kirstencan

Let's Stay Home

It's been a really really busy and stressful few weeks. 

It's finally slowed down a bit.

Thursday afternoon I found myself going "Okay, what's next" and then realizing I had a couple free hours.

I felt free.

And I have a free weekend.  With conference.  I love conference.

Next week looks good, too - a slower schedule due to Spring Break.

I'll take it.

.....

It was inevitable, but I finally bought Ashley G's Let's Stay Home print.  I've had it bookmarked for years, I think.  It matches our new quilt, so I  had to get it.  And it's so US.  We are way too busy  for a couple of homebodies.

Someday we'll get a headboard, but I kinda dig how it all looks in the above photo (from my instax camera).

Lately :: photo dump

Sunrises on snowy mornings are so gorgeous around here.  I wish I could capture them better (remember this one?  even better).

We have a new tradition:  When you finish a workbook, you get to take a Victory Lap!  We're nerds.

Legos.  Always.

I tried Hot Crash Potatoes (I always want to call them Hot CRACK potatoes - and they're that good) one night and had leftovers for lunch the next day.  Yum.

Trying to finish up reading last conference's talks before the next one.  And I still love my Nook - Aaron got me the reading light for my birthday!

Another shot with the quilt my MIL made me for Christmas.  I'm still in love with it.  And I had forgotten to bring up a pillowcase for me when I brought up the clean sheets - so I snagged the only one I could find upstairs - a Santa one.  Whatever.

Making me happy:  this little corner.  A bubble painting by my sister, and a temple painting gifted to me this Christmas from my other sister. 

The red head had to research and make a poster about an animal for cub scouts.  Lumpy liked the end result.

Book 2!  His sister is charging him a penny a day in late fees since it's taken him more than a week.  UMM... he's six, and too scared to read it in the dark before bed, so.... that's just wrong.

Same kid, different... stripes.  Also on his face.  Also had a ribbon tied around his waist for a tail.  He is very inspired by Calvin.

Cutting up fabric donated by a quilt shop for the little girls at church to make pillowcases this weekend.  Luckily my mom helped did most of it - thanks, mom!  I was afraid I'd mess up the measurements.  That sounds like me, anyway. ;)

What's up with you?

Where I'll be this weekend

It's an action-packed weekend!

I'll probably be at all three performances of Sleeping Beauty (plus a nice long dress rehearsal tonight).

Heading downton to see my brother's show on Friday

I must admit that this morning I'm hoping we can make it to Karl's show, but he said he might not start playing till about midnight... and boy, that is late for me now!

Not to mention it would be hard to be that tired with such a busy weekend - with  several other things (my calendar needs to just stop accepting new items) including at least one basketball game for my girls (semi-finals!) and... my birthday!  Woo!

And since my birthday's on Sunday, I'm declaring Monday a Family Holiday.  No school.  Because I think I'll need a break after this awesome, but busy weekend!

Here's the other poster - because I did the posters again this year.  I ended up making two different ones because I couldn't decide between them!

Hope your weekend is awesome, too.

Framed

Finally.  I've wanted to do this forever!

I finally printed a few beach photos and framed them for above the school cubbies.  There used to be a quilt there, then a... tree.

The boy photos are from 2010, the one of the girl is from last year. I wanted photos of the beach because (it is my heaven and) we now have such awesome family memories there.  I think photos with people in them are more interesting than just landscapes, though.  But I didn't want more oversized portraits of my kiddos (like above my mantel in the next room). So these have my children in them, but they're not ABOUT my children, does that make sense?  Kinda?

I think they look smaller in these shots, but they are each 16 x 20.  I printed them at Costco ($5.99!) and I was really pleased with the results.  They look just like on my screen.  Very pleased indeed.

There is also a little satisfaction in picking these photos because they are straight from the camera - no editing.

The only thing I'm not happy about is the glare from the windows.  Unfortunately there is just too much light in that area and you just can't see them well from some angles depending on the time of day.

Overall, very pleased, though, and so glad they're finally up!

Hearts

I am working on a little photography project and wanted to try this method of making heart bokeh.

First, to see if I'd made the lens cover right, I pointed it at my computer monitor - at this picture.

Hearts!

Then I spent a little time outside trying to find places where this would work.  It would be really easy in the summer, with all the leaves, but winter is ... bare.

The next two are at a park.

Anyway, I don't know if it will work for what I was thinking of, but it was a fun experiment to try!

Love is everywhere.

A Day in the Life

I mentioned before that I had lost the adaptor for my weird, fiddly lens.  Well, I was 10 seconds away from buying a new one, when I wondered if I'd left it ON THE LENS.  Yep.  Then I laughed and felt dumb.  It's a great place to keep it, I just forgot.

I got it out Thursday and made myself take a lot of shots, really practicing with it in manual mode.  All those shots all day turned into a 'Day in the life' type deal.  Which is kinda fun.   So here's Thursday, January 26th:  a gloomy, cold and rainy day.  But also Aaron's birthday.  All shots are SOOC (no editing).

Early: checking email + blogs

Breakfast

Thomas showing his sister his Sea Monster book - again

Hot chocolate for one who woke up coughing

Wet hair + grammar on the couch

Math

Erasing

Chemistry = Khan Academy video

The girl's been writing our to-do's on the whiteboard for us lately

Thomas finished book 2 and is starting book 3

I have two kids who insist on sitting like this

The girl making Aaron's birthday cake

My date with nordic track + hulu

Playfoam on the chess board

Building bionicles

Wrapping Aaron's presents (where is the clear tape?)

Toes + playing geosafari

Playmobil

Laundry

Leftovers for lunch

Lego

Practicing piano

Computer time

History = game about buying supplies with Spanish cobb

Art = painting something inspired by another work of art

Speech = waiting in the school library - Monkey chose to come with today

Driving to dance

Supporting our team (final score was 41-14 -woo!)

Dinner = black bean soup + bread

Rearview mirrow

Picking up the girl

Happy Birthday, Aaron!  The girl's german chocolate cake turned out delish.

Making myself use that lens all day helped me get the hang of it more, which is good.  I think I'll be keeping it on for a while.  Plus, it's kinda fun to have all these small details from one day.  I should do this again.

On Photography

You all know I love taking photos, right?  Whether you like mine or not (and whether I've been putting effort into the photos on here lately or not) I hope that's been made clear. ;)

So, I don't talk about it a ton here, in part because of face/privacy issues, and I have yet to set up a photography blog or portfolio, but I've been doing some portraits for people.  Just some, here and there, like senior photos, babies, (ballet posters), a few families and most recently engagements.

And bridals.

And a wedding.

Whaaa?  Yeah (this is where my daughter would say "I know, right?!").  I did the engagements and bridals as a gift/trade for a really sweet neighbor.  And it turned out that they were in great need of a photographer for the wedding day.    I tried to say no, but that didn't work, so I just had to give it my best shot.  Literally.

Actually, I was still trying to say no when another sweet neighbor offered to come and shoot with me.  That made all the difference!

I think we pulled it off nicely.

Shooting with a friend was awesome.  First off, she rode with me, so I had someone to chat with on the way up.  And that calmed my nerves.  Because, oh yeah, I was nervous.   Also, just practical stuff worked well,  like we shot from different angles, with different cameras and lenses, so we got a lot of different stuff at the same time.  Which was kind of awesome and didn't take as long.  Also, if the bride's bouquet was blocking her face in my shot, it wasn't in my friends, so that rocked. 

Having people actually want to use me as a photographer has been interesting.  If I had to pick a career (besides homeschooling mom, which I love), I'd definitely pick photographer (or art teacher...).  I have SO much to learn, I don't feel like a pro, but it's fun 'playing' pro.  If I were to make a go at really being a photographer, I'd have to be better about what I charge people.  And that's hard, especially when most of my 'clients' have been neighbors.  And I love my neighbors.  But it takes a lot of time to shoot and edit photos.  And time is what I don't have a ton of.  I think I could maybe try and grow a small business at this point, but I really don't have the time to.  And that's okay, my time needs to be with my family right now.  So what do I do about that?    Okay, I'll take your photos, just don't tell anyone who did them?  Because I can't say no all the time. 

Also, photography has been a great way for me to serve others while doing something that I love.  I've volunteered and taken shots for families in our neighborhood who are taking care of foster babies, which was fun and rewarding. 

So I've been thinking tons about photography lately.  I was thinking of maybe upgrading my camera but it really suits my needs right now.  I am drooling over a new portrait lens, though.  I have that old school 50mm, but it's super fiddly and I don't think I'd be great at manual focus in portraits.  Kids move too fast.  And I can't find my adaptor ring for it (where?!).  So I'd really like a new 50mm, and the one I'm looking at is supposed to be nice.  End of babbling.

My sidekick, sporting it's new camera strap and camera bag (Christmas presents - yay!).

Train museum = Heaven

So that railroad museum?  I can't believe we've never made the effort to go before!  It takes an hour to get there, but it was well worth it!  Especially for the boy who used to spend hours watching Thomas, then hours watching train documentaries and has multiple train sets, loves the model train shows, etc.  Good. Stuff.

Outside they have a bunch of engines/cars* that you can check out/climb on.

Heaven.

Seriously, they climbed all over these things (a breakdown train!).

Oh, yeah, and this boy was wearing his birthday shirt.  I stenciled a shield shape (going with the Knight theme kinda) and decided on Roman numerals for the '9'.  I was worried if I put a regular 9 on it he might not wear it next year, and I'll bet it still fits!

Anyway, I kinda dig how it turned out...

We got to go inside a couple of cars, like this mail car (with a hook for picking up the bags! My kids didn't know what that was, but I did - cartoons?).  I loved all the sorting bins and cubbies.  We also saw a hospital car (which included an amputation saw...).

Did I mention you could climb all over these things?

We all had a ton of fun (and these are just the outside photos!  We went inside the actual museum, too and it was way cool) and really made this kid's day.

Happy Birthday part Two to the Birthday King!

*A silly pet peeve of mine is when people call engines 'trains'.  Engines PULL trains.  Trains are made up of cars/coaches.  'Thomas the Train' isn't his real name either, I don't know who started that - it's 'Thomas the Tank Engine' (hasn't everyone heard the theme song?).  Silly, right?  That's what I get for watching/overhearing years and years of train dvd's...

Pumpkin Patch

There's something wonderful about pumpkin patches.  This one stepped it up a notch this year with free hay rides and a little corn maze.  Still very sincere.  Locally-owned and actually grew the pumpkins. 

Fun stuff all for the price of a few pumpkins.

Hooray for fun and not spooky Halloween traditions! 

Have you been yet?

p.s. My favorite part was when Thomas got sick of the corn maze and busted his own way out through a 'wall' yelling 'I'm FREEEEE!'. Ha!

New(ish) Toy

So, I am totally lame about getting around to using our scanner, but I've been wanting to show you guys some little prints from my new toy.  I got an Instax mini camera back in September.

Isn't it cute?  And yeah, it's really taken me this long to scan them.

If you haven't seen one of these cameras before, it's an instant camera, like a polaroid, but the photos are smaller, the size of a credit card.  The photos print out of the top.

I LOVE playing with it.  I have to think about the shots more since each shot costs, unlke digital.  There are hardly any controls to mess with, and when I do try to mess with them to trick the camera it never works anyway. ;) The poor little thing can't handle too much light input, and I've had things really overexposed - but I tend to like that.

I bought it just before our last beach trip, here's a few shots I liked.  I'm thinking of framing all of my CA shots together in one frame.

Below I caught a wave sneaking up on the girl (in the background).

 

 

I tried to take a panoramic triptych:

I also went ahead and bought a case for this camera, which I'm glad of, because it can hold both the camera AND a bunch of prints.  Good when you're out on the go.

Sometimes the results are 'meh', sometimes they're suprisingly fun, but something I've learned is that it's just not worth taking indoor shots.  They just don't turn out well.

For example:

I tried to take a photo of a dance class when I first got this and was trying to figure it out - I've since tried several more indoor shots, and they just don't EVER turn out how I want them, even if there is some natural light.

However... I did mess around at Swan Lake dress rehearsal and kinda dig the floating black dancers on the right. 

So ... you never know, it's all about experimentation with this little camera.

Fun stuff, though!