Those cheeks

Melanie has sucked me in with her baby cheeks. I can't help it. Those squishy cheeks and the big blue eyes. She will probably come up a lot on this 365 thing and that's okay. This is about practicing photography and what goes on in my life. Melanie is trying to put everything in her mouth. Rachel got her to look steadily toward the camera by shaking a rattle.

I will definitely say that learning to set a custom white balance has made a huge improvement in my pictures and much less time fidgeting in post processing to get things looking right. I  just took a white photo of the white dresser in their room set that as the custom white balance to tell the camera that that was white should be and pictures go from weirdly orange to peachy perfect!

Alien fruit

Alton Brown had an episode of good eats about this strange fruit and it has been one of my favorites since childhood. I don't know when mom introduced them to us but they were not very common. Pomegranates and the acai berry became popular about the same time a few years back and
Pomm Wonderful the juice drink had made them a much more common fall fruit.

Tortie

Today it was Tortie, Collin's tortoise. He is very cute and has grown a lot in the past couple of months. He has grown larger than many of his siblings some of whom hatched a month or more before him. I guess he is well taken care of. I find it funny that while my sister was never a fan of the kitten/cat she has a fondness for the little tortoise. I don't know why the cat never rubbed off on her but I cannot blame her for liking tortie.

leaves

We had fun throwing up the leaves and letting them fall

Raspberry Lemonade Cake

So we had our daughter born just a few weeks ago and before she arrives my sister and sisters in law threw me a small baby shower. It was very sweet, personal and unexpected. This is our third child all girls.
Anyway they got a bunt cake from the nearby cupcake place and it was the seasonal flavor raspberry and lemon. I really liked it and was wanting to try my wings at bunt cakes. I used a combination of recipes to create mine including the Americas Test Kitchen recipe for a lemon bunt cake.
I like my lemon things really lemony. You can see this most in the frosting. The cream cheese frosting has a natural tang but I added a lot of the zest and juice of the lemon to really give it a burst of lemony freshness.
Dusting the raspberries will help them not to all fall to the bottom and in the end the top of the cake. It helps to suspend them in the batter so they are more evenly distributed throughout the cake.

Raspberry Lemonade Cake

3 T lemon juice

3 T lemon zest

3 c flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

18 T butter

2 c sugar

3 eggs +1 yolk

3/4 c buttermilk

2 tsp vanilla

Raspberries

Frosting

8 oz cream cheese

2 c powdered sugar

1 T lemon zest

1 tsp lemon juice

1. Spray the bunt pan. Preheat the oven to 350 F.

2.Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and set aside.

3. In a separate bowl combine the butter and sugar, once mixed add the eggs, buttermilk, vanilla lemon juice and zest.

4. Pour the wet into the dry and mix until just combined. Bake 45 minutes, cool 15 minutes in the pan before turning out onto a plate or cake stand to finish cooling.

Cold?

We finally had a small cold front come through. The girls thought it was super cold and were excited to put on every warm thing they could find.

November 18 Feast Day

Today was feast day at Rachel's school. The school serves a thanksgiving lunch and the parents come eat with their kids. I thought it was funny that you could choose from turkey or chicken nuggets for the main course. I saw parents getting chicken nuggets it was not just the kids.

Doing the 365 thing is nice. I caught Rachel with the gingerbread's head hanging out of her mouth.

November 17 Be nice to spiders

So growing up mom read me a children's book called Be Nice To Spiders. It was about a spider named Helen like me and the zoo people tried to get rid of her until they realized spiders are helpful.
Right now we have a ton of spiders in the backyard. Especially the spiny orb weavers. I don't mind. Josh is not a fan. He asked if I could be in charge of mowing the back. When I do I carefully detach their web in one or two spot and they gather it up.
I decided to take their picture. I wish I had the cannon 100mm macro lens so I could really fill the frame but even used are a bit to pricey right now. Oh well, on the wish list. Anyway when I went out this morning they were building their webs. I don't know that I have watched tat in person before. It was super cool.

You can see what is done and how much she still had left to do this morning. Que the itsy bitsy spider song.

Photo 365

So I have been working on my photography. Not just food photography but things and people as well. In order to encourage the development of that skill I am going to try a photo 365 task. You take at least one photo every day. I may or may not post every single day it may end up being a weekly recap but it will have photos for every day. Almost like a photo journal. I may even do themed weeks occasionally to stretch myself.

November 16

This was Melanie today. I had to really get down on the floor to be her level. As low as I could get really. She was doing her tummy time. She is 3 1/2 months so I think that is pretty good. The other kids not as much. Took Rachel to the doctor she did have strep. Then this evening Hazel had a fever and sore throat....I talked to a nurse. They will call in a prescription to pick up tomorrow. No need to go in again. Thank goodness.

Sounds like tomorrow will be another stay at home day.