homeofthebudds

A late night of goodness.

Last night I got to go to my favorite local musician's (Annie Bethancourt) album release party. We were in this cute little former church (hmm actually a former funeral parlor - somehow cute seems out of place...) turned concert venue (The Woods) filled with funky antique-ish couches and chairs and candles and wine and...possibly nachos. I think that's what I saw but it was dark and didn't seem like it really fit the vibe of the place. But I digress.

All the prime stage front seats were occupied when Emily and I got there so we scored some off to the side. I say that only so you know I wasn't a total nerd walking around the concert snapping pics. These few were stealthily acquired from my seat. Promise.

I love Annie's music. LOVE it. This was an album relase/last concert in Portland for a good long while sort of event. Apparently Annie is in Portland half of the year living the musician life style and then when it gets cold packs it up to be a surf instructor in Costa Rica. Seriously who knew that life was available?

So not only was it a (late) night of good music, but I also got to hang out with Emily. I like Emily. Our kids are the same, our homeschools are the same, and our thoughts are frequently the same (especially when discussing fashion). It's just nice. :)

Ellen's interest in the chickens has been renewed. Rather surprisingly, at least to me. She's been going out to take them fresh water in the mornings, and to bring back the frozen bowl from the day before. This morning she came back to tell me she was going to sit by Chocolate (her same favorite chicken with a new special name) while she was laying, because she (Chocolate) wanted someone near her and no one else was. So she bundled up properly and informed me "it might be an hour or so" before she returns.

I sincerely hope Chocolate is appreciating her (Ellen's) new found dedication.

*updated: Ellen just let me in on the new wintertime nickname for her beloved Chocolate Chip: Hot Chocolate.

Hair design by Ellen.

Ellen had a hair salon for a bit this morning.

Isaiah wanted to document his new look.

Brennan was just thrilled to be so stylish.

The haps.

*I've become rather sporadic over here. Sorry about that. But I am showing up everyday over at the photography blog. Today plastic snowflakes, pumpkin flowers and Emily Dickinson were all present. The kids don't show up though. But it's still a fun blog! At least I think so. Let me know if you want a link - I really do blog daily there.

*Photography stuff is going well. I'm learning all kinds of things, I have shoots lined up, I have a website up and going...I've always had in my head I was going to take this into a career (not just a hobby) but this week it was all vocalized and the plans are coming together. It's interesting to find a balance with where my time gets invested. We're still very much homeschooling and I have no plans to quit that. That, plus photography, plus house stuff gets to be a little much some days. So usually house stuff goes out the window and the floor stays a little dirty, we wear the same jeans over again and eat some Papa Murphy's. That's one of my biggest frustrations - I haven't done much raw at all since it got cold and I got distracted by shiny cameras. Soon it will all balance out. I hope.

*The kids and I and our friend Lynette made terrariums today. Pictures are coming.

*This has been a big coupla weeks around here with DIY, and Help-Portrait and some shoots and a few other projects I can't quite talk about yet (seriously. isn't that weird?). Usually by now I have Christmas present plans in full effect and they might even be ready to ship. It hasn't happened that way this year. Sorry, family. We really do love you, promise. Even if our gift to you this year isn't the most creative. We really do.

*Last week Dave had the entire week off and we roadtripped it to San Jose. (Did I mention that already? Or was that facebook?) It was great fun. Everyone had a good time - walking the dog (Ellen), playing wii (Isaiah), avoiding the dog (Brennan), among tons of other goodness. Ohh I totally mentioned that cause I know I put up a Big Trees post. Right. Apparently I'm tired.

*Ellen's been doing fun school stuff lately - learning about nouns and proper nouns and she even had her first spelling test. Is that weird I think that's fun? She made up her very own board game which will probably have its own post coming soon. Isaiah's been booking through his workbooks. He sits down and just goes for it and will spend a couple hours coloring and counting and writing and drawing. He loves them. He's a pretty great reader too. They're pretty impressive students.

*Brennan has really taken to caring for his babies. He gets all the dolls out, puts them to bed (in Isaiah's bed - always), reads them stories, helps them brush their teeth, puts them in trouble chair when they make bad choices, changes their diapers and clothes...He's a really caring little guy. And he's loooving to sing. It's funny to hear him sing the lyrics for random songs he's heard that I had no idea he knew. I can't think of which songs they are right now (I'm tired, remember?) but when I do, I'll let you know. Really what I should do is get a video. That'd be smart. Alright, I'm on it.

*Alright. It's off to Lightroom for some photo editing and to sleep I go. Talk to you later.

in which we experience zoo lights for the first time ever

We went to Zoo Lights last night. We'd never been before so we weren't exactly sure what to expect.

(photo by Dave)

Basically, its the zoo decorated with tons and tons of lights. So many tons that you wonder about the electricity bill.

The lights are actually really cool - there's tons of light fences like this, but there are also dragons, monkeys, and birds hiding in the trees, there are fields of elephants and hippos and crocodiles hanging by the water, there's fish swimming in the sea...there are all kinds of super cool light scenes.

There's a lot to see.

And a lot to photograph. Assuming you can figure out how to press those tiny buttons with mittens on.

Dave had some fun playing with an extended shutter speed.

And after that good fun we were all pretty frozen and ready to head home. But since our zoo membership lets us in free, we're totally planning to go back again.

Redwoods at Felton

Yesterday we went for a walk in the redwoods.They're pretty big.

Some of us were a little exhausted.

Running through the tree hollows was super fun.

As was just running in general.

I took a few pictures.

We took a few rests (and I tried to get my white balance figured out...)

There's a little town right next to the redwoods that has these fun cutouts. Isaiah was totally into hamming up the convict role.

Brennan thought hardabout what a horse actually feels like.

It was pretty fun. :)

pictures from the last few days

(ps - dave took all the pictures from Ashley on)

Random things

After the DIY last weekend, the kids came home and had their own. Well, they made their own sign anyway. After that they were ready for something else.

Three kids sharing the joy of cart-pushing.

the gorgeous morning sky during a morning walk a little bit back.

Fun colors.

The frog park in november

We went to the frog park yesterday mostly just to see what it looked like at this point in the month. We were all rather surprised to hear the frogs croaking. I thought they'd all be...somewhere warm. Buried in the ground? Hopped down south? I don't know, but I didn't expect them to stick around. The frog park is butted up against an open field but I was still also rather surprised to see a coyote off in the distance, stalking some birds. (We left very soon after that, don't worry.)

It was pretty cold.

We still had some fun though.

And Isaiah and I still found things to take pictures of.

I rented that big huge lens again this weekend and fell in lens love all over again.

The awesome thing about that lens is everything is just so crystal clear. You can zoom way and in and crop the heck out of the picture, and it's still crystal clear. Look:

Here's my favorite shot of the morning taken of that same leaf Isaiah is shooting above. And check it out - I shot it NOT with the big beautiful several thousand dollar lens, but instead with my $150 pocket camera.

A boy after his mother's heart

See this kid? Know what he's doing?

Editing pictures.

I showed both Ellen and Isaiah how to crop their photos, and while both of them were intrigued, its Isaiah that's been doing it just about every day since. I have a feeling we're going to start negotiating for computer time very soon.