Hopefully this week’s photos are a little more interesting than last week’s. I was off..way off…last week. It’s been a good week. We have slipped past a couple more winter weather watches or warnings or advisories unscathed. Woo hoo! And now it’s February, just that much closer to SPRING!  My favorite.

Something’s bothering me, y’all. This happened a couple weeks ago. I got a new lens. One that I thought was fancy. I know that having a “fancy” lens doesn’t make me a better photographer, but I thought I’d notice a big difference in the quality of my photos instantly. So far I’m not impressed. At all. And I hope this just means that I don’t know what I’m doing and I need to do some research to figure out how to make this lens work better for me.  All I see is grainy pictures…which is what I saw with my kit lens and my $100 prime 50mm.  Soooo…did I get the wrong lens? My other lenses took great pictures outside so I’m just feeling really confused and disappointed right now. Okay- just had to get that out. If anyone has a magic cure, I’d love to hear it. Moving on.

Linking up with Mindi at Stavish Stills Photography, Carrie at My Life, Our Journey, and Stephanie at Behind the Camera and Dreaming.  It’s never to late to join in or start your own 365.

029/365: Thursday, January 29th. Determined to get a good start with a better week of photos, I crept into the boys room with my camera and tripod long after they were fast asleep to try to get some beautiful images of them just snoozing away.  Well. After about 30 minutes I gave up. I like this picture a lot, but it’s far from a technically good photo and not really what I had in mind. 

030/365: Friday, January 30th. We met a friend at the library but before he got there, the boys had a few minutes to play on the computer. Wow, we really need to work on their mouse skills! They both started touching the screens right away, thinking they were like smartphones or iPads.

031/365: Saturday, January 31st. An unplanned afternoon date for Ryan and I. We called Nana and Pop Pop and asked if they were busy Saturday afternoon. Whether they were or not, they said no and made last minute plans to come watch the boys. Ryan and I went to about 7 furniture stores looking for bunk beds for the boys (shhh!). It was fun and the boys loved spending time with their grandparents. We are all so lucky to have them close. They were good sports, reading all of the books we borrowed from the library the night before. 

032/365: Sunday, February 1st. Superbowl Sunday! One of the treats I made for the big game was Rice Krispie Treats. I had not made these in YEARS and now I’m wondering why. They were so easy and so unbelievably delicious. Classic and simple. 

033/365: Monday, February 2nd. Sweet, tired boy after a long day of school.

034/365: Tuesday, February 3rd. FINALLY! I felt like I’d ordered this book a month before it finally arrived. A compilation of EVERY photo from Catch the Moment 365 2014.  I am in love with how this book turned out and it means so much to me to be able to hold it in my hands, flip through it, and see a memory from every day of what turned out to be a (mostly) wonderful year for us. I didn’t realize until I made the book and looked back through the whole year how many times the boys were sick. Here’s to a healthier 2015!

035/365: Wednesday, February 4th. The sunrise was so pretty on my way to work that I literally stopped in the middle of the road to try to get a picture of this tree with the sunrise behind it (after I made sure no cars were anywhere in eyesight). I got a good one on my phone but the one with my real camera was rushed as a car began to surface in the distance. As I messed with my settings and kept my eyes on the road, I realized that the car approaching me was a police car. I figured they might think it a little strange that I had stopped in the middle of the road to take a picture of someone’s property with a giant camera…so yeah. It was rushed. I don’t really have a favorite this week. I like them all for different reasons, but I’m not madly in love with any one picture. I guess it would be a tie between Pop Pop reading and Dexter eating the Rice Krispie.  What are your thoughts?

~C~

 

I’m just gonna say it. I was a super lazy picture-taker this week. I knew it the whole time and felt bad about it, knowing I’d be really mad at myself as I was putting this post together. I was only taking pictures for the sake of getting it out of the way. But it’s been a rather busy, kinda crappy, stressful, not-feeling-the-pictures sort of week.  Everything is okay and I really shouldn’t complain. Even when life is not awesome, it’s still pretty great. I got to see my mom, grandma, aunt, uncle, and in-laws over the weekend. It’s always comforting to be surrounded by family!

I am just thankful for having NO measurable snow (just a couple very light dustings…knocking on wood so hard right now) so far this year, and almost no sickness for the month of January. FIVE HUNDRED times better than how we were doing this time a year ago, when we were all super sick with the flu (thanks to timehop for reminding me of that little tidbit).  So yeah, you’d think my pictures would have been better, because I really don’t have an excuse. Anyway, here’s a collection of 7 of the crappiest pictures I will post all year (I hope).

Linking up with Mindi at Stavish Stills Photography, Carrie at My Life, Our Journey, and Stephanie at Behind the Camera and Dreaming.

022/365: Thursday, January 22nd. I cringe looking at how terrible this picture is. Hey, I was busy trying to help in this “parent participation” basketball practice…since you know, half the parents’ “participation” is sitting in a chair and not assisting their 3 and 4 year olds whatsoever. 

023/365: Friday, January 23rd. HAPPY MAIL! I was really excited to get my beach vacation photo book in the mail. 

024/365: Saturday, January 24th. We traveled about 70 miles east to spend the day with my relatives and ended up here for a couple of hours. I was too busy helping and supervising the kids – and yep, other people’s kids too – to worry about taking many pictures. Disregard the fact that the kids were in CONSTANT motion, making it pretty impossible anyway. I feel sad that I didn’t get a picture of my grandma with the boys but I never really had the right combination of opportunity + lighting.  I’m just going to have to suck it up and turn on the flash sometimes.  Having pictures of people I love should be way more important than having the perfect shot. As evidenced by each photo this week – the perfect shot was clearly not my priority at all this week.  

025/365: Sunday, January 25th. Not really sure why it would appear that I only have one child this week, as every photo of a human is of Theo, but anyway. This is what he gave me when I asked him to sit next to the Duplo creation we built together.

026/365: Monday, January 26th. Because gas prices that low need to be remembered!

027/365: Tuesday, January 27th. Dexter likes dressing Batman in different suits. 

028/365: Wednesday, January 28th. Because I forgot to take a picture when it was fresh out of the oven and looking much more appealing…here’s our leftover barbecue chicken pizza.  It doesn’t look so delicious here, but I swear. It was.  Thank goodness…I made it through writing this post. I promise, I will try to do better next week!! Which picture do you think is the least terrible and boring? I choose…. um….?  Batman?

Sorry.

xo,

~C~