Day Eleven

Dinner Seventies Style...

Ok the dinner wasn't seventies style but the processing is.  Something about the green highchair just pops with the processing I did tonight.  I had my camera handy at dinner because I have been trying to get Ava use to using utensils and tonight was her first try with the spork.  She did better than I had expected.  She understands how to use it and what it's purpose is, she just needs to work on her coordination.  A lot of the food tends to fall off before she gets it to her mouth or she'll flip the spork/spoon over and drop the food.  She gets very excited and claps her hands when she does get food successfully to her mouth.  It is so cute to see her so proud of herself.  She knows she did well and will immediately drop the utensil and clap with a huge smile on her face.  Here are a few snapshots of the goofball in action.

She is blowing kisses in the second one :)

I apologize for the second set of highchair photos but my original idea for today did not come out as well as I had wanted.  I guess these did not either but I wasn't really aiming for great photos with these.  I was just trying to capture Ava being goofy with her spork.  My original plan was to take a picture of my brothers dog Bailey.  She is a chocolate lab with beautiful light brown eyes.  I got the picture below which isn't a bad picture of her but the house lighting just did not capture her eyes well.  I will try again during the day with natural lighting and hope for a better result.

I guess it is just now hitting me that this project means I have to post a picture from the day even if everything for the day failed to come out.  I have a hard time posting things that aren't up to my standards or I'm not completely satisfied but maybe posting them is a good thing.  It shows that not everything works out.

Now for something completely off topic.  The other day one of the Mom's from MMT posted a link to a career diagnostics test.  I took it not really thinking anything of it but man is this test good.  So far everyone I know that has taken it has gotten a career that they would be AMAZING at.  So here it is if you would like to give it a shot.  http://www.careerdiagnosis.com/ It said I would be good with Interior Design or some sort of Creative Design.  It said Aaron would make a good writer or editor, which he totally would, and for Kate it said she would be a good actor or producer.

Day Ten

Colorful...

Today we went to a friends house to hang out for a while and I forgot my camera.  When we got home we were all pretty much ready to relax for the night.  I did not have any willing subjects (myself included) so I decided to snap a few pictures of Ava's toys.  Toys may not be the prettiest or most attractive addition to living rooms but they are colorful and tend to photograph well. I just like how bright and bold the colors appear.  These were choosen because they showed motion which seemed to give the photos some contrast.

 

Day Nine

Family time...

Today we went to my cousin's son's first birthday party.  I spent most of it following Ava around making sure she didn't get herself into trouble.  She has that skill that one year old's have of finding something to run into, fall into, trip over, fall down, well you get where I am going.  It was nice to be at a family gathering where I did not feel like I had to chase Ava around with a camera.  I remember at Ava's party thinking I did not want to miss a single shot and I came away with a near 500 photos to sort through.  Then after Christmas there was a good 200 or so.

Toward the end of the party Ava was getting sleepy so while my Mom was holding her I ran up and got my camera out of my bag.  I managed to snap a few of everyone around the table.  Of course the photos all had this orange tone to them that I just couldn't seem to correct.  I did a color-cast fix but it just kept washing out the photos.  So then I did some processing and got this pretty cool retro 50's look.  These are those types of photos that I will enjoy looking back on with my grandchildren one day.

This first one is Ava grabbing my Granddad's nose.  Ava was nearing meltdown mode because we had disturbed her nap schedule.  My cousin Amy had that magical touch today and managed to keep her happy for a while.  She had her over playing with Granddad and I'm so glad the shot turned out.  This is definitely one of those priceless ones to be cherished.

 
Here she is with my Mom relaxing with her foot on the table.

Day Eight

Baby it's cold outside...

I have decided that my favorite season has to be fall.  I think the snow is pretty but it's just too cold and you spend too much time inside.  Having a one year old makes things even harder because she's too little to really want to go out and play in the snow. 

Aaron and I will come up with things to do and they end up getting shot down because we realize that it's just TOO COLD.  Then you have the exact opposite problem in the Summer.  It's beautiful out but you can't really do anything because it's so hot and then you add in humidity and that's it I give in.  I hate that feeling of walking outside and being hit in the face by air that is so thick you can barely breath it in and then the sun hits your skin and almost immediately burns it...Ugh!! 

Now spring is beautiful and the colors of the green grass, not yet burned brown by the sun, and the flowers blooming everywhere like earths rebirth.  It is breathtaking but here is my major complaint about spring in Maryland.  It lasts like three weeks maybe when you add it up.  I know technically it is longer than that but by the time it warms up enough to enjoy the outdoors the humidity kicks in.  So my conclusion is that my favorite season has to be fall.  It is beautiful with the colors of the leaves changing and the temperature is perfect.  You can throw on jeans and a sweater or long sleeve shirt and the best part is that I get to choose between super cute boots or flip flops. 

Now for the picture of the day I did manage to brave the temperatures for a good fifteen minutes which was long enough to snap a picture of the steps I about busted myself on while heading out.  The evil beauty of snow melting in below freezing temperatures is the formation of ice.  There is something very beautiful and mysterious about ice but man is it dangerous. 

Surprise Surprise....I couldn't decide.  Would you really expect anything less?!?!

Day Seven

Ants in her pants...

Well, at least it's seems like that is what my child has whenever I try to get her to sit and take a few nice pictures.  That pretty much ended a few months ago.  I miss the days of being able to just prop her up and hand her a toy and be able to just snap as many shots as I wanted.  Gone are the days of laying her on a soft fuzzy blanket and taking photos of her snoozing away.  Well who am I kidding my child has NEVER been a sleeper.  It was more like taking pictures of her looking around the room trying to figure out why the heck I always had that camera in her face.

Ava is one of those kids who loves to make faces and has a boat load of expressions.  I used to be able to catch them but now it seems whenever she sees the camera her face goes blank.  She won't smile, she won't frown, she just stares back into the lens.  Today really was not much different except that today I distracted her with food and cartoons.  She still did not want to smile but I was able to catch her doing her frustrated mad face.  Why you might ask was she frustrated and mad?  Maybe because Mommy kept getting in the way and she couldn't see the cartoons, maybe because I had that stupid camera in her face again while she was trying to eat, or maybe because she decided to be goofy and make her mad face.  If you guessed the third then you're right.

Today felt like a black and white sort of day so I did a B&W conversion on them.  I picked the picture of the day because I loved the way her eyes look.  The catch-lights in them are symmetrical and I love symmetry in photos.  I will however share four more pictures with you so you can see the goofball in action.

Photo of the day...

and the rest...

 

 

 

Mealtime is always entertaining with the little drama queen.

Day Six

Tiny fingers and piano keys...

Ava seems to really enjoy music.  She loves to dance and sing and will even play a song for you if you don't mind that it's rather loud and off key.  She surprisingly has good finger placement and makes use of the entire length of the piano.  I am predicting piano lessons in my little girls future.

Ava was having a good ole time playing and was doing much better practicing her art than her Mommy was with hers.  Today was seriously a bad camera day.  This is somewhat like a bad hair day in the sense that nothing seems to work the way you want and everything that could go wrong does.  To start this bad camera day I missed a good shot this morning of Ava pretending to talk on the phone because my battery was dying.  Then fast forward to a charged battery and attempt two which was a bag blowing in the wind outside.  It has been so windy here lately and I thought this would be a good opportunity for a shot to represent that.  Well, my card was full and I had to take time clearing space and while doing that the bag disappeared.  So after lunch Ava busied herself playing with the piano and while I did manage to get some shots in I just couldn't get my rhythm down.  My focus was off, my settings were everywhere but where they should be.  Don't get me wrong like any good Mom I am going to admit that any shots of Ava are too darn cute for words but the motion blur was not what I was going for.  They turned out rather artsy and depicted the motion of a one year old at play so overall I guess am happy.

Here are the two best shots of the day.

This one is way out of focus but her little hands are so cute I just had to share.

Now I will leave you with something a little different...

My friend Chelsea has an amazing blog that I am addicted to following.  I only wish I had the dedication and will power to follow her schedule.  Check out her site www.beingchelsea.com to try out some of her recipes and to see her super cute daughter Lucy.  Lucy's pictures have a great way of always making me feel happy.  I think her smile is contagious or something.

Today on Chelsea's blog she added a list of seven random things and passed it on to seven people...me being one of them.  So here is my attempt to follow...

1. I am a middle child.  I have one brother who is four years older than me and one sister who is seven years younger than me.  Not so unique but it is random and I'm sure not all of you knew that about me.

2. I do not own any articles of clothing in yellow or orange.  In fact most of my clothing is black, gray, blue, and purple.  With some pink and green thrown in.

3. I prefer Pepsi to coke.  Pepsi has more carbonation and isn't as sweet...at least to my taste buds. 

4. I was a blond for most of my childhood and my hair was straight.  Then my hair slowly got darker and darker and it got curly as well.  Oh and another random hair fact is that I was bald until I was two.

5. I did not get my drivers license until I was 17 which was by choice.  I had no desire or need to drive because Aaron was two years older than me and drove everywhere we went.  In fact he still in the "driver".   

6. My favorite subject in school was history.  Aaron and I both travel to a lot of historical places when we have free time.  My favorite books are historical fiction as well as historical non-fiction.

7. I watch an average of 3 new movies a week.  Before having Ava we would go to the movie theater at least four times a month and rent weekly.  Since having Ava we haven't been to the movie theater once.  That is actually kind of pathetic but I just hate leaving Ava behind. 

Now I am supposed to pick 7 people to pass this on to but I'm going to be lazy and open it up to anyone reading this.  Be forewarned that it is kind of hard to come up with random facts about yourself but I would love to read them if you do.

Day Five

Coloring...

My friend Katie posted pictures of her Son coloring the other day and it dawned on me that I had bought Ava a large pad to color on and some crayons a few months back.  I tried to get her to color back when I got them but she wasn't interested so I tucked them away for a later date.  Well today I pulled them out and I have to say that I still do not think she is ready to sit still long enough to color but she did manage to put down a few strokes.  She also managed to chew on a few of the crayons and since they are non-toxic I decided to snap a few shots before I took them from her.  Sometimes you do what you have to so that you can capture that moment and that means that sometimes you have to break a few rules.  It's all in good fun and good photography.  Here is the picture of the day.

For those of you who don't know me, you may not know that one of my biggest faults is being extremely indecisive.  So indecisive that if it were up to me to pick where we will go out to eat we will most likely end up not going at all.  If you haven't already noticed there is a theme going on here and it's only day five.  This is supposed to be all about one photo a day but in my world there are two.

 
See the pink wax...apparently pointed sticks of colored wax wrapped in paper look like a yummy snack.