December 3 :Ice

Never buy the fridge/freezer my parent have. We are house sitting while they are gone on a mission. It does not drain or freeze properly and collects and freezes under the freezer bin. This is all the ice of just 2 months I think. It was at least 1/2 inch thick. What a pain!

December 2 : TJ

We went to the zoo today. We love the zoo. The highlight was the baby seal. Sarah had been trying to see him every time we went to the zoo since she was born. They had notes up saying she was to little, then that she was practicing swimming in a baby pool in the back and finally this time they were cleaning the cage at first and said they would be letting her out at 11am. We went to see other things but rushed back at 11 to see her. we were not disappointed. Man was she fast. She zoomed around the pool so fast. She would occasionally jump from the water and also chase her flippers like a dog chasing it's tail.
I bet the adult could probably go just as fast but...why...no predators or fish to catch. Very fun to watch. I guess little kids of any species seem to have boundless energy. Wish I did.

Little town it's a quiet village...

Hazel Has been singing that song from Beauty and the Beast a lot. She cannot say Bonjour and instead says bazoom. This is a Christmas village. Josh's mom collected them and it was one of his favorite thing about Christmas. He has started his own collection and it is very pretty when lit up at night.

Oh Christmas Tree

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree....oh how I'll miss my sister

This is her tree with an ornament that has one of her boys hand prints on it. It reminds me of the snowy Christmas they will have next year in New Hampshire.

making up time

Time flies in the holidays. I have kept taking pictures but posting every day is harder. Like I said I will post at least once a week. I try to everyday but like I said holidays and babies keep me busy sometimes.
November 24th

Thanksgiving was special. We were down in numbers enough that we were all able to fit around two tables pushed together. This meant a more intimate passing of the food then the buffet style we usually have to resort to due to the number of people. The turkey was amazing.

November 25th

Pumpkin gingersnap cheesecake from the pioneer woman recipes. Definitely a keeper.

November 26th

Ellie here for Thanksgiving. Love the curl.

November 27th

Sweet Melanie holding Rachel's hand

November 28th

Stayed up till 1:30 to finish my cookbook.

November 29th

Rachel stayed home. Looked like she had some hand, foot, and mouth.

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.