Letter F

F is for Fresh Fruit

Letter E

E is for Electricity

Pretty Scene and Sky!

Yellow, Lovely Yellow!

In the fall there are the occasional chase of color that isn’t orange and red and brown! I found this fabulous soybean field and it was so much fun to see it up close and snap some pictures!

In the spirit of yellow, how about these road stripes?

..and this road sign.

Letter D

The only kinds of dogs we have here are nice little stuffed ones….our kids love “Dogs” in our house and we have lots of them, :)!

I also came up with the thought of Dusty Drums. While we have been finishing our basement family room, there has been a ton of dust ALL over the place including Minsan’s studio since it is right down there in the mix.

Extra pictures I just liked :)!

I had taken some pictures at my niece’s birthday and these were just a few other pics that I just like for this reason or that reason. Just pursuing color and beautiful faces along the way!

Swinging…

I talked Simply Dawn into being a spontaneous model for me back in September. I had some thoughts of what I hoped would be a relaxing, carefree picture and I think I did achieve just that.
I am so glad she was a willing participant to my madness :)!

Letter C

C is for Crafting with my Children.

I bought this little Kid’s Busy Box Kit last year and every now and again I dig one out of for the kids to do. It was of course my inspiration for today’s letter.

Step 1, open up the lovely labeled bags with all the supplies. Step 2, take the brown bag and roll the bag all the way down to create a nest.

Step 3, fill the “nest” with the colorful paper grass.

Step 4, take the playdough and roll into small bits into perfect eggs.

The final nest is sweet and wonderful and the children thoroughly enjoyed working on it. It is so fun to see their joyful faces when they are working on new craft projects. For cool gift ideas, the Kids Busy Box is a great solution :)!   

Trains, trains, go away…come again another day!

While I was at my niece’s birthday party at the park, I tried getting a few pictures of some of the moving trains going by. It is actually quite hard to get clear pics of anything moving and this was no different. Maybe next time I should look for one isn’t going anywhere!

Views along HWY 23

I drive by here on HWY 23 quite often and it is really a magnificent view. In the fall time the colors created such wonderful layers that I couldn’t help but stop and take some pictures one day.

The Letter B

Blue, Branches, Brown, and Burnt

The Letter A

There are a few of us that are starting an ABC challenge. Sometimes it is fun to just go for it and challenge yourself to do something creative with your photography. Today is day 1 and the Letter A is the starting point. It has to be fresh photography, which may turn out to be difficult on some letters since going back into our old repertoire might be easier at times. Who isn’t up to the challenge though eh?!

Anyone else want to join in on this challenge?

 

The Letter A:

I walked outside and saw this truck laying upside down on the ground and my thoughts turned to, “A is for Accident!”.

Day one, done!

My sponge tool!

No kidding, it seems that daily I am learning something new and amazing for the sake of editing my pictures. I just read here about the sponge tool and it’s ability to saturate only what you want! I am pretty sure that most Photoshop users get this stuff, but I am still a baby at it. This will be great fun to be able to at some vibrancy to backgrounds without affecting skin tone! Yeah for this new technique!!!

Before I used the sponge tool to saturate the background:

After I used the sponge tool to increase the vibrancy:

I can’t wait to use this more!!!!

Keep it Local: Cold Spring Chiropractic

We actually have two different chiropractors in town and this is the one that I use quite regularly. When we first moved into town I called around to the chiropractors and asked an important question, like what would happen to my kids while I was being treated? At that time I had Duncan and Clarisse and they were too young to be running around crazy.   At Dr. Minser’s in St. Cloud they have a room that has toys in the same room that you are being treated. Since I was used to that, I was hoping for something that was similar.

Turns out that the folks at Cold Spring Chiropractic help watch my kids while I am being treated. It has been perfect! They have a little kid waiting area where my kids play and watch movies. When I had Will they snuggled him and kept great care of him. If my kids need help the staff are just always quick to step in and take care. I am so thankful that they care so much for us.

We have been going there now for over 5 years…can’t believe it! The care has changed a smidge in that he now uses the ProAdjustor system instead of the manual adjustment. What a difference. It has been great. Dr. Kinzer’s manual adjustments were fine too, but I find my recovery is much faster since he switched to this. 

So, this is my first choice in Cold Spring. It could be too, as it turns out, that they are the only ones in town that accept my current health insurance. Although I have learned to buy their yearly plan. For a smidgen of the cost of paying for each service in a year, I pay for 2 services a month and it is only like $350.00 a year. Tiny amount compared to what I get with an adjustment and the therapy.

I know that not everyone needs to go this often to the chiro, but I have some back issues that if I don’t go pretty regularly, give me a lot of pain. It is amazing how regular visits have been a wonderful thing for me. I am thankful that they provide a great service that is incredibly affordable for me.

Yeah for great small town caring!