Days 20 - 21

20/365 - January 24, 2012

After several days of rain, the last two days were finally beautiful, sunny, and mild! We enjoyed a lot of time outside. Caught this one of Leah relaxing in her lawn chair. :) Dodge also enjoyed a good back rub by rolling in the grass. He does this often!

21/365 - January 25, 2012

Ever since he was a pup, Hud has loved to play with, chase, and catch soccer balls. The obstacle we run into is that he's very protective of his ball and often won't stand back so we can even kick it for him. He would make an awesome goalie.

And, after three hours of fresh air and outside play, somebody was awfully tired yesterday afternoon. ;)

Days 14 - 19

14/365 - January 18. 2012

My first loaf of bread in the new bread machine: cinnamon swirl! It cracks me up that the swirl looks like the shape of a "G". Thanks Grammy and Grandpa for the Gift? ;)

15/365 - January 19, 2012

We often have deer in our yard. Our neighborhood is more on the rural side, with lots of wooded areas and creeks. It's not unusual to see sights like this, and since my dogs were passed out asleep and completely unaware of the "intruders", I took advantage and snapped some pics.

16/365 - January 20, 2012

My sweet little ballerina, wearing her new ballet outfit from Grammy and dancing around the kitchen to the Tangled soundtrack. :)

And, because they were SO yummy, the scones I made to go with our "breakfast for dinner":

These were especially amazing with some raspberry preserves!

17/365 - January 21, 2012

I actually snapped a whole bunch of photos on Saturday between Leah's dance class and her, surprisingly, wanting us to take her picture that afternoon. I am posting this one because it's rare to actually get a good photo of Leah & Hud together. Hud was standoffish with Leah for a long time; he was never mean, never growled or anything, but he wasn't so patient with a new baby in the house stealing our attention. Yet in the past year, maybe more, he's really warmed up to her and is somewhat comfortable with poses like this. :)

18/365 - January 22, 2012

We went to Home Depot and Lowes on Sunday to begin preparing for Leah's new playroom upstairs! This is just a quick glimpse of the curtains & curtain rod that we picked out. We're going to try to make it very colorful up there!

19/365 - January 23, 2012

This amused me. All the figures are lined up according to height. My daughter totally got my OCD tendencies. ;)

Days 8 - 13

8/365 - January 12, 2012

My father-in-law gave me this mug for Christmas. He knows I adore the Broadway show, Wicked, and of course, my coffee. And the inside of the cup is green!

9/365 - January 13, 2012

My mom & stepdad came to visit for the holiday weekend, so we finally got to do Christmas with them! This is Leah, hugging her new plush Daisy Duck to go with the rest of her Mickey & Friends crew:

Holding up a set of Beauty & the Beast characters! I'm surprised I caught her face in the picture at all because she moves so quickly, especially when she's excited!

10/365 - January 14, 2012

One of the gifts Leah received the day before was a dress-up Belle costume. She didn't want us taking pictures of her but I managed to snap this one before she could realize what I was doing!

11/365 - January 15, 2012

Dan & Leah walking at one of our favorite spots, the Botanical Gardens. I love shots from behind.

12/365 - January 16, 2012

Leah & I on the mall choo-choo! We promised her a ride if she was well-behaved at the flooring store we wanted to go to beforehand. No, we are not above bribery and yes, it works. ;)

13/365 - January 17, 2012

My shiny new bread machine that my mom & stepdad gave me for Christmas! I am super excited to try this out (maybe today?). If anyone knows any good recipes, feel free to send them my way!

7/365 - January 11, 2012

My sweet, sleepy Dodge. I have entirely too many photos of him fast asleep... clearly, that doesn't stop me from taking more. ;) He's just so darn cute and cuddly.

Couldn't resist a little puppy love too. :)

Days 5 & 6

5/365 - January 9, 2012

I snapped this photo shortly before 5pm on Monday. It had been cloudy and rainy for most of the day. I was in the kitchen preparing dinner and glanced up to see this glow of sunlight out the window. Naturally, I grabbed my camera and stepped outside on our back deck. I don't think the photo quite does justice to how fluffy and multi-dimensional the clouds looked as well as the soft glow of the sun streaming through. So pretty. Not five minutes after I took this picture, we had another quick rain shower!

6/365 - January 10, 2012

My silly girl, draping her blankie over her head. She reminds me of Linus from the Peanuts gang. ;)

Days 3 & 4

3/365 - January 7, 2012

We spent some time outside on Saturday, since the temperatures were comfortably in the 60s. Leah has been rather anti-camera lately, but I managed to snap a few of her anyway. This is partly why I'm letting her take pictures too - hoping maybe she'll be so interested in it that she won't mind that I take pictures of her. ;)

Leah took several pictures of me and my husband, Dan. I cropped them since there was a lot of background, but other than that, she did a great job again!

4/365 - January 8, 2012

Most of our Christmas decorations are all packed up and ready to head back down to the basement. My birthday on the 7th has typically been the unofficial marker for having all the Christmas stuff down. I grew up in a Catholic family where the decorations were kept up through the Epiphany on January 6th. Though my husband and I do not practice any religion, I do still enjoy keeping my home decorated for the full holiday season.

2/365 - January 6, 2012

I made myself a birthday cake. :)

Tomorrow, I turn 32. My husband, daughter, and I will go out to eat somewhere and while I could get some type of dessert in a restaurant, I'd rather have a birthday cake this year. My hubby is an awesome, multi-talented guy, and sometimes experiments in the kitchen, but I don't believe he's ever baked. So, I did. :)

I love coconut cake! Yum!

And, just because, here's my monkey girl in her new Muppets hoodie!

(I also changed my settings so that anyone can stop by and leave a comment, not simply those with a Google account. :) )

1/365 - January 5, 2012

Welcome to my Project 365!

I'm a few days late to the party, as it's already January 5th and my OCD tendencies would much prefer a nice, fresh start date of January 1st. ;)  Ah well. No huge deal. Better late than never, eh?

Anyhow, since I received a new Canon Powershot for Christmas and since a few other friends decided to try this challenge, I thought it would be fun to give it a shot as well. It will help me learn more of my camera's settings as well as document all those "little" moments that turn out to be the big ones, ya know?

However, this first picture you see of me? Taken by my 3 1/2 year old daughter. I thought it seemed like a nice way to begin the project. Besides, as long as there's one photo each day, does it matter who took it? ;)

Even though I will be taking a photo everyday, I may not get a chance to post them right away. So, you may see several days of photos posted at once if I get backed up or wasn't near my computer much.

Also, fair warning, a majority of my photos will probably feature my three kiddos:

Leah

Hud

Dodge

I am a stay-at-home mom and spend my days with these three loves. Naturally, they will be my main sources of inspiration. :)