Ryder, after eating a huge chocolate cupcake...

Ryder decided he didn't want to wear his heavy jammies and tried to put his thinner jammies on himself. After much comedy, he ended up being a merman and asking for a little help, but not after I laughed myself into a coughing fit (stupid bronchitis!) and had to snap pics of my lil merman!

Only in Wisconsin can you go from wearing hoodies one day to having a snowball fight the next. At least Ryder was having a blast having a snowball fight with Nana. 

Have I mentioned that I HATE Wisconsin? No? Well, I do. Only in Wisconsin can I be wearing a hoodie on Friday and it snow like the blazes on Saturday. My day? One word...BUTT! (Inside joke. Grandma tells Ryder snow and Ryder looks at her and says "BUTT!" and points to his butt. Randomness, I know, but I tease Nana that Snow is a 4 letter swear word.)

We bought Ryder a kids digital camera for Christmas and he's been playing with it, but lately, since I got my new camera, he's been all over taking pics. He hasn't quite figured out that the camera has to be pointing AWAY from him, but he's learning. I'm hoping by next year to get him into Project 365 as well. I'd love to capture his year through his eyes as well. 

Ryder & Nana playing. They were tapping the book and laughing up a storm. Moments like these are what makes the world go round! (Okay, so it's the gravitational pull of the sun, but it SHOULD be moments like these, dang it!) 

Connie's bear. I thought it was uber adorable and I LOVE the contrast with the red and white. 

Squirell...tree...interested kid. 'Nuff said.

Ryder can be so cute sometimes when he's serious and thoughtful. Moments like this are rare, but beautiful. :) I'm glad I can capture them forever.  

Bored...boring day...nothing happened...so here's what's for dinner. Frozen pizza. Yup, boring! 

What can I say...I technically am in the pic! ;) (BTW, I just LOVE this picture!) 

It's here! It's finally here!!! TWILIGHT!!! *does a happy dance* Em, Jeremy and I went to Walmart at 11pm to stand in line to pick up Twilight! We got home at almost 1am, and here I am, posting pics while I wait for Jeremy to get the special edition out of the packaging! *DIES* YES!!! This is what life is all about! 

On Tuesday I picked up Royanna's entire store over at Divine Digital for an amazing price! Royanna's retiring at the end of the month and her entire store is on sale for $29 bucks! (Or $1 each product you want.) This is just PART of the list. (The entire list is like 7 pages long!) I don't know if I'm ever going to get it all downloaded, but it's sure worth it to try! LOL

Nothing really interesting happened today, but we did end up running out to Walmart. Ryder's been begging Nana for Pinochio for the past month or so (since the previews started being shown on tv) and Nana found a pack that came with the Jiminy Cricket. Ryder fell in love and even had to sleep with his new best friend. :) 

What can I say? We had Kody, Riley and Connie today, in addition to Ryder! Three kids under four and three of them two (okay, so Connie's ALMOST two) The sippy cups, the diapers the wipes...the sheer number of toddler stuff crowding the table! LOL I couldn't reisist the photo op of Connie's & Ryder's cups sitting in front of the powder, diapers and wipes. Not only that, the closeness of the cups also symbolizes how close Ryder is with his "cousin." 

We've had a pretty big branch hanging from our tree by not a whole lot all winter and it was making REALLY bad creaking noises today. To the point that we were afraid to let Ryder play outside in the 70 degree weather. Jeremy decided to drive my van up the sidewalk and attempt to pull it down. (Yes, I freaked out about this. I so didn't want my windows getting smashed by a falling huge branch!) Anyway, it came down and Jeremy only got a minor scrape on his arm and a small sliver cut on his finger. So now we can enjoy the outside weather and be much safer. 

While the branch was on the ground I was trying out the macro settings on my camera. :) So, today's pic is a macro of the mossy stuff on the branch. 

It's official! Spring has to be coming! When I was outside playing with Ryder today there was a Robin in the tree directly above me. I had to snap a pic, so this is my project picture for today. Despite having a million cute pics (and a few that I'm in LOOOOOOOOOOVE with) of Ryder, da birdie has to take the cake. (Okay, yes, this is my way of trying to be creative!) 

I'm kinda liking having 10x optical zoom! I think I'm going to hit some photography sites tomorrow and see about finding tips on using the manual settings. I don't remember much from my photography classes in high school. I've had point & shoot way too long and I don't remember all the "rules" to F-stops and shutter speeds and all that fun stuff. 

I also got a mini tripod today! So I'm going to attempt to use the macro settings on my camera to take some pics for my scrapbooking, like buttons and silk flowers and stuff. I know it's going to be a learning curve, but I want to try! 

Jeremy is a doll, I love him to death. We all know that, but I swear that all men have this natural "Tim 'The Tool Man' Taylor" complex. Jeremy can even do the "Tool Man Grunt" perfectly! LOL Anyway, we were working on a "double" door. (The kind where you can have the bottom half closed like a gate and the top part open. I'm attempting to keep an eye on Ryder while still working on the desktop computer. It made a huge mess in the front yard, but I had fun taking pics and even helping out and getting my hands dirty with the saws and stuff. :) 

...but better late than never, right? 

I've wanted to do Project 365 for a while now, but my old camera sucked donkey nuts. It was a 3MP Fujifilm FinePix, which was great when I first got it. It made really good 4x6 prints, but then my son got a hold of it and fubared the lense glass and apparently if you let fingerprints sit on the glass too long it starts screwing with it. Not only that it was dropped one too many times. LOL So now it has a zoom error occationally and the last time I threw it on the floor....and THEN it worked! 

Anyway, I'm starting it now because I bought myself a new camera. It's NOT top of the line. It's not the best on the market and it's not the DSLR I dream of, but it is a decent camera and takes pretty darned good pics. It's a FujiFilm FinePix S700. It's slightly closer to a "real" camera instead of a point & shoot one (like the last one) but it has some manual settings. Not a lot of them, but it's something to learn on. 

I'm also impressed with the way it keeps the subject in focus and the background is out of focus. My other point & shoot couldn't do that no matter how I tried. I had to "fake it" in Photoshop. LOL (Guess all that graphic design training paid off....) 

So, for the first pic of my Project 365-2 and a 1/2 months...I LOVE this pic of Ryder and it totally explains my feelings about getting a new camera!  (also known as Project 365-72 or Project 293...originally known as "Project Do Math" ROFLMAO)