Baby Friday - we survived a scout court of honor

My brother, Elliott's favorite uncle (right Willie?) is now a "life" scout. I'm not quite sure what that means, but I think it's one step away from the Eagles nest. The Monkey and I joined the fam. for the court of honor the other night. Never been to one of those before and it made my cub scout pack meetings look like a walk in the park.


At almost two hours in length, we were all pretty much dying. Lots of technical difficulties, a little bit of disorganization, and many, many photo slide shows.

It was good though and Elliott was so well behaved, especially so close to bed time. He climbed on chairs, clapped when boys won their awards and when the music started playing, he ran to the center of the church gym and basically got his groove on ala John Travolta.

He was happy to celebrate his Uncle "WeeEee's" accomplishments.

And, two weeks ago, we bought him a bike. He pretty much only likes to ring the bell, but we're working on riding it.

New addition to the family

It's not a baby, but it's close. I am now the proud parent of a new digital SLR camera and I am in love. Still working out some of the kinks and learning all the settings but so far - it's like we're running towards each other in a field of wild Flowers after years apart because of war. Yes, it's that good.

The true test of the camera's strength will be on Friday, when I do some engagement photos for a very young, sweet couple who are so kind to ask me to be their photographer. In the meantime, I've messed around a bit with the monkey and the bathroom sink. So far, I likey the results.

We were lounging on our favorite thing last night - mine and Ross' bed, so I broke out my new baby to take a few shots. I thought "gosh, won't it be fun to take a little family picture because the last time I tried it ended up looking like this..."



Yeah, not the greatest, I know. Well, our results last night weren't that much better because the Monkey has a desperate need to eat the new camera instead of just watch it take pretty pictures. I still like what we got...casual and fun and a little bit blurry.



Other than these two beauts, we don't have anything except a picture from a year ago at my cousin's wedding when we gave Elliott a night off from his helmet.

Anyway - enough is enough right.

If you want to buy my old and still in perfect condition camera (with manuals, cables and at least one lens and maybe a camera backpack if you're interested) then drop me a comment and we can negotiate.

par for the course

yesterday he did this:

dumped two large cups full of water out of the bath tub

dropped his yogurt bites down the furnace vent

threw his milk at me, twice

head butted me so hard that I bit through my lip a little
dumped out all his fishy crackers - picked some up and smashed the others with his bare feet

as always - threw his food, my favorite throwing selection being bananas that he had already squished in his hands

threw a mini basketball at my face

threw his pacifier at hid dad and hit him in the eye

snuck away from supervision to reach and reach and dump over yet another cup full of water

It seems like we're seeing a trend here...

Our county fair is the best county fair...don't miss it, don't even be late!

Yesterday I was inspired. You see, Haley and James stopped by my house as they were preparing some of James' photography to enter into the SL County Fair. Once they left my house I got the submission bug and prepared, very last minute, some images to submit on my own. Lucky for me I just bought a new photo printer - I was off and running.

I submitted in the amateur class and I think that I submitted in categories different than James so I wasn't competing with him.

These are the photos I submitted. What do you think? Do I have a chance?

Submission 1: Botanical category
Title: Quarter Fleur

The friendly Germanic man who helped me with the paperwork told me that this image would have been better if I left the yellow center of the photo in tact and had that as my focal point instead of the flower's petals. He's probably right, I guess...I didn't tell him that I already knew that and that I intentionally cut it off to focus on the petals.

Submission 2: Animals in the Wild
Title: Moose in Repose

My paperwork helper liked this image and knew exactly where I had taken it, Albion Basin, which was pretty cool.

Submission 3: Still Life
Title: Independence Hall

Everyone around me liked this one - they said it was calming. Mr. Germanic told me that in order to take this picture, I'd have to set my camera to it's manual settings - I told him that's exactly what I did. He was impressed and couldn't criticize the image - only my mounting, because one corner was already peeling away.

It's exciting to enter a contest - even more exciting if I were to actually win a ribbon. If you are interested to see the results, the county fair is this week - August 6-9.

Thanks for the inspiration James. And, good luck to you, too.

Baby Friday: The Talented Mimic

So, last night I came home from work and helped Annie prepare for Book Club. Our downstairs toilet had a mineral ring from disuse. Elliott and I went upstairs to get the toilet brush and we subsequently scrubbed our 3 toilets. I was hauling him around and he was keenly observing.

Fast forward 15 minutes. I am standing in the kitchen eating dinner and Elliott is wandering around with a large wisk in his hand. I noticed that he had gone into our half bath and all of the sudden, I hear a splashing sound.



This is what I found.



He is a fast learner and a talented mimic.

Now we just need to teach him to vacuum and do the dishes....