Photo Challenge... Day 29

black & white

jace loves mulberries.

he loves picking them.

eating them.

climbing the ladder to get to them.

we have a tree on the south side of our house

AND

nammy has a bunch in her "park".

he eats them every chance he gets.

this year he introduced lil' bro to them.

he likes them too.

he's still learning which ones you can pick, 

and which ones you need to leave on the tree.

most of the time jace picks them and hands them down.

every once in awhile... jaron picks his own.

he usually ends up with one that isn't ripe.

i don't imagine they taste real wonderful.

i overheard jace telling jaron that it's ok to eat the black and purple ones.

AND that he can't eat the white or pink ones.

so...

this post is supposed to be black and white.

or really dark purple and really light pink.

Photo Challenge... Day 28

flowers

Photo Challenge... Day 27

from a distance

isn't she BE-AU-TIFUL!?!?

more picts to come, over here, later this week

Photo Challenge... Day 26

close up

Photo Challenge... Day 24

an animal

for today's challenge, i opened my front door and snapped a few pictures.

this pooch spends most of his time on our front deck, back steps, 

or running around barking his head off at random trucks and disrupting naptime!

we love him anyway...  most of the time!

i dug up a few old photos of bentley too.

 i wanted to find a puppy picture of him.  he was SOOO cute.

maybe i'll find one an post it later.

christmas 2007. 

a dog's life.

he's always been WONDERFUL with the boys.

this is jace... 3 months old?

we have a new animal roaming around these days.

an orange cat. 

jace has ALWAYS wanted an orange cat.

he has named him, "abraham".

the 4th

our 4th was pretty low key.  

we spent saturday evening with scott's family.  dinner, swing-set, trampoline, grandma and grandpa, fun cousins to run around with, and fireworks.  like i said, low key... but so fun!

sunday was pretty laid back.  we went to church, ate lunch on our own, took naps, and headed to the lake for the bergman/reed family picnic.  this picnic is a tradition and always filled with family and yummy food. 

it was fun to have scott home for the entire weekend.  he works pretty hard during the week and even some saturdays.  having him home for THREE whole days was a treat for the boys (and for me!).  monday morning the boys and scott played outside while i cleaned (it's crazy how much cleaning you can get done when you're all alone), then we headed to the pool to try out the slide (something the boys don't get to do when it's just mommy), took naps, and then went to my parent's house for the last fourth of july party of the weekend.

hope your 4th was filled with yummy food and family!

Photo Challenge... Day 23

sunflare

here's a good link to sunflare (and other photography questions).

i really love the "look" of sunflare.
NOT so much in this picture of jaron...

but more when it's a cute couple,
out in the woods, all in love, and stuff.

anyway... 

i'll practice this one a bit more.

Photo Challenge.... Day 22

hands

i've been slackin' this week.  

for this photo challenge i dug up a few of my "hand" favorites.

 buffalo county fair.  summer 2010.  jace & daddy.

 best buds.  summer 2010.

jace.  summer 2010.

jaron.  bubbles.  summer 2011.

sparklers!

day 16 of the photo challenge was long exposure.  

scott and i experimented with sparklers and ended up with a couple ok shots.  

i didn't read up on which settings to use or any special tips, we just kinda of went with it.

ANYWAY... i JUST ran across this post tonight

(i follow "creep on" her blog quite often and she has lots of cute ideas and photography tips).

so...

just in case you have a few sparklers left and want to give it a shot.  

i might have to try again... or save it for next year!

on another note...
the lady who created this 30 day photo challenge is starting an on-going set of photo challenges.
i haven't decided if i'm up for the challenge or not...
but click HERE if you think YOU might be!

Photo Challenge... Day 20

bokeh

um. ya. boke-a-what???

Wikipedia says... In photography, bokeh ( /ˈboʊkə/ boh-kə,^[1] Japanese: [boke]) is the blur,^[2][3] or the aesthetic quality of the blur,^[4][5][6] in out-of-focus areas of an image, or "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light."Bokeh is often most visible around small background highlights, such as specular reflections and light sources, which is why it is often associated with such areas.^[2] However, bokeh is not limited to highlights; blur occurs in all out-of-focus regions of the image.

so it's the blurry-ness that happens when you have your camera set at a low f-stop... right?

that's one of my favorite things about my lens!  i love that you can set it as low as a 1.8!

i think it adds a lil' sometin' to the picture.

anyway...

here are my attempts

thanks for the use of your flowers mom!

this last one of jace is an old picture... from earlier this summer.

it shows more of the "light source" that i think the definition was referring to.