Looking Up

This week's photo challenge at A Step in the Journey was to

photograph from a low angle.

I had fun trying to figure out something interesting...

I laid kinda under our trampoline

and shot Cooper jumping above...

I love this one of him peeking down at me-

check those eyes!

No, he's not leaving the house once he turns 12... ;)

Then this last weekend while we were at City of Rocks camping, I took some shots looking up at Register Rock. I'm not sure this picture really captures what we really saw there- these rocks are massive and I'm looking quite a ways up there to shoot this neat, rough part as we walked around (and tried to avoid the stinging nettle!) I'll share more of our fun trip later this week :)

I thought the concept of "Looking Up" was also really fitting for our life right now.

This past week Stephen began a new job that he keeps getting more and more excited about as he gets into it. I'm so anxious for the changes it will bring to our life and the potential for more structure.

These fun pics of the boys are from not long ago when Taron and Keaton were with us before school started. It's certainly still summer around here for now! They had a blast water fighting each other, while Ry cried when he got sprayed even a little bit! :)

Looking Down

There are two, and specifically one,

little boys around here that think snakes are pretty cool.

And bugs and spiders and fish and frogs and birds... ok, just animals.

They don't get it from me- just making that clear... 

I missed last week's photo challenge with camping and all,

but I was actually looking forward and really thinking on

this and next week's assignments-

high vantage point and low vantage point.

When Cooper ran in the house earlier this week and

announced with as much excitement as humanly possible

that Dad had caught another snake, I followed with the camera in tow!

I say another because, yes, we already have one

camped out in a small aquarium...to my chagrin.

Anyhow, I stood up on a cooler and snapped down

as they scoped out the day's creature catch.

I felt like these pics captured a bit of boyhood somehow :)

I actually really like this angle for photographing.

I also did use my manual mode!

I adjusted mostly the shutter speed

as I watched to make sure the exposure was ok.

They didn't all turn out, but it was fun to get more familiar

with making quick changes on my own!

Bold Colored "Frosting"

 This last week I've been having fun braiding these fun headbands to put in my sister's and nieces tree mail this next week! Hopefully they don't see this post before then :) I can't wait to see these on my little nieces! I followed Mandy's great tutorial at SugarBee Crafts! And decided I get along better with my sewing machine than my glue gun... :) But they turned out really cute no matter what!!

When I got them all done and looked down at the pile of braids, I realized they would work great for this week's photography challenge submission: bold colors! Aren't all these colors fun? I tried several modes on my camera and got a bit of practice with both shutter and aperture priority modes. :) I'm still so far from understanding it all like I want to- good thing there's still many more week's to come!

For anyone interested, check out

this awesome photography cheat sheet

Laura Beth posted as part of this week's challenge!

I LOVE this- so helpful and cute too!

Pinterest Rocks :) 

And some more "frosting" from the week just because:

Cooper's horns are held up using another braided headband

I made recently from a tutorial at Make It and Love It
Maybe not what I had in mind, but so be it!

Love these silly sweet boys!