Do you see me?

Do you?

Heartbroken

This morning, while spending some time getting to know my new camera, I carelessly formatted the card without moving my photos to the computer.

It took a while before I realized that all my Christmas Day pictures were on that card.

I cried.
A lot.

I know that in the big picture, it's not the end of the world.
I know that we have the memories and we still had an amazing day.
I really know this, but I'm still very sad.

My Men

My very handsome men...

I love you!

A Sparkly Ice Christmas

This may be all the "snow" we have this Christmas...there is none in the forecast.
But this certainly is pretty.

Fog comes in during the night and the temps are so cold that it freezes on anything it can cling to.
The sun finally came out today and the blue skies added beautiful contrast to the white ice crystals.
I was able to capture the scene before it melted away.

One of the last leaves hanging on the maple tree...

Branches where a bird named Mohawk hung out not too many months ago...

Sanchez is spending a cold winter waiting for our next year's garden...

Hannah's pumpkin..
It got too cold before it had a decent chance to rot.

If you're interested, these were taken with my new camera...auto with no flash and a zoom for some of the pictures.
The colors didn't come out as true as I expected when I uploaded them, so I used the editing software that came with it and was able to change a few things to make them look like I saw them initially through the lens.
I was amazed at the results.  In a few minutes I was able to make adjustments (in brightness, sharpness, contrast and saturation) that made the pictures POP!
Yea Canon!
I'm in love!!

First Pictures

Today Donald loaded the software for my new camera.  The learning curve for this treasure is HUGE!
I'm excited and intimidated.
I've just played around with the camera a little...and love it already.
Here's a few pictures.

This is officially the first picture I took...
bad lighting
auto mode
zoom lens

still cute!

Here's Pounce...

he doesn't care about the camera - he's just freezing his butt off!

(Sorry cat lovers - we don't let animals in our house...we already have three)

(P.S.  He has a heated box in the garage for sleeping...don't worry)

Here's proof that its freezing.

Friday night we had a heavy fog inversion that left us with beautiful frosty trees.

They are still like this...it hasn't gotten above 20 degrees yet today

Here are a few Christmas card picture outtakes...
We've had no sunshine for the past few days...just cold overcast skies.
I took a few shots around the Christmas tree and they are cute, but the colors and lighting were just not working.

Then I opened the sheers and took a pictures with what little outside light we had and loved the results much better.
Nothing beats natural light.

So we took the card photo here and they turned out great (imho)!

Obnoxious amounts of more camera fun to come!
:)

Early Birthday to Me!

My sweet sneaky family surprised me on the 5th (20 days early) with a little party!
It included some powdered sugar donuts with candles.
Delicious treats to eat that they know I love!
Some sewing tools to help prevent me from slicing another finger off...(that's an entirely different post that you probably don't want to see!)

and...


the...


best...


gift...


EVER!!

BAM!
CANON REBEL EOS T2i!!
DREAM CAMERA!!

I screamed!
A lot!

Thank you to the beautiful faces here in front of the camera...and to the handsome one behind it!

My Poser

We have a neat feature on our mac that is called Photo Booth.
You can create cool pictures of yourself while sitting at the computer.

Occasionally I go into Photo Booth to see what the kids have been up to.
What I've found is that one child in particular is quite fond of taking photos of herself...

It looked like so much fun, I decided to join her!!

I'll bet Ivan wishes we'd get out of his room!!