Make-Up Scavenger Hunt

Here are a few of the shots I've taken over the past few weeks in failed attempts at completing Ashley's scavenger hunts:

1. TOY:

2. BLING: This was our cake topper for our wedding. I love all the details, including the fresh wedding bands on both of their hands.

3. LETTERS: Where did the "e" go? :(

4. BEADS: These are from a Mother's Day present that my oldest made for me about 3 years ago. It broke, spilling the beads all over the street, about 2 hours later. But I snatched as many as I could find and keep them in the box he made for me.

5. CHORE: Yuck.

6. LOOKS LIKE A LETTER OF THE ALPHABET: My coffee cup, of course, making a Q.

7. FARM, or HIDDEN: I can kill both birds with this one since this is a photo of my son's FARM puzzle... and the horse seems to be hidden. :)

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

Ack! I'm behind again! I've been starting each week but then falling behind. I have some catch-up shots to post later this week, but first - an actual completed Scavenger Hunt!

1. BARE: My fingernails! This is a rare occurrence where they are actually polish-free. Not long after the shot, however, they were painted a brilliant shade of Back to the Fuchsia. :)

2. REFLECTIONS IN GLASS: This shot is several years old; that baby in the stroller is heading rapidly to age 5! This was taken in Washington DC in the reflection of a very dirty storefront.

3. SEEING DOUBLE: This shot could easily be titled "Seeing Triple" or even "Seeing Quadruple." My youngest cannot go to sleep w/out his Mickey, and we actually have a plethora of spares.

4. HEADLIGHTS: I nearly tripped over this truck but the stream of expletives slipping out of my mouth was instantly ceased when I decided to use it for a scavenger hut shot. (PS: Ryan calls them "Hess Hess trucks" - I love that he says it twice.)

5. BLACK AND WHITE: This is another oldie-but-goodie, also taken from DC. I love the little piece of advice on the bottom of the cup.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

I'm BACK! I've been MIA due to the end of school, but the year is behind us - I now have 8 weeks ahead of me of hanging with my boys and snapping some fun photographs. I've really missed these challenges! I've done a few here and there... maybe I'll post a catch-up blog entry to share some of them.

As always, visit Ramblings and Photos to see everyone else's shots!

1. EYELASHES: I didn't even bother taking a self-portrait for this one, but not because of my insecurity behind the lens (although that's there too!). No, I just happen to be blessed with the world's sparsest, shortest lashes - so a photo of them would hardly be interesting. Instead, here's what I use to try to make them a little more apparent:

2. WINDOWS/DOORS: This shot makes me laugh. I posed my youngest on his toy box, promising him that a deer was coming and he should watch (don't judge - you know you do it too). Instead, I snapped this at the exact moment he dropped his goldfish; if you look carefully, you can even see one that hasn't yet hit the floor:

3. FACELESS PORTRAIT: This is a horribly blurry, sit-in-front-of-a-dirty-mirror kind of shot. I almost didn't even post it, but whatevs. One of my goals for the summer is to work on my set up skills and actually USE the remote control I have for my camera.

4. PAINT: As soon as I saw "paint" on the list, I thought my little bottles of polish. I used to be a twice-monthly manicure kinda girl, but 2 kids and a full-time job don't really jive that with that notion. Bummer. Instead, I sometimes treat myself to a new bottle when I'm at Target; these three are the ones I took out a couple of days ago - decisions, decisions...

5. LEAF VEINS: These are from our "Yoshi fruit" tree. I was getting frustrated because the breeze kept messing with my shot, but I kind of like this one:

Scavenger Hunt "Sunday"

Not only am I late this week, but I haven't participated in 2 weeks! School is kicking my ass right now, but in a few weeks I'll be free of essays and grading, so hopefully I'll have more time to devote to this blog (um, and my other 2 equally neglected blogs).

1. ON THE FLOOR: This is a fun shot of my son's new ceiling fan. When we moved into our house last summer, his current room was occupied by a teenaged girl. We painted over the pink walls immediately, but her girly flowery fan stayed up until just a couple of weeks ago.

2. SELF-PORTRAIT: I hate self-portraits. Of myself, I mean - I love looking at others'! Well, I guess I don't specifically hate self-portraits - I just hate shots of me in general. ;)

3. LINES: I opened up my notebook to take a picture of a clean sheet but turned right to my Scavenger Hunt to-do list!

4. FRESH: This is a shot I took to use for my food blog; I turned fresh pita pockets into crispy pita chips to serve with hummus.

5. CLASSIC STILL LIFE: What says "still life" better than a bowl of fruit? (And an onion?)

Check out Ramblings and Photos to see everyone else's findings!

Scavenger Hunt "Sunday"

I'm a little late this week with my scavenger hunt! I had panicked about getting finished on time, but then I remembered that Ashley always says that she leaves it open until Tuesday nights for us slowpokes. Whew! :)

1. SOOC: I used this same picture for my weekly Shoot and Edit; check back on Thursday to see what I've done with it!

2. LAZY: I am very anal about my meal planning. Every weekend, I sit down and go through my cookbooks, blogs, and mental repertoire to come up with a menu for the week. I usually stick to it, but tonight I was feeling pretty lazy and just had some leftovers from when we went out to dinner the other night. Yum!

3. SMELLS LIKE SPRING: My husband bought this old-school push mower when we moved into our home last summer. I've always loved the smell of freshly cut grass, but I swear, this mower makes it so much more awesome. And I love how "green" it is, both literally and figuratively - now, with this mower, I ONLY smell grass and no gasoline!

4. SPROUTING: I received this adorable little plant as a Mother's Day gift and knew instantly that it would make a great entry for this item.

5. ISN'T IT IRONIC...: Isn't it ironic that the English teacher can't figure out what to photograph for an irony shot? ;)

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

I must confess that I took 3 of these from the archives this week. I had a crazy week - I guess that's my punishment for talking about all the free time I had last week during spring break. :)

I can't wait to visit Ramblings and Photos to see everyone else's shots!

1. ARCHITECTURE: This might be a familiar sight for many of you - this is the aquarium in the heart of the Baltimore Harbor, taken on a vacation in the summer of 2008.

2. FEET/TOES: Nobody wants to see my feet (at least, not in focus!) but my kids don't stay still enough for me to get their little piggies. I always say I'm going to sneak into their rooms one night and do a sleeping shoot, but I have yet to be brave enough to risk waking them. This was taken almost exactly 2 years ago - near the end of my second pregnancy.

3. THIS IS MY FAVORITE...: Beverage. My coffee. 'Nuff said.

4. SHADES: Another one from the archives! Not exactly sunglasses, but come on. How hilarious is this?!

5. RIMMED WITH LIGHT: I just took this one of my youngest yesterday. I kept trying to get this whole concept down, and I couldn't seem to get it. This is as close as I came.

There you have it... hopefully next week I'll be more on my game. :)

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

Here are my findings for you to enjoy while I help my little guys find their eggs. Check out Ramblings and Photos to see everyone else's awesome shots. Happy Easter!

1. REFLECTIONS: This is from a few weeks ago, but when I saw that "reflections" was an item on our list this week, this shot of my youngest immediately sprung to mind.

2. GUESS WHAT THIS IS?: Hmm... any ideas? :)

3. PLAYTIME: This is my oldest playing Wii. What's even more awesome is that I didn't even notice his shirt said "playtime" until I was editing.

4. WHAT'S INSIDE?: A little egg hunt treasure that I stole from my kids' stash to photograph. And then ate. Shhh.

5. LAWN & GARDEN: I had just taken the shot above of the M&Ms and happened to glance outside and saw that this tree was just gorgeous - it seems it bloomed overnight. I love the colors! And sidenote: we call this the "Yoshi tree" because it yields some kind of fruit looking things that our neighborhood deer eat (and then leave the pits along our front walk). Somehow, my oldest decided that they looked like the fruit that Yoshi eats in Super Mario Bros, and the name stuck.

And PS - my shot above was a close up of the "C" in my "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" mug that my husband bought me during intermission when we saw Mary Poppins on Broadway a couple of months ago. :)

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

Another Sunday, another scavenger hunt courtesy of Ramblings and Photos! I didn't feel super inspired this week. I usually get randomly hit with some cool ideas, but I guess the notion of spring break approaching put the cabash on that. But hey - I'm officially on spring break! Woo hoo!!

1. OUTSIDE: I had big plans for this one, but the rainy weekend thwarted me. Instead, I brought a little bit of outside to my kitchen table.


2. ZOOM: I actually DID have a super cool idea hit me for this one earlier in the week... but of course I lost it. Instead, I grabbed shots of my kids playing with their ramp.

3. ISOLATION: I used my super-classy Ikea flower as a model here.

4. POETRY: I am a high school English teacher, so naturally I loved this item! I had some ideas on ways to make this shot really cool, but I eventually decided to keep it simple. This is a Seamus Heaney collection that I used in college.

5. TIME: This is another Ikea find. I think it cost 99 cents, but I can't get it to work. But... it looks so damn adorable, so I keep it on the shelf above my desk anyway. In this shot, I like that you can see me.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

I'm so glad I started following Ramblings and Photos and participating in her challenges. I am having so much fun taking the shots, as well as doing some post-processing experimentation. And I've been really inspired by the interpretations of the other participants!

1. MOTION: Man, I should have waited to post my movement pictures. :) I really wanted to snap a shot of one of my kids on the slide or swing, but the shot below is ME on the swing!

2. FASHION: As soon as I saw this item, I knew I wanted to take a shot of the new jewelry stand that I just bought at Target. If only I looked this fashionable...

3. MANY: This is just a sampling of the boys' extensive crayon collection. And on a side note? These new twistable crayons are the best.crayons.ever. I LOVE them. Yes, I color too. ;)

4. ANIMAL'S PERSPECTIVE: This shot came to me suddenly. My darling 20-month-old snagged the bag of goldfish (have you tried the cupcake flavor? YUM!) and dumped it on the floor. I caught myself wishing we had a dog to take care of the mess (like I often do in such situations) and thought I'd grab my camera instead.

5. WAITING TO CLICK: Um... yeah. I've got nothing for this one. Guess I'm still waiting. ;)

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

Wahoo - I managed to finish my second week of Ashley's Scavenger Hunts! I had so much fun taking these, but perhaps even cooler was going to her post and being able to see everyone else's entries too. It's fascinating to see so many interpretations and perspectives!

1. IN THE DISTANCE: I caught Ryan playing an interesting game of dinosaurs at the table. It seems, however, more appropriate to call it "Which of these things is not like the other?"

2. TINY: Ryan gets a prize on Fridays from his teachers if he naps or plays quietly during naptime all week. There's a prize box of sorts and the kids can pick their reward. I told him to make sure he keeps this thing out of Danny's reach, and couldn't help but grab my camera when I saw he stuck her on the bookshelf in our office.

3. HIGH KEY: I must confess that this one stumped me. I had NO idea what "high key" meant. Am I supposed to take a picture of my keys on a high shelf? Someone singing? I googled, not really expecting to find anything, but lo and behold "high key" is a term used to describe the level of brightness in a photo. I think. I'm not really sure where the line is between "high key" and "over exposed," but I had fun playing around. And hey - I learned something new!

4. BEDROOM: I initially brought Danny up to my room because we recently hung a full length mirror by the closet. He loves to talk to himself in it and I think it would make the coolest shot. I did get a few reflection shots, but they weren't as fantastically awesome as this one. (Now, if only I had nicer curtains... but at least I thought enough to crop out the laundry!)

5. STRIPES: I took this shot for my food blog this weekend. Maybe I should have ironed the towel first...