she panics and shouts, "beefly!". When she sees a bee it is just a, "bug" she still panics, but not as bad as when she sees a beefly.

Serious...
Everyone knows how bad I hate the hedge in the back (the one between the driveway and alley) We have tried to kill it several times, but it always comes back and it seems the stupid thing is fuller than before we hacked it down. Anyway the other day Belle was walking through the hedge. Yes it was the long way, not just a step through. I am still unsure of why she would do this. I was standing there talking to one of Austin's friends parents and the child began freaking out. Sreaming as though she were dying. She had a bee (a real one) flying around her that kept stinging her. She was just standing there screaming, so I grabbed her and pulled her out of the bush. I was worried that she had disturbed a nest or something, but that wasn't the case this time. (thank God) Anyway, we came in the house to get ice and put some paste on her stings. I really don't think the stinger went into her skin. She did have 3 welts on her arm though!

I better sign off...The bus is going to be here soon, then I think that Carson, Ness and me will make a trip to Red Wing.

Tooting my own horn

I started shooting fall sports the last week in August. I was extremely nervous, as many of you know I am not a sports fan or player of anysort. So, I had no idea what to expect. In highschool I went to the football game, but never actually watched it. And volleyball...well let's just say I never played that either. Tennis, just "played" in phy ed, but never really understood or cared to understand it. Well it has now come back to bite me. Who would have thought that the most unathletic person on earth would be shooting sports pictures for the paper. Now seriously, I love my job. I like the challenge of getting the good shots, I think in part my lack of knowlege of these games helps because I have to always be alert. At least that is what I am telling myself:)

So, back to the first week of games. I was scheduled to shoot RHS volleyball on Tuesday and CF football on Friday. I walked into each of these totally clueless about the game, let alone knowing how or what to shoot. Volleyball went ok. I got some decent shots. It is really hard to follow that little ball with the viewfinder on my camera. But I managed to get decent shots. Then Friday...I called Andrea (Old photographer for the paper) and asked her for some pointers. Well, she came up (from plainview) and shot the game with me. Gave me pointers, showed me where to stand and so on.

Everyone knows that I procrastinate like no one else. I didn't look at the pictures until Sunday night. Here's my thought...Why look at them right away. There is nothing I can do to change what is in the camera. So, if there are bad pictures in there they will be there on Sunday night too. Right??? Why ruin my weekend dwelling on pictures that suck. There has been one time that I was nervous about handing in my pictures, so its not like a common occurance. Still every week I procrastinate until the last minute.

Anyway, Back to the Football game...Sunday night I went through them. They were good. I actually impressed myself! I am taking a workshop class at school this semester. Basically the student gets to choose what they want to study and their intended outcome at the end of the semester. So, my instructor and I decided that I should use my time for sports photography. Hey, why not work and do homework at the same time? Two birds one stone. So, I have to show him my work as well as type up a journal and such. I pulled up the pictures on the computer at school and showed him, he was impressed too. He is trying to help me work the sports thing into my photo business. Like offering to shoot the kid at their ballgame along with senior pictures. He has also suggested going on my own time to some of the ballgames then selling my shots on my own website to the kids or their parents. Good ideas I am working on implementing all of them.

The paper then came out that following Wednesday. I had 4 pictures in Color, 1 in Black and White. (very rarely is anything in color) The pictures took up one whole page. I was so excited.

Here are the shots that were in the paper...

And now Carson is off!

Friday was Carson's first day of kindergarten. He was very nervous before he left. He asked me if I would go with him. I told him no, but Grandma would take him to his classroom. That made things a little better. I guess mom took him over there and he asked her to stay with him. After all of that he got home in the afternoon and I asked him how it was and he said AWESOME! The only thing that he remembered doing was singing a song about school is cool.

Now today was completely different. He was up and excited to go. They all rode the bus today because mom had a meeting. I told Belle to help him get his breakfast and stuff...He said I can do it myself. They are all growing up so fast!

Yesterday we went to Northfield for Jesse James Days. We watched the reinactment of the bank robery. Belle was concerned when one guy was shot and fell off his horse. So we had to explain that they were just pretending.

After that we wondered around looking at the craft booths. I especially liked the photography ones. Carson and Austin did too. They stood with me and went through a good chunk of pictures with me. There were even some that I would go by rather quick and they would stop me and make me go back so that they could get a better look. Kind of neat that my kids are interested in the stuff that I enjoy!

Then we went to the parade. It was 2 hours long! The kids got tired and bored near the end. There was one float in the parade that had a giant cow on it. I was showing the kids as it came around the corner. Belle looks at me and said, "Cows are lame, Mom." I have never heard that word come out of her mouth before. So, later we were talking about the "lame cow". We asked her why they were lame then she said, "because all they do is eat and poop and walk around. You can't even ride them." Anyway we had fun for very little cost! I love days like that.

Saturday we went to a party at some friends house. Phil had a bachelor party, so he didn't make it. The kids and I went. They had hay rides and balloons and a scavenger hunt for the kids. We all had a great time! We didn't make it home until after midnight, the kids were still going strong when we left, but fell asleep on the ride home.

It was just a relaxing weekend with nothing major going on. I wish we had more like that!

Lots of Pictures!

First day of School!


1st grader!


4th grader




Wipe out!

Last night we were going to go to the duck pond...On our way Carson went through a patch of sand and wiped out. This is one of his battle wounds!

Belle's birthday was yesterday!

Belle is 7!


She has 3 boyfriends...Only one she will admit to. And her wish...was that the boy would like her as much as she likes him!


The favorite present.

A trip to the zoo...We went on Sunday afternoon.

Notice the butterfly on Carson's hat!


Butterfly Garden


Sloth


Carson had to sneak into this one.


They almost look angelic don't they?


She took a break from eating the butterfly brochure to pose for a picture.



Look this way...arrrrgggg!





The hit of the zoo was the spider monkey he hung on the glass looking through at us!




The tiger was actually up and moving, granted he was pacing, but moving none the less!





After a long day at the zoo; fake smiles, annoyed looks, and tired kids!