Painted Daisies and Day Lillies

My mom knows that I love daisies and when we first moved in here she helped me plant Shasta Daisies and these lovely Painted Daisies. Too bad that they dont' stay in bloom very long!!!!

My mom had really been kind to me and given me many perenials over the years. Of course I have love in my heart for purple, pink and yellow flowers. I have no clue why those melt my heart more than others, but they do none the less. Here also is one of my first day lillies of the year. They are so beautiful to me!!!

My best flower shot ever...

Old Antique Brick

While I was waiting for my car to be repaired the other day I was happily snapping pictures of my kids and of my surroundings. I came across this little building next to a full sized home with the same old brick. It is special to me since I used to live in an old apartment building that had been built out of this very same kind of brick. Setiment kicked in, but so does the love for the old brick. It looks wonderful and I loved taking pictures of it too!

I love this shot. The depth of field of the full color antique bricks with the main house int eh distance....love, love, love.

Really they were doing repair to this old building so there were some replacement bricks lying around. I am thrilled that they are taking the time to fix what was seemingly worth nothing!

It’s the cows!

The color of the day is….black! I went out to a friend’s farm and in between visiting, I took a few pictures of some of her cows. They are indeed an interesting animal to photograph. I realize now that I should have taken a few more, but for now, this will have to do! So, welcome to the glorious black and white Holstein cows of Midwest Minnesota.

Can you just see them saying, “whatta talkin’ about Willis?!”

My Beautiful Children!

I have to claim them as beautiful because they are my very own! I don’t “have” to, it is my honor to claim them! I love them and I am so thankful that they are all mine! I snapped these pictures of them when I was outside yesterday taking pictures of my flowers. I think that they are indeed more beautiful than all the amazing flowers in our world! Well the bright blues and the greens, they are just a bonus!

This is one of my wiegelia shrubs that was shocked me today by being in bloom. On top of a wonderfully sunny day, with blue skys, the dark coloring was WONDERFUL! I love being surprised by the beautiful outdoors!

Iris

It was rather windy today, but we all noticed that the irises on the corner of our property was blooming. It looked a little wind blown because it was just that, very windy today. But, the yellow and purple was absolutely beautiful!

Bleeding Hearts

I told you I was going to run over to the nieghbors and check out their color :)! Sure enough they have this beautiful bleeding heart plant in their rock garden. I can't beleive that I haven't planted one in my yard yet....it is amazing!!! I took a ton of pictures and loved each and every one of them.

...additional engagement photos!

I really loved working with the pictures I took of Andrea and Arnold. I played with them, messed with them, tweaked them...yeah, I tried every action I had downloaded from Coffee Shop Photography. It was a very fun experience. Did it help that my subjects were amazing...I am sure of it!

Here is a long line of pics I took (sadly, it is not all of them!) that I thought turned out wonderful. This one at the top is almost my favorite, there is another one further down that I will committ to that claim. Enjoy them all though!

I actually love the original one that is in full of color of this one, but somehow the softness of it with the love between the couple...it just works for me!

I was a little surprised by this one below being my favorite since I am such a color hound, but this one in black and white moves me. We had taken pictures similar to these and when we went back to the computer to check them out, they were gone...we loved the thought of them so much that we went back and took a few more. I am so glad we did, I think they turned out great!

I know you already saw this one, but I just love how it looks like vintage painting!

The final stages of my flowering crab...

Here is my flowering crab on Tuesday afternoon...beautiful and more beautiful.
It always brings a little sadness to my heart when the flowering crab starts to fade from dark to light. Sure enough by Thursday now it is already fading to this light pink and many of the blossoms have blown off. I hate that within a weeks time they have gone from gorgeous to faded... I better start looking for the next flowering plant for the spring...I shoudl go and check out my neighbors yard, LOL!

It always brings a little sadness to my heart when the flowering crab starts to fade from dark to light.

Flowering Crab

This is indeed one of the most beautiful trees (in my humble opinion) that I have ever seen! Flowering Crab trees have the most amazing, amazing, amazing blossoms. On top of them being beautiful there is an amazing abundance of blossoms. Only some of them are fully open right now and I can't wait to see it in a few days! Plus, they smell amazing...even the bees think so!

I love the dark pink of the tree in my yard, but the white one at my sister's house has it's own beauty! I may share some pictures of that one in the coming days.

This tree is actually very special too. My step father's grandma was the originator of this special tree. On the family homestead lies the original, but everyone has been able to take branches from it and root it and then plant it elsewhere...such as my very own yard. My step father had tried planting one in his yard at the same time as mine 6 years ago...can you beleive that it started as a twig just 6 years ago? In any case their tree didn't survive, but mine has grown in amazing proportions. Yeah, before you know it they may be back to try a branch from mine to grow one for themselves.

Enjoy the lovely colors though of the one in my yard.

...more from Mother's Day

I wanted to revist a few more pics I had taken on Mother's Day in my search for color. Mother's Day started off cloudy and cold and I was pretty sure it would be the first Mother's Day in 10 years that wasn't gonig to turn out...well, the Lord provided yet another beautiful day. By the time the morning had come to an end it was sunny, warm and beautiful!

There was also plenty of pretty flowers to take pictures of since my mother works in a greenhouse and had brought some to share with us. Aren't these just amazing...the many shades of pink in one little flower amazing me!

I had fun experimenting with family pictures and wanted to share this one of my daughter Clarisse. It was exciting to use this old red bed frame with her photoshoot. I think that is what is enjoyable with photography is that anything can be turned into a wonderful tool for brightening up a photo.

I also grabbed this abstact photo of a wind mill in my parents back yard. I love how the bright and detailed it is with the blue back drop from the wonderful sky that day.

Yeah, I hope you enjoyed Mother's day as much as I did!

Tulips...finally true signs of spring color!

I have yet to plant the lovely tulips in my own yard (really, I should do this!) to enjoy, but the neighbors across the street have done just that! I asked them ahead of time if I could take pictures of their flowers when they begain to bloom and they didn't mind at all (I am so thankful as they are so pretty in their simplicity!).

Here the tulips are on a Saturday afternoon...just about ready to open up.

The following day, the sun was shining and the tulips had taken over to full bloom! Beautiful!!!! I think that tulips in the spring are such a wonderful love sign from the Lord... especially for us northerners who have been hit with the black, brown, whites all winter!

What I thought was interesting is that with all the blooming tulips in a row, there was still this one lonely one that hadn't experienced full blooming yet. I am sure it was beautiful when it finally opened up, but I do find it interesting that all the others knew to bloom on time and this one didn't!