Jeans and jackets yesterday, shorts and t-shirts tomorrow.  We have a lot of leaves coming down, and some colors just beginning to burst.  If you really want to see an amazing tree (not to mention one cute kid and creative mom!), head over to my friend Julie’s blog post for today.

A highlight of the week, the trash trucks.  And yes I did say trucks, plural.  All eight of them.  Or so it seems.  For gas to be $4/gallon, I would have never thought a small city town such as this could afford to have all these different trash trucks roaming around every week.  First we have the trash truck that picks the big rolling bin with a claw on the side of his truck.  If he drops a bag of trash in this process, lucky you, because he sure ain’t getting out to pick it up.  Then there’s the truck that picks up any extra rubbermaid style personal trash cans you may drag out there.  I have seen at least two or three different yard debris trucks.  I’m sure there is another recycle truck that comes around if you pay for that service.  I suppose I’m a country girl.  You just drag your yard stuff to the edge of the woods, Christmas tree included!

This is the non rolling trash bin truck with ride along guys who don’t ‘accidentally’ drop bags.  They picked up some things next door as Caleb watched (we are usually standing at the door inside), then he honked the horn at us (which sounds like a tractor trailer/fog horn).  Caleb just about jumped out of his skin.

The saddest picture you ever did see

But grinning from ear to ear two seconds later…

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Gee. Something about this looks familiar.

Concentrating, because he is still under the impression that maybe the -decorate one, eat it, decorate another, eat it- approach might work with me.

Quite literally, begging for cookies (sorry so close, I snapped it quick when he clasped his little hands together)

Oops, got a wee bit of icing on the sprinkles

That’s okay, problem solved

What is it that makes me think, if I give him a big dish of “paint” with a brush, he might not lick the brush?

My two masterpieces. I ate them. Both.

Oh how I wish this was in focus…that’s okay, still funny. Appropriately, his shirt says “Will scare for candy”

Get. this. done. Must. eat. cookies.

This is about the time I said “You’re getting a bath.” Or maybe it was just after this when he squirted icing all down inside his sleeve. I forget.

I have no festive pretty results like yesterday (as I think most of that was on his face), but it was fun none the less. Can’t wait for next year! <insert sarcasm here>

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First off, go look at last year’s post here.  Okay, back?  Good.  Let me tell you what I learned last year.

Last year…

I made sugar cookies (from scratch).  I made icing (from scratch).  I added food coloring drops.  The cookies in the last picture?  Yeah that was the whole batch.  Grand total.  I spent ALL DAY LONG in the kitchen.

This year…

I wandered over to the -food in a tube- section at Walmart and picked up a huge tub of Toll House sugar cookie dough.  I then proceeded to the -I’m too lazy to even make the icing- section and got some white icing.  At some point in the last year, I discovered the wonder that is Wilton Food Coloring gels over the in the craft section at Walmart.  I now have a rainbow of colors (you will get much more vividly colored icing with these).  I was stamping out cookies in no time.  It was like a cookie making factory over here yesterday.  Crazy I tell you.  But easy.

Yes I heart made from scratch too, but it was just too much last year.  Apparently sugar cookies are not my forte. So there, my secret is out.  This plate full was taken to my mother inlaw and sister inlaw last night and I blabbed my secret there too because they just kept complimenting them and I thought, “Oh they’re just being nice, they’re not that good.”  But I grabbed a few, and in all honesty, they are pretty tasty.  Even with fake icing!

The calm before the storm arrived:

An inspiration board so to speak

He decorated one, then promptly picked it up and ate it.  He would have done the same with the next twelve without strict supervision.

We had a curious onlooker (through the smudgy glass)

Trying to use all five colors at once

Quality check

“SQUISH”

Would you like some cookie with that?

Finally, she’s letting me eat one now that we’re done decorating!

And what grandmother wouldn’t be delighted?  Especially with that big one on the right.  It used to be a pumpkin.

Cookies, decorating station, cookies
bigger version here

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Step 1: Start with a nicely decorated fall cookie.

Step 2: ADD YELLOW ICING

Step 3: Add a little orange

Step 4: Add a touch of green, then brown

Step 5: Top with ONE sprinkle

Step 6: Add a few additional sprinkles if you’d like

Step 7: If you still believe this is not enough, use your judgement

Step 8: Pat flat

Ta-da!

As always, more pictures to follow…

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Forget those other guys, just vote for me!  I believe in ice cream for dinner, naps daily and stomping my feet when I don’t get my way!

Our one last baby is growing up.  If you remember, our mommy cat had six, ugh, yes, six kittens shortly after we moved.  One passed away from unknown causes.  We gave two away and were in the process of finding homes for the remaining three when they just disappeared at random.  We searched all around the surrounding yards to the extent we could without having the police called or something.  Since the houses on either side of us are empty, we were able to search fairly well.  Turned up nothing.  About a week passed and Scott was on his way home about three blocks over when something caught his eye darting up a driveway.  He tried to get a better look but the kitten backed away.  He came home and got us and we went back the house.  It was nearly dark, and hopefully we didn’t frighten the little old elderly lady that lived there, but that kitten was just-a-screaming.  If you’ve heard a terrified cat, you might know what I’m talking about, if not, well, screaming is an accurate description.  Scott was getting back in the car, but I persisted in trying to coax the kitten out from the bush it was hiding under.  I could tell he kept ducking in and out because something was familiar about my voice or scent.  After several minutes, he came out, and I was able to get him.  He continued to freak out, but immediately ran to his Mommy when we returned home.  She accepted him without question, so it was indeed one of hers.  (She then let him nurse until just a few weeks ago, probably the human equivalent of going to first grade.)  Our little guy is now closing in on his  mom’s size, and very fascinated with my camera.  He kept turning his head upside down and looking at it.  He is about 75% conceding to being picked up now,  just purred for the first time a few days ago, last effects of all his trauma I suppose.

I don’t know which is the funnier shirt, this one or the one from a couple weeks ago.
“holding out for chocolate milk”

Walking his little pull toy dog, which has many miles on it.

Proof, children will find something to do no matter what the circumstances.  He played in this puddle for over an hour until I said it was time for lunch.

I had fun developing these and trying to figure out how best to crop them.  These last three are all the same picture.

This one just leaves you wondering.  It was rotated and reflected it (yes I reflected the reflection!) so that the letters on his shirt read correctly.  But if you think about it, the point of view in the picture, he would be blocking the shot through a camera by standing between the camera and the puddle.  So really this shot is impossible ;)  I think it just adds a bit of mystery to the picture.

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Today I was looking back at old photos I took when we went to the mountains in October of 2004.  I was about four months pregnant with Caleb.  I’m terribly sorry if I puked in your driveway on that trip.  Now that we have that out of the way…. It was amazing to me how young I looked.  Well rested.  And naive.  I wasn’t worried about things like the price of diapers going up or the condition of the school system going down.  I didn’t think about being unspeakably tired or being spit up on.  Of course I was excited, but for the most part, I was just floating along waiting to get more and more plump until baby came.  Life was infinitely…simple.  If you had even tried to put into words then, the the emotions of overpowering and all encompassing love I would feel, I could have never understood.  Even as I flipped back through the pictures, and I know I have grown as a photographer in those years, but the pictures just looked…empty.  There was no story being told, no emotion being conveyed, they were just snapshots of the trees, the road, the clouds.  Lifeless pictures (I added what I could with a little editing today, something I knew nothing about back then).  It is amazing how much color a child brings to an otherwise black and white world.

If there was one picture out of the hundreds I took on that trip that did tell a story, it would be this one.  It is good to be able to look back and laugh, but that trip got off to a rough start.  We left late one night after Scott got off working the second shift.  Let’s just say, some essential camping provision was left behind by a party who shall remain unnamed.  We had been planning to camp the first night, drive down the Blue Ridge Parkway and stay at a bed and breakfast type inn the second night.  When we awoke that first morning (it rained all night long) we were engulfed in a fog that makes the movie The Fog look like a clear day.  We spent most of the day driving about 15-25mph praying that anyone else venturing out would be taking the same precautions.  I still to this day have never seen anything like that.

This gives you an idea of how far in front of us we could see.

This elevation was obviously in the peak of color change

The next day, we went to Chimney Rock Park, and the weather was absolutely spectacular, we could see for miles.

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Just in case you needed to know, I’ve taken six thousand two hundred and thirteen photos.  Since the beginning of April.  This year.  That’s all.

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Since I have joined the 21st century in using a rss reader recently, I have saved/bookmarked at least forty photography blogs, a mix between wedding and children’s photography.  I’ve found some absolutely incredible photographers, cough, Jessica Claire, Jasmine Star, & Becker, cough cough.  And I just hang around studying and try to soak up a bit of their knowledge.  I haven’t really ever explored backlighting at all, but it was one of the subjects I read about recently, so I thought I’d give it a try.

For some reason, he just looks so tiny here.

I’ve shot about 4GB of pictures in the last 36 hours.  I find myself thinking about that book I read throughout the day, as if to go back over everything in my head, thinking of how I could put this technique to use, or how I could try that.  To make matters worse, I just learned tonight that a new Canon 5D Mark II is being released in November.  Someone get a drool cloth.  I need this camera.  Therefore, I need some serious cash.

Now if I could just win this, I would still be a photographer.  A very well equipped photographer indeed.  That’s 89 cash.  Just in case you’re wondering.  Eighty nine million dollars.

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Do you remember the surprise we told you about?  “Oh no.  No”

Remember we told you the other day that we were working on a surprise?  We have it now! “Oh?  Oh!  Yeah, yeah, yeah!”

*gasp of breath*

It’s a Herbie RC!  Scott painted it!

I think he likes it.

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If I had to define a toddler with two pictures, I think these would top my list.

Silliness…

…and a constant state of motion.  Dragging his “toy,” along, a tie wrap/plastic strap, cost: absolutely free.

Well, and maybe this one.

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