Our boys just love this colorful play tunnel, especially the littlest! He will dive into it and try to get us to chase him, and giggle as he darts back and forth inside between the ends as we play peekaboo and try to surprise him from either side.  He was in a very good mood this morning and started playing with it shortly after breakfast, so I thought I'd try to capture some moments.  This was one of the early photos I got before I remembered to lower my ISO - yes it was still on 5000 from the night before! >.< Oh well. 

I know this picture has a lot wrong with it, the biggest thing being that I completely blew out the moon :-/  I almost didn't get a picture in today.  I originally posted one that I took with my iPhone driving to work after dark! But then after work I was walking out to my car at 1 AM (I've decided it's still all one day if I haven't gone to bed yet, as my schedule is a tad whackadoodle), and I looked up at the sky, and the moon and the surrounding clouds just looked AMAZING! It's probably a good thing no one else was around because I likely looked like an idiot standing in the driveway snapping photos of the sky with my iPhone.  And no, none of those were worth keeping!  I booked it home (at least the anticipation helped me stay awake), swapped out lenses, grabbed the tripod, and tried to get some pics from my front lawn.  I kept tweaking settings and trying different approaches because I wasn't getting what I wanted (and as I already mentioned, I kept blowing out the moon!), and of course the clouds cleared out before I could try much more.  I do like how the clouds look here but I'm definitely going to have to do some research as to which settings are best for this situations!  And if you have any tips, please mention them in the comments, thanks! :D

My 5 year old is often at school when I get my camera out for the photo-of-the-day, so today I decided I'd try to get some shots of my boys (esp him) playing after I picked him up.  I love to see how much fun they have despite their age difference, they both just smile and giggle so much together. ^.^

I'm definitely still learning how to work with my different camera settings and how to use what light I have available. :-/ I took several pictures of the fire in my friend's fireplace and of what I got this was probably the one I liked best.  Not really what I had in mind but maybe next time. 

I have a confession - I fell asleep on the couch so technically this photo was taken around 2 AM on the 17th, but I decided to still let it count for the 16th since I hadn't officially gone to bed yet! ^.^ I love fish tanks - they are very nostalgic for me.  Some of my favorite memories are of spending the night at my grandma's house and sitting up after dark watching the fish in the fish tank. It was so relaxing and something about all the different fish and their colors was just mesmerizing for me.  One of the first things I did in the weeks after we bought our house was buy a 55 gallon aquarium off Craigslist and set it up.  Right now it has a lot more algae than it should, as somehow my pleco isn't keeping up, so there were a lot of green flecks I was shooting through on the glass. :-/  Anyway, this picture is of our rainbow shark, which I think is a funny name considering he's technically only two colors and more of a catfish than a shark, but whatever. :) 

I thought I was going to have time to get a photo using my Nikon between the time we were discharged and the time I needed to leave for work, but we didn't get out of the hospital until much later than I thought we would and I forgot that it was Friday so I needed to head to work earlier than usual!  That being the case, I'm resorting to posting a photo I took with my iPhone for my husband of our son in his hospital crib today.  Poor guy was so tired but is thankfully back home now and on the mend. I'm just glad he got the treatments he needed when he did, his croup got scary there for a while. 

So today got interesting.  My youngest son has been fighting an intermittent croupy cough since Monday evening, and this morning it decided to get a lot worse.  We ended up in the doctor's office before noon, and about an hour later they were sending us to the hospital to admit him.  It's been a very long day, I am very tired, and I am posting this from his hospital room. 

Ironically enough I pass this hospital on my way to and from work all week long, and I've thought many times on my way home (I finish at 1 AM) that it would be a great place to get a photo of the city at night due to it's perch atop a hill.  So tonight I figured I'd give it a shot and got permission to use an empty ICU room with a big window that faces the city lights.  Mind you, I did not have my tripod with me, I was shooting through a glass window, and there was some glare from the hall light behind me. One of these days I'd like to return with my tripod and see if I can convince them to let me take a picture of the city from the rooftop. :)

My baby boy is improving, by the way, and of course I waited until he was sound asleep to slip away for the pics. I also wanted to throw it out there that I am behind on the commenting I plan to do - thank you for bearing with me!  I still intend to go around and check out more photos etc., I'm sorry for the delay though. 

Today I chose to photograph the beautiful orchid blooming in my front window.  The plant was a gift from my oldest brother to our family when my youngest son was born 13 months ago.  For a long time we thought we'd managed to kill it - it looked SO dead! The blooms fell off with no return, the stalks looked dried up and seemed to be darkening, and the leaves drooped listlessly over the sides of the pot.  My mom kept watering it faithfully once a week, and we brainstormed different ideas to try and perk it up, though I don't know that we really got around to trying any because I honestly thought it was a lost cause.  Then one day my mom moved it to the front windowsill.  I don't remember if it was intentional or if we were just cleaning and needed it off the ledge, but apparently that's all it needed! See for yourself below :)  (the reddish background is my window sheers)

Well thankfully I managed to figure out what had been altered on my camera the other day to keep giving me over-dark images, so that has been remedied! Once I got that sorted I started clicking away, and by the time I sat down to go through these on the computer I had a really hard time choosing which photos to post! So I decided to pick four from our time chasing shadows on the deck :)

I know the first one is slanted, but I actually prefer it that way because I think it makes my son look like he's dancing ^.^  He was so happy to be outside and running around the deck, though you can probably tell by the second pic that he unfortunately wasn't feeling that well. He's been sick that last couple days with a cough etc. The third is our dog Hannibal and his shadow looks tougher than he is ;-)  The fourth is my shadow of me taking the picture and I think my little guy looking down at the dog (he gets so excited when he sees Hannibal ^.^). 

If you click on the individual images they will display larger.

A picture of our flag as the sun started setting just seemed fitting for Veteran's Day.

Sidenote: I'll confess I was a little frustrated with my camera today - I think I accidentally changed how it was metering the light somehow accidentally yesterday and my pictures keep coming out darker than they should be. I was pretty stressed at first then called my camera doctor / photographer brother and he helped me troubleshoot.  I hope to have it back to what I'm used to again tomorrow. :-/ It's also bugging me that this picture isn't nearly as crisp as I wanted it to be, but again, I was having issues and unfortunately I ran out of time to remedy things. At least I'm giving myself lots of room for improvement! ^.^