You Capture - MY Choice!

Wiped.

Out.

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

This was the best challenge ever.  :)
Go see everyone else's choice of photo at
You Capture by Beth

You Capture - Mornings

Alternately titled: The return of bed-head!    (Wow, has she changed, or what?)

No, Hollie doesn't sleep on the floor.  We just enjoy our lazy mornings at home.  

--------------------------------------------------

You Capture
at

I Should Should Be Folding Laundry.

Check it out.

You Capture - Outside

A walk in the park on a cool, blustery [see blog title], 70-degree afternoon -- 

the first time in weeks that we've been able to leave the house between noon and 3pm without sweating our brains out.

When she's not in the stroller, she insists on pushing it herself

Strong gust of wind blew the stroller back toward her...yikes!

Had enough.  Your turn, Momma!

Hollie's favorite thing to do at the park: collect trash.

[She would love to collect poop too, but I vetoed that.]

Occasionally, we find a good spot,

and sort out the findings.

...then we hang onto the keepers

and keep on movin'.

---------------------------------------------

This post is part of Beth's weekly You Capture challenge...head over to I Should Be Folding Laundry to check out the other awesome entries!

You Capture - In the kitchen

Sharing lunch with her puppy.  

How sweet!  

Also sharing with a Homer Simpson magnet on which Homer is saying, 

"Trying is the first step towards failure."

Oy vey.

--------------------------------------------

Head over to I Should Be Folding Laundry to take a peek in everyone elses' kitchens!

You Capture - Black & White

This was a really cool challenge, but then I ended up taking a photo that has to be in color in order for you to get the point...

As of Monday, we are officially a two-car family, and owners of our very first mini-van!  If you know Daniel and I, you know that in our opinion (until recently) buying a mini-van could be equated with the most

ultimate,

epic,

eternal,

undeniable

nerdiness.

They're just not, well... cool.

It turns out being parents has made us kinda nerdy.  I am embarrassed by how excited I am to be driving around in this. 

[Also, I would love nothing more than to be able to say we bought a black and white van just for this You Capture challenge, but that wouldn't be true.  That would have been awesome, though.]

 -------------------------------------------

Be sure to go see the other black and white posts for You Capture hosted by Beth at I Should Be Folding Laundry!

You Capture - America

We didn't go see fireworks for the Fourth this year. I was kinda bummed. Though I was terrified of them as a little kid (who wasn't?) I slowly fell in love with them over the years. However, this year...

• A) The weather sucked.
• B) Hollie's bedtime these days just happens to coincide with sundown.
• C) I think everyone in our neighborhood did fireworks in their front lawns (starting precisely at bedtime) (despite the rain) so we got a great show right across the street anyway.

So, of course, we just had some friends over for some good food.

Homemade strawberry icebox pie.

Just waiting to be topped with a layer of whipped cream.

As I'm writing this (three days later), I'm thinking,

Why the heck didn't we add blueberries, so it would be red, white, and blue?!

But, to be honest, about eight seconds after the whipped cream touched that pie, my only thought was,

Wait, where'd the pie go?

And who left this empty pie tin and stack of dirty plates?

Yeah, it was that good.

That's our slice of Americana. Go check out more at Beth's!

You Capture - Depth of Field

"A can of worms, indeed."  (That was the original title, before I decided to use this post for You Capture instead)

A few days ago, out of the blue, Daniel says to me, "I think we should start composting."

"Sure!"  Why not?

"With worms."

 As in...earthworms.  Red wigglers, to be exact.  Imagine my struggle to keep a straight face while asking the guy at the bait shop for a few dozen "red wigglers."  Apparently they're the worms of choice for composting.  Without worms, you'd have to stir up the compost regularly to "aerate" it, helping it decompose evenly or whatever, but this way we don't have to do that.  Thank goodness.  Sounds like a job for Mike Rowe.

Getting everything we needed and setting it up was surprisingly easy, and while documenting the whole process, I took this shot just for this week's challenge:

 

You'll see where it fits in later.  

First, start with two big tubs.

Drill vent holes in tubs.
(FUN)

Shred a LOT of paper and moisten with a little water.

Put paper in tub.  5,845,671 points to whoever can identify the ripped up pizza box...

Add dirt on top of paper.

Pay no attention to the baby behind the curtain!

 

Add worms, to taste.
(Ewww...bad joke bad joke)

Do all of this right next to your dinner, cooking in the crockpot.

Thanks for reading that entire post, just for You Capture!  Check out everyone else's depth of field over at Beth's, at I Should Be Folding Laundry.

You Capture - Yellow

Once again, it's been awhile since I've done a You Capture challenge, but I always go to check each week's theme, and this week...yellow just happened to sneak up on me.

These are all my bottles and pumping stuff, which I am packing up until our next little one comes along.  Because I don't work, we never used them much except for when we left Hollie with babysitters (aka grandparents!), or when I had to go somewhere and leave her at home with Daniel.  For awhile there, we were also giving her a bottle daily, to which we added her liquid vitamin supplement.  That stuff tasted nasty...there's no way she was taking that from the dropper!

Anyways, with solids comprising more and more of her intake (I'd say her diet these days is pretty evenly split 50/50 between solids and milk) we have just not needed to have all that extra milk on hand "just in case".

I know it's not really a big deal, since we're still breastfeeding, but as I'm packing all of it up, it does have that sort of "end of an era" feel.  My baby girl needs me just a little less.

Don't be yella.  Check out everyone else's entries at Beth's!