Grand Tetons and Yellowstone

We took a weekend trip to the Tetons and Yellowstone last month.  So beautiful.  Here's a few of my favorite scenic shots from the trip.  

Jackson Lake

Lower Geyser Basin  

I like the eerie quality of the black and white, but I also love the reflections in the water in the color version.

Another view of lower geyser basin

Morning Glory Pool

What's your creative style?

Here's a quiz from Psycholologies (QUIZ) to help you determine your style.


Mine?  "Creativity enriches you"


Creativity is separate from the real world for you. But it’s a magical world in which you like to immerse yourself. When you’re involved in it, you get the wonderful sensation that there are no limits, that anything is possible. What you are really looking for is harmony — you want to feel you are a part of what you create. Planting flowers, writing poetry, embroidery or putting together a photo album, these are all suited to your sort of quiet creativity. You want to fall in love with what you create. You also think of creativity as a part of you in which you can take refuge and feel protected...


Pretty accurate.  Except it left out the part where I get insanely frustrated when what I create doesn't meet my expectations...Yeah, I'm a little bit of a perfectionist/control freak about that sort of thing.


Anyway, what's yours?

Lake-scapes

I went fishing a few weeks ago with my husband and my kids.  These are a couple of shots that I took that day.  Sometimes a camera just can't do justice to the beauty nature...or maybe it's the photographer insufficiency...It was so gorgeous that day.  I just wished I could capture the view exactly as it was.

The end of June...

So, I took a picture 23/30 days in June.  Definitely room for improvement :)

Independence Day Cookies

My grandma used to make Kool-Aid Cookies when I was younger.  I thought they were the coolest ever.  Now, I have a new favorite--I love homemade Oreo cookies.  Recently, I saw a picture of red, white and blue cookies and thought they'd be fun for the 4th of July.  So, combining the Kool-Aid Cookies and homemade Oreos, I made these babies.  They're delicious!

Red Cookies:
1 white cake mix
3/4 c shortening
2 eggs
1 package of Cherry Kool-Aid (or any other red Kool-Aid flavor)
Red food coloring (I use Wilton's No-Taste Red food coloring)

Mix all together and bake at 350 for 8 minutes.  Don't overbake!


Blue Cookies:
1 white cake mix
3/4 c shortening
2 eggs
1 package of Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade Kool-Aid
Blue food coloring

Mix all together and bake at 350 for 8 minutes.  Don't overbake!


Filling:
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 stick of butter
4 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla

Mix all together.  Spread on cookie and sandwich with 2nd cookie of opposite color.

Mine were kind of small, but it made 54 sandwiches.  (108 individual cookies)

Hope you have a happy and safe Independence Day weekend!

Blog Revamp!

I'd love to hear what you think about my new blog design. Oh, and if you decided that you'd like to "follow" me, well, I'd love that too :)

Also, if you're interested, I'd be happy to design blog header/elements for you, too. Or logos. Or announcements. Or whatever.

Week Four.

Did much better this week! I did 6 days. I think I may switch it up a little bit in July and do things a little differently. I have a couple of different ideas and I'm not sure what's going to work best for me yet.

Week Three.

So...I didn't do so hot with Week 3 either. Another really, insanely busy week! Plus, I had to have my wisdom teeth taken out last week...so I have an excuse, right? The last picture of my sleeping daughter was at the end of the week and is perfect to show the kind of week we had. She finally just crashed on Saturday afternoon. I managed to remember 4 days again. I kind of like this 6 picture layout...not sure what I'm going to do when I actually have 7 pictures to use! This week, I'm trying to have a little more variety--not just photos of my babies :)

Week Two.

So, week 2...yeah...didn't do so good. Weeks 2 and 3 were some of the busiest weeks that I've had in a really long time! I took a lot of pictures, but not every day. I think this week I was able to manage about 4 days.

Week One.

All the photos give a glimpse of what June has been like so far. Well, maybe not the one of those cute squishy cheeks, but I take lots of pictures of those! I decided to go for the weekly post. It'll keep me motivated...hopefully...

New Photo Project

So, I've been wanting to do a Project 365 for a while. I was going to start in January, but well, I was a little preoccupied with growing another person and then taking care of him. That "project" made me get a little off track. Plus, every day for a who year? Yeah, just a little bit overwhelming! So, since I get overwhelmed, I'm going to start out by doing a "Project 30" for the month of June. So far, yep, a whole three days in, I'm going strong. My camera has been out all of the time. I need to find my little point and shoot camera so that I can use that too, because although I usually have my dSLR with me, sometimes it's just a pain to lug that thing around.

I'm trying to capture what our life is really like...not just the exciting parts, but the real, everyday kinds of things. My husband took this of me with my babies last week while we were hanging out in the back yard. I love it!

Now, I'm trying to decide how to post the pictures that I take every day. Posting them every day would definitely fail, so now I'm trying to decide between weekly and monthly and just posting all the photos for that respective week or month in a collage or something. So, for all 3 of you that are reading this...What do you think?

New...

My newest niece...so sweet...

Wink Fotos Workshop

A few weeks ago I went to a photography workshop by Emily Clark of Wink Fotos. She posted some stuff about the workshop on her blog, although maybe I shouldn't mention that...there are a couple seriously dorky pictures of me. Anyway, Emily is a lot of fun and so was the workshop. I kind of decided to sign up impulsively, but that's probably good, because if I had to think about it, I might not have done it.

So here are a few of my favorites from the workshop...

Which do you like better? This one, or...

...this one? I can't decide!

This one might be my very favorite

This is Emily, showing us how it's done.

(Not sure if it's a blogger problem or a Photobucket problem, but lately my pictures NEVER seem as crisp and clean once I upload them as they do in my files. Any insight? It's driving me nuts!)

Macro

The Pioneer Woman had a photography assignment this week that was all about macro photography, so I thought I'd share a few of my favorites that I've taken over the past year.

Busy...

I haven't posted much lately (okay, nothing at all!) because I've been busy taking care of this new little guy and his big sister...

Isn't he sweet??

I do have some new posts in the works, so don't give up on me yet :)