Blue-by-Me, Blue-by-You

"Blue"~February 13, 2012
Blue Anne~

I told the kids they had to pick 3 different blue things. I was hoping this would weed out coats and T shirts. :)

Blue Ben~9yo

Ben drew this on a white erase board, scanned it, printed it, then used it as a coloring page. Smart boy. :) Personally, I think Sonic looks like he's quoting Shakespeare.

Jacob~7yo

He used his Math Base-10 blocks. I love it!

Grace~6yo

The Bird. :)

The Toes. :)

Sam~5yo

Particularly The Colts and The Cowboys.

Now this is just funny. Robert has been perfecting covers for his studio lights. He couldn't resist setting them up as stadium lighting. lol 

This is exactly what it feels like to walk up to his door.

"Your Closet"~February 12, 2012

Yep. This is it.

Watch Out! He's a Man Eater.

Once again...back blogged. Ech. And there are lots of reasons, that I'm not going to bore you with..Let's get to pictures!

"Sun"~February 08, 2012
Now, I know this would seem obvious for me. I do love me some sunshine. :) And I went through several possibilities...I have a shirt Robert bought me that would be perfect for this...I even finished a painting of suns recently. In the end, I like being unpredictable. So I went with hairy balls instead. *shrugs* 
(Mom, you may want to just jump over this one.)

Harry Baals ~ You can look him up on Wikipedia. He was Fort Wayne's Mayor, Post Master General and a number of other things. We have several Memorials for him, including this street. You do pronounce his name, "Balls," and we have a lot of fun with that. However, this street sign has been stolen so often, they've changed the name to what you see here. 

Ben~9yo 
He immediately had this idea.
"Skittles looks like the sun when he's all curled up. I'll just wait till he's sleeping, take the picture, load it on the DS and make sun beams!"
I love it! Very creative.

 Jacob~7yo

Throughout the whole day, he kept saying it wasn't the right time. He needed to wait for the sun to peek out. That's not always easy on a February day in Indiana.

Grace~6yo 

Skittles laying the sun! (Is anyone really surprised here?) 

 Sam~5yo

I like this one the best. It's like it's the view from the cage I keep him in. LOL

But, I'm really impressed. It's a cool picture.

"Front Door"~ February 09, 2012
I amended this for the kids to be "A Door." Any door and it took them each about 30 seconds to take their picture. lol

Anne~36yo :) No. Really. 
To be honest, our front door looks horrible. It's 1 of the painting projects that's had to wait til this summer. So, I went with the Little People.

 Ben~9yo
"Mine Craft" is a game computer game Ben was able to buy with his Christmas money. He built this door and it was a "no  brainer" for him. 

 Jacob~7yo 
This is my favorite door. I love how he saw this, and that he got down on the floor real close.

 Grace~6yo
The kid's bedroom door. Grace turned it into a Haunted House last week. :) She was/is very proud.

Sam~5yo
I think this is the bathroom door.






















"Self Portrait"~February 10, 2012
I had an idea of what I wanted to do. Something close up. Just a piece of me.
Holy Moses! This was harder than I thought. lol LOTS of pictures. Lots of BAD pictures, blurry pictures, "I'm not even IN the picture" pictures.

 This is what I wanted. I even love the cord hanging from the ceiling. 

A very "me" picture. lol I love it. And, I believe it was like the 2nd picture I took.













I instructed the kids to take 2 pictures. A smile picture and a silly picture. (They used the timer on the camera.)

Ben~9yo

Jacob~7yo

Grace~6yo 

Sam~5yo

Don't like this picture so much. But I find it SO bad, it's good. lol 

"Makes You Happy"~February 11, 2012
Grace & I had a "Girl Date" today. I gave her a mani/pedi, and we watched a movie on my bed while braiding hair and putting on makeup. We took lots of pictures because all of it made us happy. I let her choose and she picked my favorite too. She melted my heart. Out of all the pictures of cats and painted toes, etc, she picked one of just her and me. :)

Grace~6yo



Sam~5yo
Sam went shopping with Grandma and Papa today. He was VERY insistent THIS was what made him happy! lol

Ben~9yo

So far, you'd never know we had another cat.

This is Fiddlesticks. He's so black, even in person he tends to look like a piece of cloth on the floor. :)

Jacob~7yo

This did not surprise me. His happy place is drumming. Where ever he is. Drumsticks make it better, but they are not always needed. He drums with his hands, his pencils, anything and everything ALL THE TIME. This kid was born to drum!

Sometimes, you catch something on a picture you didn't intend to, but it's brilliant! lol This is the case here and it DEFINITELY made me happy! Watch out! He's a Man Eater!

Well, Now I Just Want to Buy Buttons

"Button" ~ February 07, 2012

Ben~9yo

 

Jacob~7yo

Grace~6yo

Sam~5yo

Anne~

Without trying, I ended up seeing A LOT of button pics, art and crafts yesterday. Buttons were definitely on people's minds on Pinterest. I didn't have the supplies or time to do what I really wanted, but now I have "Bulk Buttons" on my list of supplies. lol

My flowers are kinda sad, but you get the idea. I especially love my Lady Bugs! 

Baby Jesus and Chickens

This is what I was afraid of...being back logged. Or, I guess it's back blogged.
In the last few days, not every person took every photo prompt, but every prompt has photos, so SCORE! lol

"A Stranger" ~ February 04, 2012
I went back and forth on this one. In the end, I didn't feel comfortable asking strangers for a photo that I would post on the web.
So I changed the prompt to "A Stranger Fill-In-Blank". In this case, "A Stranger Nativity".
During Christmas, this small nativity was set up in my bedroom. As you can see, a few new key players were added by the kids. I had to get things back out (and dust the dresser), but it was completely worth it because I'd wanted a picture of this anyway. I especially like the Bioncle. He appears to have been on recon when he noticed this. And, yes, that is Santa and his reindeer on the roof.

"10am" ~ February 05, 2012
I actually didn't take a picture on this one. My boys stepped up for me. :)

Ben~9yo

"10"

 "0"

"Clock"

Jacob~7yo
I love the angle.

Sam~5yo

We went through all the ideas of 10am. He took about 80 pictures. No kidding. This is the 1st.

This is the 10th. I'm sparing you the rest. lol
My boys have got my back. :)

"Dinner"~February 06, 2012

And I will say again (b/c I know I've said it at least 500 times), if Yankee Candle would make Fried Chicken, I would be in Heaven. *whispers* I may have also eaten the browned butter crispies in the skillet.

Alrighty! Today's prompt is buttons...let's see what we can do.

Hands...errr...Paws

"Hands"~February 03, 2012
I had this idea right away, however, it was a bit harder than I thought to put together. Harder, meaning...
"I can't hold my hand here much longer!"
"It's been 30 seconds."
Followed by each child picking another child to tell how they should be holding their hands. lol
I used Robert's Studio table and put all 4 kids up there at the same time. It just seemed like it would take less time than me trying to cut and paste them all together afterward.
This is the American Sign Language Alphabet: C-O-R-R-E-L-L
Sam, "What does that spell?" *slaps forehead* Thank, God, he got it when I said the word.


I talked to each of the kids as they took the camera.
"You can use your hands, someone else's hands, a doll, you could draw hands, or even use the cats." Here's what they heard out of that...

Ben~9yo
Took him 2 seconds. "Done!"












Jake~7yo
2.5 seconds and 1 picture.
He's especially proud of the bent legs here.










Grace~6yo
She took every cat picture under the sun, every furry body part, and then some! lol She also was the only one to find Fiddlesticks, but his picture didn't come out too well. Skittle's stripes are much more photogenic.








Sam~5yo
He had a little photo shoot with Skittles, but came out with great pics all the way around.
I'm totally impressed with his pictures today.