20 Week Photography Challenge Week 14

This week's challenge hosted by A Step in the Journey is sunsets. Unfortunately, sunsets around here are often lackluster. I didn't manage to snap the one decent sunset this week due to the fact that my camera wasn't in the car with me, so I'm re-using an old one that I snapped a couple of months back. It really was stunning, so posting it twice is hopefully okay. Enjoy!

20 Week Photography Challenge Week 13

This week's challenge hosted by A Step in the Journey is silhouette. This should be easy since I have two cute little guys that I love to photograph, but again, life happened. I've been so busy that I've barely managed to pick up my camera, except for the times when I'm teaching photography to the kids at my workplace. That's really sad because my kiddoes are at such a fun stage that I don't want to miss capturing the memories we're making. So I'm resolving to be better about that. Anyway, here's two shots which maybe, kinda, hopefully count as silhouettes:

First bike ride! Check out the cool shadow.

These black birds were so dark that it's almost like they're a silhouette, right?

check out some fun silhouettes (and most likely better) over at A Step in the Journey

20 Week Photography Challenge Week 12

This week's challenge over at A Step in the Journey is bokeh. One of my favoritest things to capture! I love setting up my camera to blur my background and sometimes even adding in more bokeh on my processed images. Unfortunately, I just have not had much time to get anything done. I would feel like such a slacker, except for I'm incredibly busy with other things, just non-bloggy things. Here's my single lonely capture of bokeh for this week.

Check out more bokeh in all its glory over at A Step in the Journey

20 Week Photography Challenge Week 11

This week's (ELEVEN!) challenge of the 20 Week Photography Challenge is orange. Again, I had such high ambitions of getting things done around here and then having plenty of time to snap away til my heart's content. It didn't happen. I did manage to snap two orange items for you...

Some orange popsicle sticks, and red, and purple, and..

These circus signs are showing up everywhere around here. They're kinda creepy.

So there you have it. My pitiful attempts at orange. But maybe this weekend I'll finally get to the pumpkin patch or the castle at the top of our city to shoot some lovely fall foliage.  Linking up to the challenge HERE.

20 Week Photography Challenge Week 10

This week's photography challenged hosted by A Step in the Journey is Hands. We have plenty of cute little hands around here. Hands that get into trouble, hands that get messy, hands that explore their world, and hands that give hugs and caresses. Here's some of my favorite hands shots this week:

Linking up to http://www.astepinthejourney.com/. Cheers!

20 Week Photography Challenge Week 9

This week's 20 Week Photography Challenge is "A Mess." Wow. That's so incredibly easy to capture around here. I have two children, aged 3 and 2. My house is always a mess. I guess maybe the hard part is finding a bit of the mess to photograph that's visually captivating.

Here's some of this week's messes:

Linking up to A Step in the Journey. Go check out some other lovely messes on Thursday!

20 Week Photography Challenge Week 8

This week's challenge is black and white. I love shooting in color and then adjusting my files to be black and white (always saving the color versions of course in case I want to go back). I find that the best subjects in black and white are usually people. I'm not a big fan of landscapes in black and white (think Ansel Adams) though of course there are exceptions. Unfortunately since I've been really sick this week with a bug I haven't had much energy to take some photos. I took one which I'm submitting here:

This is my littlest guy. We were on the floor finger painting. The smudges on him are bright pops of paint. It was a messy but fun experience. Here's the color version, just so you can compare:

I think I actually prefer the color version. It gives a better narration I think. But since I'm sick and slacking on my photography challenge, that's all you get. But I will leave you with my all-time favorite photo that I took in black and white. I just absolutely love this photo of my father (Papa) with his oldest grandson (who is now almost four years old).

I love the tenderness of the pose, and the casualness of it. The juxtaposition of old life and new life. The way my dad looks to be breathing in this new baby smell of his first grandson. I think it's actually a better photo because they aren't looking at the camera. What do you think?

Linking up over at A Step in the Journey.

20 Week Photography Challenge Week 7

This week's photography challenge hosted over at A Step in the Journey is What I Wore Today. As I may or may not have mentioned previously, I'm not a fan of self-portraits. I'm usually the one behind the camera. So I may have gotten a little crafty and shown you only one piece of what I wore today.

These are my favoritest heels that I currently own right now. Though there are a pair of ADORABLE shoes at the base exchange that I covet. Secretly and without hope. They're $158. I would never ever spend that much on shoes. There's so many ways to spend $158 and getting a single pair of shoes for that much seems like such an exorbitant waste to me.

I also have to admit that I was tempted to pull a Joey on you all. You know, "Could I BE wearing any more clothes?"

Alas, that was way too much work. Linking up to http://www.astepinthejourney.blogspot.com/

20 Week Photography Challenge Week 6

This week's photography challenge hosted by A Step in the Journey is "from a low angle."
I took a ton of photos for this week's challenge as it proved to be an easy one (grab camera, lie on stomach, take shots) but am only showing three. I've been a bit of a digital hoarder (okay, a big time digital hoarder). I have so many photos that I'm reluctant to throw away, even if they're grainy, out of focus, or hopelessly overexposed. I'm trying to be better about this and so I've tossed most of my shots from this week into my trash bin on my pc. Here's what remains:

Linking up at:

20 Week Photography Challenge Week 5

This week's photography challenged hosted by Laura Beth at A Step in the Journey is from a high angle. I may have had an advantage this week because we went to a fair (see yesterday's post for more photos) and we rode the ferris wheel. That's not cheating, right? Here's my photos this week:

To check out more great photos and fantastic people, check it out here:

20 Week Photography Challenge Week 4

This week's challenge is Dinner. Ugh. I wish I was more of a Martha Stewart in the kitchen. I tend to have a few tried and true recipes and I rotate between them. I've recently tried expanding my horizons. Here's last night's dinner. It was supposed to be Chicken Fried Rice, but since I didn't have soy sauce it wasn't exactly chicken fried rice, but it was still tasty.

It didn't photograph terribly well, but that's probably my fault. I'm simply awful at photographing food. I definitely need loads more practice. Consider it on my to-do list.

 Here's my adapted recipe if you're interested in making this incredibly easy and quick dinner.

Chicken Fried Rice

What You'll Need:

2 - 3 chicken breasts, seasoned and diced
3 scrambled eggs, seasoned with salt and pepper
2 grated carrots

1/2 white onion, finely chopped

3/4 cup peas

2-3 strips bacon, fried

1/2 cup butter

2 tsp. minced garlic

2 cups whole grain rice (non-instant)

soy sauce

What You'll Do:
1.  If you have time, marinate the chicken in soy sauce or your seasoning of choice. I didn't have any soy sauce on hand so I used a splendid mixture of spices that ended up tasting like smoked applewood seasonings. Use whatever suits your tastebuds.

2. Cook the chicken in a small amount of olive oil. Drain any excess olive oil and add the shredded carrots and diced onions. Saute until the onions go clear.

3. Add the peas, garlic, and cooked bacon to your chicken mixture, stirring well and lowering the heat so as not to burn it.

4. Meanwhile, make your rice in a large pan. If you use 2 cups rice, you'll want to boil it in 4 cups water and a dash of salt. If you're using a boxed rice (like the boil in bag) be sure to follow those directions. Once your rice is fully cooked, but not mushy, drain it and add the butter. Mix well. You can also add more of your seasoning that you used on your chicken directly onto the rice as well to make it more flavorfully. Just taste after every seasoning attempt to make sure you don't overdo it.

5. Scramble three eggs and chop it into little pieces. Add the egg and the cooked rice mixture to the chicken pan. Stir. Serve, topped with soy sauce or not, your choice.

Recipe adapted from: One She Two She
Linking up to A Step in the Journey as part of the 20 week photography challenge.

20 Week Photography Challenge Week 3

This week's challenge hosted by A Step in the Journey is bold colors. With two bold little personalities around here, you'd think bold colors wouldn't be hard to find. In fact, they weren't. We took the kids to a little fair in our city here and of course, bold colors were everywhere. Here's some of my favorites:

Linking up over at the 20 week photography challenge. Feel free to join in on the fun!

20 Week Photography Challenge Week 2

What makes you smile? Well, what doesn't? Smiles come easily to me. Especially when I'm surrounded by those that I love and cherish. I'm blessed with two sweet boys and the love of my life, my husband. What isn't there to smile about? Here's two of my favorite little guys who always bring happiness.

Here it is in color; I had a hard time deciding which version to post.

I had a hard time documenting this week's challenge. For some reason I haven't been taking very many photos, so in my haste I just snapped these on the couch (it's raining outside). I know that there's so many better backgrounds, but atleast this is representative of my everyday life. Sometime snapshots are so much better than all those posed formal photos, don't you think?

Check out more entries over at A Step in the Journey

20 Week Photography Challenge

Since I've been struggling a bit with my photography (really really really want to take a class or two) and I've been struggling with posts on here, so two birds with one stone: I'm going to join a 20 week photography challenge here online. Woot! I'm actually really excited. I really enjoy the challenges over at Beth's blog so I can see myself really getting into this. It's being hosted by Laura at A Step in the Journey.

This week's challenge is a self-portrait. Ugh. Not my favorite photo subject, but maybe it should be. I have all these wonderful photos of everything else but me. You can definitely tell that I'm always the one behind the camera (the hubby is pretty skilled with a camera too but I rarely let him steal my camera). Here's a couple of shots that I managed to snap rather quickly since there's a couple of people around here that are sick and clingy...



Your standard hold the camera away from you pose



Everyone looks better in black and white, right?

You can find all the information about participating by going HERE. If you do join the challenge, or you're participating in another one, show me! I'd love to see what you've done!