208 In Mimi's Garden

We took a day trip down to see Chip's family in Cleveland, MS. It rained off and on the whole way down, the dark clouds closely followed by white fluffy ones and blue skies. I still love that you can see the rain falling in far off clouds. The slight grey shadow it creates underneath.
The moment I stepped out of the car I knew I was going to be taking A LOT of pictures. These beauties were the first things I saw!And then I took advantage of everything that would sit still. Which did NOT include the flowers! The wind was quite brisk and the flowers were waving wildly. And there is a feeling of peace and timelessness in Mimi's yard. The wind chimes sound softly.
And this patio set is straight out of the 50's or 60's. It came with the house. As I said, the wind was strong, and the flowers were swaying a good bit, but that didn't stop me from taking pictures ...

Katie couldn't wait to see her cousins. Tori was sick and was only able to stop in for a few minutes. Michael and Scott were there most of the time, and Will showed up a little later. They found a football to throw around, so Katie and Connor made a nuisnce of themselves trying to play along. Michael is a Dad, so I expect him to be patient with the kids, but Scott is just 14. Most boys his age try their best to ignore small children, but Scott is WONDERFUL with them! If they annoyed him trying to worm in on the football tossing then it didn't show. Katie had SO much fun with her cousins. She can't wait to see them at her birthday party next month!

Katie also took control of my camera for a little while. I love when she takes pictures! It is fun to see what she finds the most interesting, and to see how she improves in framing a shot. I did not retouch any of these, although there are a couple pretty good shots I might go back and clean up a little. Katie still has a bit of a problem getting the whole subject into her shot. She did pretty good until she asked me to stand by the tree. Then I ended up with a couple shots of my legs. She still tends to be happy as long as she gets at least part of what she wanted into her shot. I think she is doing great, and I am less tentative about trusting her with my camera.

And we got to see my Great Niece Presley. She started walking the night before and she showed off her new skills for us!
Connor was hilarious to watch playing football. He would just run back and forth, trying to be wherever the ball was. Every once in a while he would get handed the football, and he would walk it to the next person, or more often than not, SPIKE it like he had made a touchdown. Of course the instant the ball was taken away form him he would scream and cry. That part was not as funny.Connor also discovered Pop Pop's John Deere. What boy can resist a ride-on lawnmower??
We finished the evening off with a fish fry. The guys all sat outside and fried up a huge amount of crappie that Tanya's father had caught. It was the first time I had ever eaten crappie, and it was delicious!! Much better than the traditional fried catfish. And of course there were fries and hushpuppies. Oh, and Mimi made coleslaw that was so yummy! And to finish it all off ... PECAN PIE! Yum! Yum! and YUM!

197 Random Update

You would think I would have learned my lesson by now ... if I try to blog in the middle of the day then I don't have time to make my posts interesting or in anyway funny. I end up just spewing out the facts and letting it go at that. Sure, I started this blog as a way to let my Atlanta family know what is going on in our daily lives, but it has become more than that over time. I love using it to share my photography with people. I take so many pictures, and someone else needs to enjoy them - besides myself! I absolutely LOVE when people leave comments!! So please, I am not above begging, PLEASE comment if you like something I post, or if you hate it.

But to move away from begging people to talk to me ... (fishing for compliments, as my Mom would say)

Katie made it through her grounding. It is amazing how much sweeter that child is when she has not been around other children. Not that any of her friends would be "bad influences", but I think it is just being rambunctious in general. When she is at home with us she is more docile. She plays, don't get me wrong! In fact, two days were spent running around the backyard in the spray of the garden hose. But she has to temper her play around her brother, and I am sure that I do not play or respond the way that her little friends do. She seems to be more attune to the world around her when kept in our little circle. She was supposed to still be grounded on Sunday, but I told her she could have a reprieve if she was really good. Mainly I wanted her to be able to go on the Easter Egg Hunt, but I had to make her earn it. She did really well, and I think she really appreciated being able to play with her friends more than she would have. She also is doing a bit better at listening to me. Lets see how long that lasts!

Connor has been his same old adorable tank self. He plows through the world, destroying whatever gets in his path, but he does it with a huge smile and a belly laugh and you just can't get mad! I think he might be the smartest 18 month old ever! He has figured out what a joke entails! Tonight he was holding a cookie out to me, then when I would put my hand out for it he would yank it back and LAUGH! He did it repeatedly, and it just got funnier and funnier! And he makes messes, but then he insists on helping you clean them up. He spills something, he wants a rag to help wipe it up. He drew on the dishwasher in crayon, and he took the sponge from my hand to finish wiping it off. And also, he is super polite! Chip was sitting beside us with a plate that had some Fritos on it, and Connor reached his hand out in the grasping "can I have some" way he has. And his hand clearly could have just taken the Fritos, but he didn't touch them until Chip told him it was okay. Of course, at the time he should have already been in bed for 2 hours, so it was not nearly as cute as it could have been. He refused to go to sleep tonight! He wasn't fussy, but he would not close his eyes. He even lay in his crib for a solid hour just babbling to himself. I eventually had to swaddle him. He is just at that point where he is learning so fast, and wanting to DO so many new things that sleep is not high on his priority list.

Tomorrow night, Candy and I are going to go to the Desoto Camera Club for the first time. Well, we will be if I can find a babysitter for the kiddos. Other than posting my pictures on the computer, it will be my first foray into making my photography obsession public. I am much more comfortable in my computer chair, safe behind this screen, but one day I will have to go out if I want to make this hobby into anything greater. And I do, just not sure where to start with that. So, if you think of me tomorrow night, think of my little hermit heart in a room full of people ...

To close this post of randomness out, I will leave you with a few pictures of our newly acquired flowers. Katie picked them out. And then we are under a freeze warning, so I am hoping they will survive to make it into the ground. Colonel Reb would appreciate some prettier surrounding I am sure!I just needed something to take pictures of other than dandelions ... The lighting indoors is terrible, and the Gerbera Daisies are closer to a deep crimson than this picture shows, so I played around with them a bit.

193 More boring shots with the Argus

I think I need to look around and find out how to clean the mirror in my Argus. And, it was a bit nervewracking to try to take pictures of Connor in the tub. I was always anticipating having to throw the cameras down to grab Connor up. Maybe I should stick to shooting outside. Flowers and weeds for me for a while :)
And no, that is his belly button people! He has an outie. I do wish I could have caught a better expression on his wee face, but I thought it was a cute picture anyway.
Here is my sad little quickie apparatus. In order to cut down on the glare you need to create a tube of some kind. This one is ... functional. However, it is barely larger than my lens, and at the wrong angle, it will turn with my auto-focus. It leaves a small gap in the front, and it slides. It will do until I can come up with something better though.

192 My Baby Needs a Name!

I am SO EXCITED!! My Argus Super Seventy-Five came today!! Although it did come in the middle of a thunderstorm, so getting outside wasn't gonna happen. I did take a few pictures inside. It was harder than I expected it to be ... for a couple reasons. The Argus produces a mirror image in the viewfinder, so it is a bit different to set up a shot. And, in order to shoot TtV it is a lot easier to use some form of tube or screen to keep the glare to a minimum. I ended up creating a sad little cardboard tube. First, some pictures of my Argus ... I need to come up with a name for herAnd then the sun came out!! The ground was sopping wet, and there wasn't much to take pictures of, but that has never stopped me before! Bear with me ... I apologize for all the random pictures you will be putting up with for the next few weeks while I get better at this!And then Connor found the mud ...