Spring Break

We are having our huge 4 day weekend spring break. The kids do not get a whole week in their new school, bummer. They will have a five day weekend in April.

Mackinzi had a slumber party with 4 of her friends. I had 5, screaming and screeching, 11 year olds for 24 hours. Holy cow....they fed off each other like crazy. Overall, they were very good. Wow, are they the silliest littles things when they feed off each other. Scruffy was exhausted by the time they left today. He fell asleep within two feet of the front door and didn't even make it to the carpet. He's slept all day. It made him nervous if he heard Kinzi screaming because he thought something was wrong with her so he constantly checked on her and barked at the girls. My brave little puppy! Nathan just kept asking if I was feeding the girls sugar because they were crazy!

If you haven't checked out my flicker and/or smugmug photo pages, here are the links:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/clnkblank/

http://clnkblank.smugmug.com/gallery/6476391_mimaX#492806967_mf88Z

Trip to Salt Lake

Boy, it's been a busy week. I went to Salt Lake for my first of two photography classes this past weekend. The women teaching the class is an up and coming portrait photographer in Utah. She was very good, I learned tons and had a good time. There was a very big change of climate. Check out the snow at her house. Burr!!!! But it was so pretty.


This is a portrait I did of Ingrid from the class. I thought it turned our rather well.


After getting back home with all my new found knowledge, I went and shot more pictures of ducks.

This is a cool gate that I drive by everyday on the way to the kids school. Look at the faces above the door.

The kids have a 4 day weekend this weekend. They are looking forward to that. Kinzi is planning on having five girls come over and spend the night.....should be fun!

Out of school and pictures

We just had a four day weekend, yeah! The kids get out for rodeo here in Tucson. Most of the schools in town do that. Anyway, the kids were thrilled to sleep in. On Saturday, we went up to Madera Canyon and hiked and played in the creek. Hopefully tomorrow, I'll post some pictures of that.

Today I'm posting Mackinzi's and my picture.

Playdoh Nose - Kinzi hasn't played with Playdoh in some years but yesterday she saw some playdoh in a dollar bin of a store and remembered how much she use to love it so she bought some. Instead of cute little animals that she use to make, she came down with this great big orange nose and her fingers in the nostrils. As mom, I had to make a comment about picking your nose and in her tween voice " I'm not...I'm just shaping the nostrils!" She was very unhappy I would suggest such a thing. Haha! Of course, then I had to snap a picture.

This is week 2's self-portrait. I'm not really a country person but it was rodeo week here in Tucson and I just loved this hat so I used it as my inspiration this week. I'm trying to get my exposure right, I tend to under expose pictures but I may have over done this one. Anyway, I'm not to unhappy with my second attempt.....man do I love photoshop....now if it would just magically make me loose those extra pounds....life would be dandy, haha!

Today's Photo Shoot

The kids and I went on a mini photo shoot today. The ones I previously posted didn't have any post processing but I've worked on these a tad bit. Let me know what you think!

Photography Heaven

I've been in photography heaven lately. I've joined a couple of groups where you post a picture a day and people give you feedback. Here are the links if you want to see them.

http://clnkblank.smugmug.com/?preview=1

and

http://www.flickr.com/photos/clnkblank/

We attended a meeting this week about high school and signed Nathan up at the same school. Everything is going great but it gets tougher from here on out but he seems more than ready.

Chuck is going to have surgery on this foot again at the end of April. The tendon is leaking fluid, he has a cyst and stitches are still in there from the previous surgery. Yikes! Chuck is just hoping that this time it will be better.

Kinzi went to a birthday party for twins at her school last night and we went to my best friends son's birthday party as well.

The weather has been beautiful in Tucson.

We scalped Scruffy today....poor baby!

BTW...if you only get this via a newsletter in your email...your missing my new banner on the blog and you should check it out....it's very cool!

Photographs

Hi All!

As most of you know I've been really getting into my camera and trying to learn to take pictures better in manual mode. Yesterday, after I dropped the kids off at school, I went to a park and took pictures of sculptures and plants. I'm pretty pleased with this set....my focusing is getting a lot better. What do you think?


This isn't necessarily the best pictures but it shows our snow on the mountains that lasted less than 24 hours. I like the palm trees in front of the snow.

This picture may not be exciting to you but I'm thrilled because I can read the numbers on the faucet....that's a big improvement for me.

Yep...just rust....but rust that is in focus!

Yep...just a FOCUSED handle.

I thought the purple was so pretty in this cactus.

Just a broader view of the cactus.

This is my absolute favorite picture of the day.....it is a mom holding a child's hand. It's a bronze sculpture at the park.

Just another view but this time holding the dad's hand.

Agave needles......yep........in focus! Do you see where I'm going with this?

Yet another in focus sculpture.

Hope you enjoyed them!

I'm finally getting around to working on my Christmas Scrapbook pages. Here are most of them. I have two or three more that I'm still working on...I'll post as soon as I have them completed. I still haven't even started the Blank Chronicles Newsletter. Yikes! I'm getting very slow!

I'm suppose to post credits when I use other people's templates and kits and I will when I get a chance but I wanted to get these posted right away!

Credits: O Christmas Tree Template by K. Pertiet and Paper and Elements by Mindy Terasawa - Christmas Dreams both from Designer Digitals

Credits: Paper and Elements by Ellie Last; blog Xmas give away, Word Art - North Pole Smack by Kellie Mize, We Are Storykeepers, Word Strips - K. Pertiet, Designer Digitals and Stiches by Anna Aspnes at Desginer Digitals

Credits: Teamplate by Ali Edwards, December Daily Layered Templates, Designer Digitals and Paper and Elements by Taylor Made Design, Shine On Kit, Oscraps

Credits: Paper and Frame by Taylor Made Design, Shine On kit at Oscraps, Word Art by TMD and Sue Cummings, True Magic Christmas II at Oscraps, Elements by Tracy Ann Digitals, Frippery Wisps 4

Credits: Template by K. Pertiet, Posted Memories at Designer Digitals and Messy Stamped Alpha