Weekly Header Challenge -- Children's Toys

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Fishing Guy 

Kathy 

Imac 

Lew

I'm joining in the group above for this weekly challenge.

Click on the other participants' blogs to see

what they've come up with!

Theme ~ Children's Toys

Chosen by Mac.

This was probably the hardest theme for me, since my boys are grown and I don't have children's toys around the house.  Plus, I went digital only six years ago, so I don't have digital images of earlier years when they had lots of toys (and I had no time to scan or take pictures of pictures!).  I had to search for quite a while before finding these images I'm sharing with you today.  Here is my header image, uncropped:

It's a little blurry, since my camera was still pretty new to me at that point.  I had the ISO at 500, which put the shutter speed at 1/20 second.  I'd definitely take this shot differently today!  Anyway, we were at a Cracker Barrel at Christmas time, and since those restaurants feature stone fireplaces and they had this one decked out in Christmas decor, I tried to take a picture.  I love the vintage metal truck!

Here are a few more toys I dug up out of the archives.

Boys will make guns with anything, and this is one made of K'nex:

A few toys, all lined up and ready for wrapping.  This particular Christmas, we chose two families for my dad's church's Angel Tree program, and we bought gifts for their children.

Below, a Teddy bear perches on a sleeping Fernando's shoulder.  This should've been my header image, but I only just found it!

That's it.  I really have to go back into my archives and keyword my older images; it would've made this week's assignment so much easier!  I'm sure I'll find some more images of toys tomorrow, as Murphy's Law goes.

Can't wait to see your images today!


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Project 2012 -- Week 50

Project 2012 -- Week 50

December 9-15

Welcome to my Project 2012 weekly post!  This is my time to look back over the past week, 
choose seven favorite images I've taken, and share them here with you.  
If you have a project you're working on, please leave a comment 
so I can visit your blog and see what you're up to!

What a busy week!  I wasn't caught up in Christmas stuff, necessarily, but I was busy with lots of other things.  I've gotten used to using my 50mm lens for shooting, but I seriously miss my basic lens.  I'll definitely need another lens next year, as shooting a wedding may officially be on my calendar!

The below is my phone upgrade.  Going from my beloved, but dying, flip phone to a smart phone was a huge step for me, a super-non-techy person.  But after about ten days with my new phone (as of today), I find that I'm loving it.  I do very basic things on the Internet--email, Facebook, and Pinterest--and I can access all of those from my phone.  Although, there's nothing like an actual keyboard under one's fingers.  :)

[344] My phone is smart!

My cayenne turned out nice and red this year!  It made for some very pretty cayenne pepper flakes.  The process:  cayenne plant, pick peppers, string and dry, cut stems off, process with stick blender, store.  Yum!

[345] Cayenne pepper

One really, really nice feature of my 50mm lens:  an f/1.4 aperture!  On a whim one night, I experimented with bokeh.  For some reason, Danny decided to cover himself with a blanket.  *goofy*

[346] Fun with bokeh

Well, it was a bunch of hype, but since Fernando happened to be home for lunch on Tuesday, 12/12/12, we set up the camera with the timer and captured a shot at 12:12pm.

[347] 12:12 on 12/12/12

Thomas is a goofy young man.  However, he's a great thinker and sometimes uses his noggin to design some very interesting things.

[348] K'nex crossbow

There's a wedding coming up, and I'm actually thinking ahead for it--though not much!  A gift--ack!  But at least I took some pictures and will use one of them, probably this one below, to create wedding cards.

[349] Wedding lace

Finally, I did spend time on one Christmas item--making cookies for our church's Christmas Hymn Sing on Saturday night.  I found a friend's photocopied recipe for cream cheese spritz cookies.  I had never made them, so decided to try it.  I have a Pampered Chef cookie press, and the cookies turned out beautifully.  Here they are, below, waiting their turn in the oven.

[350] Spritz cookies

Life has taken a sudden turn this past weekend, and many things may be changing for my family and me.  I'm so glad that I have peace through Jesus, His gift of salvation, and the rock solid assurance that my Father in heaven has my life and times in His hand.  I'll share more as events unfold, I promise.  Please have a beautiful week in the Lord!


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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