New Class For Me!

I spent some of my hard-earned allowance on a class "Oh Shoot" to learn how to use my DSLR camera in manual mode!  It's a six week class, focusing on different aspects of photography.  This week's lesson was on shutter speed.  We were supposed to photograph something going "fast".  Since my kids are out of town, I had to get creative.

This week's assignment was on learning what happens when you have a slow versus a fast shutter speed. A slower shutter speed produces "blur" or action. Fun!  Here's my practice pictures:

Fast shutter speed 1/100

Slow shutter speed 1/25

I don't know why my photos appear blurry - the originals weren't! :)

February 13-14

Oops - I got a little off track.  Life happens, right?  I still have to take a picture of my closet...probably tomorrow. :) It's all about the practice in taking pictures, right???

 13. Blue

This is one of the blocks on the quilt that hangs above our dinner table. It is one of the first quilts I actually pieced, got quilted and bound. I love this color of blue!  

14. Heart

Here's the heart shaped candy boxes I gave to my family.  Can you guess who got each one?  :)

February 11, 2012

11. Makes you happy

I love seeing the different textures and colors of my children's hair! It's nice to be able to see just their hair, and not their sweet faces to be able to appreciate the differences.

We don't usually make it a habit to let the children play in a car, but today Brent was spiffing up the Honda getting it ready to sell, and the kids couldn't resist the temptation to get in and play. Silly kids!

February 9, 2012

9. Front Door

I was so excited to see that today's challenge was a front door. Well, not super excited, because my front door is boring...but the 9th was the day we were going out for our Christmas work party (yes, you read that correctly) and I was SURE McGrath's would have some fancy, pretty door.

I was wrong.

Their door was almost as boring as my own. I put my favorite husband in front of it to give it some character.

The employees thought we were super weird (they gave us "those" looks) because we were taking pictures in front of their restaurant...

February 8, 2012

8. Sun

Yeah...Oregon...love it, but this is the closest I'll get to a picture of the sun today.

At least Alexia and I had a fun time taking pictures together!

February 7, 2012

7. button

I have a lot of unusual buttons in my button jar. When I saw the assignment for today, I thought specifically of this one. I like this button - it's quirky. The suggestion of a flower shape, a streaky neutral color, and of course, it only has three holes. That's unusual for a button!

February 6, 2012

6. Dinner

Yum! Green salad, red and yellow pepper slices (my kid's favorite) and a casserole, made of rice, hamburger, homemade cheese sauce and too-hot-to-eat-with-chips salsa. It was made for our after fast Sunday Linger Longer yesterday, so even better for tonight's dinner, all I had to do was heat it up! Always a nice bonus after a busy Monday. And the Lego guy? Well, that was Braden's addition...

February 5, 2012

5. 10 am

Sunday morning in the Smith house. I'm keeping it real, and trying not to freak out about showing our "real life" on the net! :) Since church for us starts at 1:45 pm, Sunday mornings are usually pretty laid back. Yesterday, as you can see, we were REALLY laid back - the kids are still in pajamas, the house is a mess, one kid is playing the Wii, and the other kid is watching a CD on the portable player. Oy! Maybe we ought to have a Family Home Evening lesson on keeping the Sabbath day holy...for Mom's benefit as well as teaching the kids to choose better Sabbath day activities.

February 4, 2012

4. A stranger:

This is my stranger - our server at Love Love Teriyaki. Of course, after I asked if I could take her picture, explained why I would want to take a picture of a stranger, posed her, and took her picture, it would have been rude to not ask her name. So, meet my stranger, who is not a stranger any longer. Her name is Jessica. Thanks for being a good sport!

February 3, 2012

3. Hands

What a great example of a four year old not having the manual dexterity her brother has! I tried and tried to get Alexia to make a heart shape with her hands, but she just didn't grasp it. Braden got it correct the first time. I still think it's lovely Alexia tried to do what I was asking her to do. :)

February 2, 2012

2. Words:



How these words have influenced my life - No, not the Elder Ketchum part!

First off, learning Spanish and now being able to use my Spanish has been a blessing and a challenge. I'm still struggling some with answering back in Spanish, but it's a joy to be serving in the branch. Second, being raised in the church, and now continuing to be a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has changed and blessed my life in more ways than I can count. What blessing I've been given!

These truly are important words in my life.

February 1, 2012

Your view today:



I know, not very exciting, huh? A Winco truck. But, there's a story connected with this picture. The kids and I went through the drive thru at MAPS CU today after hours. As we pulled out of their driveway, Braden said, "There's something you don't see everyday." When I asked him what, he said, "a semi backing up." There wasn't anyone behind us in the driveway waiting to get out, so we sat and watched that huge truck being skillfully backed up by its driver. It was a nice minute or so of mommy/kid time seeing something that, really, you don't get to see everyday.

And, now that I've uploaded the picture, I can see it's blurry, and the car passing in front of us left some head/tail light smears, but for all that, I like it, and what it represented - a minute stepping away from our busy lives to stop and look at something fun together.

A challenge!

http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
(click here)

Come back later (if my camera ever finishes downloading) to see life through my eyes!

I'm going to try and catch up on January's challenge through this month, also!





(January here)

Recent sewing...

Well, here they are. My first four free motion quilting blocks. Boy, I feel like I really, really need to practice more!! :-)
This is a four petaled flower. Can you tell??












The dreaded spirals. Yup, more practice definitely needed.















This is one I actually like!














Loop and loop again. Consistent size would have made this look better.








So, since I felt so badly that my FMQ is less than perfect, I made myself a new Spring purse.

Here's my little helper holding it for me.

I'm very, very happy with how the purse turned out. The pattern came from the book I won a few weeks ago - Fabric by Fabric One-Yard Wonders. I love the cute pocket in front. I can totally envision a water bottle riding around joyfully in it's own special pocket!

working....

I'm in process of finishing my 4 quilt blocks for this last two weeks in my quilt along. The first two were, well, challenging. I'm liking my practice so far on the flower, but am dreading the spirals. I'll post pics later today when I get them all completed!

:)

I'm a winner! :) I enter blog contests every once in awhile, and recently I happened upon Craft Gossip's giveaway for the book "Fabric by Fabric One Yard Wonders." And, guess what? I actually won!!

I guess I'll be doing a lot more sewing in 2012 - Yay!

Click here to see the cover

(Aren't those pigs adorable?)