Wordless Wednesday: Dandy-Lion King in My Garden

I went out and took some pictures of the blooming flowers in my garden yesterday. Pioneer Woman ran a photo contest with macros as the theme, so I decided to enter a couple of shots. Here's one of my favorites, though it's not the one I entered. Click on through to see the others, if that's your kind of thing.

More here, on my Flickr account.

Wordless Wednesday: Surprise Pair

I was sick enough Sunday morning that I missed Mass. Palm. Sunday. Mass. Big Girl sought out an EMHC to bring Jesus to me (I cried when the family was leaving as I asked), but while I waited, in the just-after-the-rain I saw a beautiful cardinal in the tree.

No, not that kind of cardinal. The bird.

Anyway, I had gotten my camera out earlier when I was trying (unsuccessfully) to snap a shot of the red-breasted robins' red breasts, and so I took a few pictures. Partway through, I realized that I'd also gotten his mate, who was barely visible in the branches below him. This was the first shot I snapped that, when I looked, I saw her.

Here are a few more shots of the cardinals, in case you like that sort of thing. :)

I played around a bit with color on this one, and cropped it in close.

I actually did NOT touch this one up at all. Straight off the SD card. Honest Injun!

I did finally manage to get a robin, red breast and all, so I cropped in and boosted the color a tiny bit. (I'm only working with iPhoto here - no Aperture or Photoshop Elements or Photoshop - so I've only got some basic customizing I can work with. One day, I'll get some fancier stuff.) I love his beautiful red breast and the tiny, bright-yellow beak. Robins are some of my favorite birds because they are heralds of Spring.

I &hearts Mac

Dear iPhoto,

I cannot believe that I didn't think to look under "File-Print" for options on printing. You have a beautiful interface for taking digital photos and printing them for framing (or for our nifty wall display)! I am now printing far more pictures than I actually need for the display, which will mean that some of my children's artwork will need to move.

No worries, though; I think they'll forgive me and we'll move things around again later.

I love you, iPhoto! Keep being awesome!

Love,

Christine the Soccer Mom

Amazing Snow

I was fooling around late one night and found this post filled with pictures of extreme snow. Here are a couple of my favorites, but please click through - it's a very long post with some really awesome pictures!

Snowed under in the most epic way (somewhere in Switzerland):

Snow being cleared from the Trans-Labrador Highway in northeastern Canada:

(Personal note from Soccer Mom: This puts those cars with a foot of snow on them in perspective. I still say, "CLEAN IT OFF!", though.)

There are also pictures of some beautiful ice formations:

Bizarre and Terror-inducing Icicles

Here is an impressive ice formation - Hard Rime Ice, most often seen atop mountains in winter -

Go see more at Dark Roasted Blend.

We've Got Snow!

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Yeah, big deal. So does half the country. But...I've got beautiful pictures of the snow!

I decided there's only so many "kids building a snow fort" pictures I can take, so I started playing around with the snow on the trees and the scenery. Hope you enjoy these photographs!

The view from our kitchen.

These are the neighbors' willow trees. They are beautiful in snow and ice.

I love their twisty boughs.

Building a snow fort.

I was traipsing around the front yard when I noticed that the inner boughs of the evergreen tree had these snow patterns on them. Beautiful!

Al the Snowman™, who wields the Staff of Global Warming™.

Another view of the woods on the hill behind our home.

Picture Time!

Can I share some pictures from our trip to Tennessee?

That's Little Girl on the swing. And that second picture? It adorns my desktop right now. I'm kinda proud of that one. :)

More posts later, perhaps for Wordless Wednesdays.

Extra Picture

I really like this statue outside of Mary, Queen of the Universe Shrine.  It's from France, originally made in the 1700's, and stands in the Rosary Garden.  Gazing at it while reciting the Hail, Holy Queen is quite the experience.

March for Life, Part 4: Clothing

There were some neat T-shirts, sweatshirts, and stickers adoringing people, too.

Christmas Surprises

The girls had saved up their own money for Christmas, then selected gifts for each other based on a limit Travel Man and I put for them.  They wound up selecting nearly identical presents for each other - warm and fuzzy socks to wear in place of slippers!  Here's a picture of their footsies together.

Camera Update

Man alive!  I love this new camera.  You can see from my Wordless Wednesday this week that it's got a great setting for sunsets (and sunrises, I guess).  I took a bunch at my friends' son's Baptism/Confirmation (Maronite Rite) - all without flash - that turned out pretty well, too.  A little bit grainy, but still...

Here are a few of those.

Other pictures (and I've really not had an opportunity to take a lot - except for family shots that I won't post here) include one of my favorite presents this year: a cookbook stand!!  If you could see my kitchen, you'd understand why I've practically coveted a cookbook stand; I have virtually no counter space and very little storage, so I wind up with a lot on my counters in storage containers of sorts.

Christmas Pictures

Santa brought a game called "Skittles" for the girls, in which you spin a top and try knocking down pins placed  on the board, which has compartments the top needs to move in and out of to get to the pins.

It is as big a hit as the light sabers that make noise and light up (and pop out at the touch of a button) and the Mario Kart for Wii.

We had a lovely Christmas ham (spiral, honey, delicious!) with mashed sweet potatoes, green beans, and rolls.  Simple, but delicious.  

I hope your Christmas Season (which has only just begun, remember!) is a blessed one.

Pictures from the New Camera

I was playing around, and took all of these without a flash.  Also, that ornament below was taken this morning, with flash.  So I'm already happy about this camera.  It's SOO much better than our old digital, it's not even in the same league.

These last two are in low light, with a high ISO setting.  But they aren't blurry!  A little grainy, but definitely not blurry or streaky.  I've even got foliage and firework settings!

Test Picture

Just trying out my annotation function on the iMac.  (Click for a larger picture.)




Please browse my eBay items. Thank you.

What We Did Last Night

The girls helped me prepare the pumpkins for carving, then helped with straining the seeds so we could roast them for our trip next week.

I'm kind of proud of how the jack-o-lanterns turned out.  Not bad for someone who had not carved a pumpkin until about three years ago, eh?

More pictures here.

6th Picture, Again

Sarah used her sixth event in iPhoto, and I hadn't even thought of that.  Hmmm...I'll do that AND my 6th from 6th on MobileMe.

iPhoto:

MobileMe: