You Capture ~ Light

I'm learning to take pictures using just natural light.  I really, really need to get a tripod.  Since I don't have one right now though, I had to make do.  And honestly, I'm pretty happy with they way these pictures turned out!

I love everything about this picture except for that crazy green glare by the shepherd's staff.  Anyone know how to keep that from happening?

The true light of the world...

That's it for me!  For more "light" visit I Should Be Folding Laundry!

P.S.  And with this post I have successfully completed Goal #90!

Gift #108 - the soft glow of a candle

Gift #109 - the twinkle of lights on a Christmas tree

You Capture ~ Shoes

This is another You Capture that basically fell into my lap just when I was giving up hope of finding an interesting way to take a picture of shoes...

I'm a teacher, and on Friday we took twenty-one awesome teenage girls out for a "girls day out."  The goal of the day was to talk to the girls about the importance of having self-confidence and it's link to making good life choices.

Now, I know what you're thinking.  "Kassandra, what does a field trip on self confidence have to do with shoes?"  Well, the answer is simple:  everything!  At least it has everything to do with shoes when you make the girls do a team building activity that requires them to walk blindfolded through a minefield of mouse traps...

Yes, that is a mouse trap that that poor blindfolded girl is nearly stepping on.  Let me tell ya, I'm really glad I was the "photographer" and got out of being blindfolded and sent through that particular maze!

My only real regret is that I didn't capture that moment when a girl stepped on a trap...now that could have made an interesting capture!  Good thing it's winter and no one was in flip flops...

Needless to say it was an awesome day out with the girls, and this particular team building activity was a bunch of laughs!  Not to mention it got me my You Capture for the week!  Happy capturing everyone!  Hope you enjoyed your visit!

 

Gift #102 - my job with all of it's ups and downs - especially the ups like girls day

Gift #103 - You Capture hosted by Beth - a place to practice my photography and gain inspiration and insight from others

You Capture ~ Lunch

I love Thanksgiving!  The food, the family, the food, the fun, and oh, the food...  It's easy to capture "lunch" when Thanksgiving dinner is your lunch!  This year the boys and I spent Thanksgiving at my parent's house in Iowa where my mom put out quite the spread...

It looked even better on our plates...

My boys are big fans of food...

My sister and I happend to be big fans of wine with our food...

All in all, it was an amazing lunch.  In fact, it was an amazing Thanksgiving - one of the happiest I can remember!

Click for more "lunch" You Captures!


A message to the adult members of the family I love so very much:  Please notice that I posted none of those pictures I took of any of you eating.  Your welcome.  Love, Kassandra

You Capture ~ Yellow

It turns out that yellow is not a color I run across to often in my daily life - I know this to be a fact because I spent all week looking for it!  So, for what it's worth, here's my yellow captures for the week...

I let my kids use permanent markers to draw on the last of our pumpkins.  They really like the yellow marker...until they realized it didn't run up on orange pumpkins!

Turns out I own one yellow candle, too...

Okay, that's it for me this week.  For more (and probably more interesting) captures check out I Should Be Folding Laundry!

You Capture ~ An Animal

This week's challenge didn't exactly excite me.  I saw myself being all boring and taking yet another picture of my very fat (and don't get me wrong, very adorable) cats.  My creative juices just weren't flowing on this one right off the get go.  Actually, they never started flowing.  I completely lucked into pictures of "an animal."

You see, we took the boys out to my in-laws to jump in big piles of leaves (they have trees and therefore leaves, and we do not).  While we were there, we found out that the boys' great-grandparents - who just happen to live next door - had just gotten their new puppy.  After the leaf fun ended (a.k.a. my allergies took over making it impossible to have anymore fun), we walked the boys next door to see her, this new tiny pup, and I just happened to still be carrying my camera.  And wah-la!  Captures of an animal happened!

Of course today I was inspired to take tons of pictures of the enourmous pack of geese resting by a little pond.  I could just see the gorgeous pictures laid out here for You Caputre, but alas, I didn't have my camera and was already late to work.  Go figure! 

Happy capturing, everyone!  For more animals visit Beth at I Should Be Folding Laundry!

You Capture ~ Five Favorites

This week's challenge was fun!  I got to focus more on what pictures I had taken instead of freaking about what I needed to take pictures of.  It was fun to get to go through my pictures from the week, edit them, and then pick out my favorites!

These are my five favorite pictures from this week:

First....doesn't he make a handsome Iron Man?

Second...I find pouty faces incredibly adorable sometimes. 

Third...my boys together and liking each other makes me smile.

Fourth...check out those gorgemous (yes, I made that word up) eyelashes!

And fifth...who can resist a little boy covered in bubbles acting like a zombie?

Thanks for stopping by!  For more favorites from the week visit I Should Be Folding Laundry!

Fall ~ The You Capture I Missed

So over at I Should Be Folding Laundry, Beth hosts You Capture on Mondays.  Last Monday's challenge was fall, and I was so excited.  I LOVE fall.  I made a point to get out with my boys (the weather was gorgeous!!!) and take pictures of fall here in Southern MO.

Then I just didn't have time to post them and didn't have time and didn't have time, and then, before I knew it, I had missed the deadline!  But oh well, I'm going to share them anyway - so what if I can't link them up to the challenge anymore?  Fall is way too pretty to not share!

(And before you start to wonder, yes, I did take my children to a cemetery to take pictures of trees.  Really, at that point in time it was the only place that had lots of pretty trees AND was public property!)

And just for fun...(and proof my kids didn't mind being in a cemetery and were in no way scarred for life)...

So there's one set of fall pictures from the other week.  One more set to go!

You Capture ~ Smile

Smiles are so much fun to capture!  It's a shame my camera and I were not getting along this week...  We did all kinds of fun things this past week like going to the pumpkin farm and decorating and carving pumpkins, but as I went through the pictures looking for all those smiles I found lots of blur and red eyes and too bright pictures.  Ugh...  I don't know what's going on with me and my sudden complete lack of skills, but it has got to STOP!

But, it's all good, because I did still manage to catch a few great smiles!

 

And see that pumpkin with the cat carved on it?  Yeah, that cat is supposed to have a smile on his face.  I don't think I did half bad for my first time carving a pumpkin ever!

For more You Capture, head over to I Should Be Folding Laundry!

You Capture ~ Shapes

I haven't done a You Capture in a very, very long time.  Honestly, I haven't really been using my camera much in the past few months...  I'm really trying to make an effort to change that though, so I set out to do this weeks challenge.  Turns out it is pretty easy to find different shapes to take pictures of when you bring your children along for the fun.  By the end of our walk, I had so many pictures of so many different shapes that it was hard to narrow it down!  Here's just a few shots my boys and I found...

 

 

 

This was definitely a fun challenge, and it really helped me remember why I love my camera so much!  Hope you enjoyed and thanks for stopping by!

You Capture ~ Simplicity

This weeks You Capture leaves me asking the question:  Why do I buy my children toys?

 Logan spent an entire afternoon playing with weeds that he pulled out of the landscaping.  He said he was playing transformers.  Simple isn't it?  So, again, why do I buy my children toys?