A few weeks ago, we went to a Spray Park that was perfect for the girl. She doesn’t like a lot of splashing so she was able to get wet without getting too wet. Here is one of the cooler sprayers. It’s a flower. I kept trying to play with settings to gets the water to look flowing. The lower I would go with a setting, the more washed out the picture would be. It makes sense if I’m letting in more light then the picture is going to be brighter.

Anyway, I never did get the picture that I wanted. But it was fun to tinker around with the camera settings.

These sunflowers are some my mom planted. They look way better than mine. Of course, she planted hers in the garden while I planted mine in a pot. More of mine actually grew than I had expected, so I think they crowded each other out. Her sunflowers are gorgeous and some are really tall. Those may actually had edible seeds. I love planting sunflowers since they grow so tall and are low maintenance.

My nephews discovered a bird’s nest in the tree they love to play around. At first I tried my telephoto lens but then realized that I could get much closer without disturbing anything than I originally thought. I may try to take a photo a day or every two days to document their growth.

My sunflowers are beginning to bloom. This type is my favorite. I just love the rich, dark colors. And I had forgotten how much I love my Sigma telephoto lens. I took some pictures yesterday with it and loved the results. You can definitely tell the focus of this picture with the blurred background. Makes me want to take more pictures – which is a good thing because lately it seems all I’ve been doing are pictures for eBay. As my daughter would say, “that’s so boring.”

I think I may plant more sunflowers like a small patch just for taking photos. Maybe by the time they bloom it will be a little cooler! Oh well, a girl can dream.

I will take some more pictures once I re-pot the flower. I bought it because I thought it was really pretty plus it loves the heat and blooms all summer.

So I may let you sleep on my chest, lay on my lap even when I’m trying to crochet, and walk right under my feet first thing in the morning, but I have to draw the line at my yarn. This was just too cute not to take a picture of before taking away the yarn from her.

Look what my daughter made at pre-school. It’s just too cute. The flowers are made from the fingerprints. The teacher glued gun the stones in place but Raegan told her where to put them. I think it’s adorable and hope that I don’t kill the flowers. I love flowers but have terrible luck keeping them alive.

I liked how it looks so I saved it. This gives me some ideas for other photos to give them a more ‘artsy’ look. It’s so fun to play with different settings.

Here is the original.

I love this time of year. So many flowers are in bloom. My mom’s yard looks so wonderful. It’s hard to stay inside and do anything these days knowing there is such beauty outside. Her garden inspires me to plant more at our house and even try some indoor plants. Her rose bushes are really pretty right now. Roses seem to be high maintenance so I’ve never really wanted one. But seeing how beautiful they can be makes me think they are worth the effort.

This picture definitely belongs in the ‘kids’ category because it not only has my kid in it but she is holding a baby goat – called a kid. Yeah, Yeah, I know it’s corny. But I love that type of humor.

This is Rae at what we call the goat farm. The farm belongs to family and they have at least 15 goats. One just had this one a week before this picture was taken. Rae’s cousin is helping to hold the goat while I snapped as many photos as possible. This was my favorite as she is almost looking at me.