Build And Grow: Shrek Dragon Ride

On this particular Saturday, I was to go shopping with my parents to find something to color coordinate with them for their 40th wedding anniversary renewal of vows ceremony celebration.  Coincidentally, Husband had also asked if Atrus could have a play mate for the weekend since he seemed to need some camaraderie.  Taking boys shopping for girl clothes isn't exactly a good thing, but we did finagle the time out.  The big boys were taken to Lowe's for the Build And Grow, while Little Brothers played together, then Little Brother was taken with Big Boys to our home while I stayed out with my parents.  The boys did enjoy building their dragons,

Looking at the instructions.


Getting started.


Careful alignment.


That's the spot.


He doesn't have his face so close any more now that he has glasses.


What's next?


He gave me the funniest looks!


More hammering!


Daddy helping out.


Almost done.


Sticker time!


Now Shrek and Donkey can go for a ride!


Nifty, huh?


While we were here, there were some of the older build and grow kits available for purchase that weren't there before, so I picked up some to do with Atrus at home.  The next post will actually be about one of those.

Hope you like the pictures, and thanks for stopping by.  Comments are welcome.  See you again soon.

Family Fun At The Local Beach

Some of Husband's family live out in the Midwest.  Usually about once a year, they come out to Maine to visit their family.  One of the last days they were here, we met at a local park that sits right next to a lake and has a beach available (though no lifeguard).  The idea was to let the kid cousins have some fun and a chance to hang out before they wouldn't get to see each other for another year or so.  It was very hot recently, this day included, so whether or not they were going in the water, I at least planned to cool off and brought water stuff for everyone.  Since I was in the water, all these pictures were taken by Husband.  I picked the best, and am sharing those 7 with you.  I hope you like them.

Husband's Brother-in-law, with his two daughters.


Sister and Brother-in law keeping a close watch.


Sister and brother in law at shore, their daughters in the water, and I'm with Chance.


Atrus, me, Chance and Cousin #1.


Me and Chance, and Cousin #1.  The water was beautiful, and Chance wanted to be out with me, so I was preventing him from drowning while letting him explore the water and splash as he wanted.


Atrus and Cousin #1 on the dock.



Me (the only fatty), Chance, Cousin #2, and Sister.



After this, I asked Husband to keep a close eye on the kids because I wanted to go swim some, and he obliged.  When I came back, Atrus was wanting to jump off the dock, but was scared to.  I encouraged him to do so.  Some time in there, Chance wanted to come BACK in the water, and refused to listen to Daddy to come back and he took a tumble in the water, just before Atrus jumped off the dock (I apparently had to "catch" him).  Luckily, Daddy can run on water and snatched Chance up before he had much more than a microsecond to ingest water.  It turned out to be an interesting evening.

Anyway, that's it for now.  I should have another post this weekend.  Trying to spread things out so they don't get bunched up again.  School for Atrus starts on Tuesday!  No, I'm not excited for that at all...  I think he'll like being back in school again, and it'll hopefully help Chance get back to taking a nap!  Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you like what you saw, and if you like the pictures, I'll let Husband know since he's the one that took them.

Macro Fun

In looking at the last few posts I've made here, I realized what I didn't post.  Sheesh.  I need to get on the ball more.

For my birthday, my sweet, thoughtful Husband decided to gift me a macro lens.  He got me a 100 mm f/2.8 Canon macro lens.  It was spendy, but it is now my favorite lens of the three I have.  It actually arrived on my birthday, so that was cool.  I've used it lots since then.  I didn't take many pictures aside from the scavenger hunt ones (which I already posted) in July, so you're not missing much.  I've decided to share a few from the last days in July.  I hope you like them.

A beetle (?) in the garden.


One of the purple weeds I'm so fond of photographing.


Another of the same weeds.



Atrus had his first eye appointment.  We scheduled it because he'd been holding things really close to read.  We figured he'd need glasses, and he did.  They came in.  He looks pretty good in them, don't you think?  He's had a hair cut since, which makes him look a little different.



Some flower in the yard.  It was really tiny.


A moth.


Brown Eyed Susan.


Another Brown Eyed Susan.



Also, I decided to participate in last week's Farktography contest.  It was my theme suggestion, after all. Here are the two I entered.  The title was "One Of These Things Just Doesn't Belong Here" and the idea was to show something that was out of place, from the subtle to the blatantly obvious.

This is kind of obvious, but the pizza goldfish doesn't belong and is going the wrong way.


I don't know if this was obvious or not, but the guy is supposed to not belong with all the girls.



So that's it for now.  I have two entries for this week's Farktography contest, but I'll be posting about that contest at another time.  There are other pictures to post first.

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you liked what you saw.  Let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

July Scavenger Hunt

I mentioned before, I was participating in the July round of Chrysta Rae's Scavenger Hunt hosted on G+ by the lovely, talented, beautiful Chrysta Rae.  As with every round, we're not to reveal the list to anyone, or even really talk about the hunt with anyone outside of those in our Scavenger Circles.  The below are my entries. 

Blue.


Breakfast (I got help with setting this up, and it was very delicious).


Kissing.  My sister and brother-in-law.  I asked permission before taking the picture.


Lines.  I had another shot that I was going to use, but I thought this was a stronger one, so I used this one instead.


Model.  Hubby painted this mini by hand.  I didn't get the light right, but I liked how this one came out.


Motion.  I discovered in doing this one, that even if the longer exposures come out okay, the definition in the second hand goes away.


Puppy.


Reflection.  A redo of a shot done for a Farktography contest.


Rust.  I just like this bridge, and am glad I got to have a "reason" to take some shots.


Tree.



I have been neglectful in not only taking pictures regularly, but posting them here as well.  I actually now have other pictures to post, so those will be coming up.  I hope you like these pictures.  I'd love to have a comment or two letting me know what you think.  Thanks for stopping by!

May Scavenger Hunt

Time for the reveal here.  I was going to put in my alternate shots and all that, but realized that would make for a very boring post and kind of overload things.  So instead, I will just post my 10 entries in alphabetical order of the list item.

Balloons.  I opted to use my coin bank for this after lacking for other ideas. 


Bug.  Ants on a dandelion. I inverted the colors.  Thought it gave it a cool look and left it.


Spring.  Apple blossoms make me think of spring.


Horror/Fear.  NOTE:  THIS IS COMPLETELY STAGED!!!
While I do struggle with depression, my personal horror/fear is that I will one day give in.  This picture got an honorable mention, which totally made my day.


Freckles.  The kiddo's freckles showed up way better than mine did.


Long Exposure.  The local night sky.  I believe a 30-second exposure, bright moon giving the clouds moving a blurry effect.


Pink.  Not sure what kind of flower this is.  I desaturated the background and hoped it helped to give the picture more pop.


Sadness.  Not personal sadness, and given this was in 1947, it has long since happened.  I was hoping that the "infant died" bit would stand out, and thinking of that is always sad.  This is one of the gravestones in the cemetery next door.


Depth of Field: Shallow.  Not sure what made me think to do this, but I did.  This one also got an honorable mention (which made my day again).  This is my keyboard, which you saw a few posts back where Chancellor was playing it.


Smoke.  I thought smoke was going to be all kinds of difficult.  Turned out to be really cool.  I got lots of interesting, wispy smoke shots, but when showing things to Alex (always my in-house critique), this one stood out to him and he said that this one was my shot.  The object that the smoke is coming out of is a cone incense tepee.  I got the ceramic (?) tepee at a Pow-Wow that I went to some time in high school, so it has been around for a while.


Those are my finds for the May edition of the Scavenger Hunt on Google Plus hosted by the awesomely talented and beautiful Chrysta Rae.  I am participating in my third round of the Scavenger Hunt, July, and am currently working on my entries; 3 down 7 to go.

Thanks for coming over to look at my pictures.  I hope you liked them.  Let me know what you think by leaving a comment.