01.30.2011

This is me trying to make a cute face.  Not so cute, but yet a bit funny.  My kids at school saw it and got a kick out of it anyway.  It was a day like that because they laughed at me as I was trying to read a sad book aloud and had a really hard time with my voice not cracking and tears not falling.  At least they know I'm human. 

01.29.2011

Enough said.

01.28.2011

The art of mothering is to teach
the art of living to children.

~ Elaine Heffner

01.27.2011

Are you wondering why in the world I was taking a picture of a ref?  And even more, why was he smiling at me?  Well...it's Jenna's boyfriend and I really think he was just super excited to see her and then he saw me with a camera and got a little embarrassed.  I rode with Jenna to New Town last night, not to watch basketball, but to watch the cute ref.  That's what she told me, anyway.  He (I guess I could introduce him.  His name is Jeff.) gets to get the distinguished spot of POTD because the only pictures I took were at the game.  :)

01.26.2011

I sold my camera to my friend Shelly and her family.  Although I loved that camera, I had outgrown it.  I wanted to be able to do more with it.  I'm happy to have sold it to Shelly because I am really excited to teacher her girls how to take pictures.  I've always let Emily and Grace take my camera to take pictures because of their interest so I can already see us taking nature walks this summer and taking pictures along the way.  I am by no means an expert, but teaching them will really force me to learn and understand all that has to do with taking great photos.

Oh ya, and now that Shelly has my camera, she wants to start a photo a day project.  She's trying to think of a name for the blog.  Something like "Life is Good, Jr.'s Friend."  Any clever ideas for her???

01.25.2011

I jumped out of bed on Tuesday at about 10:00 realizing that I hadn't taken a picture yet.  I didn't want to miss a day so early in the year (I don't really want to miss a day at all) so I looked around the house for something interesting to photograph.  I tried taking a few pictures of Jeffrey's Buzz Light Year, but the shadows were really bothering me.  Then I remembered this sign.  I've been meaning to put it on my Jetsmama blog for a long time, but keep forgetting to take a picture. 

For months before Jeffrey turned 5, Tyler kept telling Jeff that he would get a bow for this 5th birthday.  After I got a bow for my 31st birthday in June, Jeffrey got even more excited to get his bow in August.  Once he got his bow, he was very careful and protective of it.  One night, we had a bunch of friends coming over with their kids.  Jeffrey was all worked up about the kids touching his bow.  He hid it in my closet, but that wasn't enough to satisfy him.  He brought me a piece of paper and asked me to write STOP on it, so he could write STOP underneath and then taped it to the door so that any kids who were thinking about going into my closet would know to STOP!

01.24.2011

I asked Macy to pose for me for some pictures so that I could practice using different settings on my camera.  I struggle with taking inside pictures in my house because I have red, dark brown, and a golden wheat color for walls.  Often the red seems to reflect too much and make everything too dark and the golden wheat color makes everything look green.  As I was looking at some pictures that I had taken to see what the colors looked like, Macy sat in this position and I snapped a quick picture.  It's my favorite.  I was lucky to have the camera on the right setting as this is SOOC.

01.23.2011

There were so many cute pictures to pick from for today.  Jeffrey, Macy, and I spent most of the afternoon shoveling out Dale and Elaine's walkway, deck, and back door while Tyler worked on feeding calves and moving snow around by the corrals.  I was in and out of shoveling and checking the score of the Bears vs Packers game towards the end of the afternoon.  When that was all done, the kids and I went to take pictures down by the calves with Tyler.  There were hundreds of turkeys enjoying the grain and straw that Tyler put out for the calves.  We tried taking a self-timer family picture, but I ruined everyone by looking crazy.  I need to read the manual so that I can figure out how to give myself more than 2 seconds to run into the picture!  :)  So, this was my favorite picture.  Jeffrey and his real smile.  He loves helping feed the calves and works just as hard as his Daddy does while doing so.  Just after this picture I took a video of him telling me exactly what the order is for grain, hay, and water. 

01.22.2011

Happy Birthday, Tyler.  Yup, this is us on Tyler's birthday.  I decided on no cropping, no picking the best picture, no picnik editing.  Just the real deal.  We spent the day fighting, fishing, trying to get to town on horribly drifting roads, and eating cereal for supper.  Some birthday.  Thanks to Jeffrey for taking this picture of us. 

01.21.2011

Surprise, I went to the ocean today!  Okay, maybe not really, but if you glance at this picture, you can imagine our snow as slowly rolling waves as far as the eye can see.  :)

It took me awhile on the way home from work to realize what seemed so different than most days on my way home.  The sun was out!  Seriously, it took me awhile to figure it out.  The sun, what's that?  Most of the time I am on my way home from work at about 5:15 or 5:30 central and the sun is very low on the horizon.  On Fridays, we get out of school early so I was on my way home by about 4:15.  What a difference an hour makes. 

01.20.2011

This is the flag at our little post office in Cartwright.  Normally, Jeff and Macy wait in the Tahoe while I get the mail, but I actually let them come in with me today.  It gave me some extra time to take pictures.  I really wanted to get one of Jeff using the key to get the mail or of a little bird house with a nest in it, but neither turned out well enough for me to like them for the POTD.  So, a flag it is today. 

01.19.2011

This is a little church in Cartwright.  I took this picture on the way to work this morning.  It was too cold out for me to play around with the settings this morning to try to capture the reds and yellows of the sunrise.  So I quickly snapped this picture and then edited it using picnik.com. 

01.18.2011

I bet I took 30 pictures last night with all different settings.  Initially I forgot to lower the ISO so the pictures were really grainy (though when I converted them to black and white, they looked just like an old photo...especially because in many there is an old wagon wheel at the bottom of this grain bin).  I chose this photo because I could see some of the features of the moon and really liked how dark the sky looks.  

01.17.2011

Tyler had the day off work yesterday and decided that his day would be best spent at the ice house.  No surprise there.  He took the kids down after lunch at Dale and Elaine's and they all had a nap and then enjoyed fishing.  Tyler texting me one picture of Macy loving up on him and asked if I was jealous.  Definitely.  He later showed me a picture of the kids in their shirts, boots, underwear, and stocking caps outside playing.  I guess they got too warm inside the fish house.  Jeff and Macy called me after school to see if I could come down and fish for awhile.  How could I say no?  This is nearly my only picture for the day, but I love it.  They sure love their Daddy and have a nice way of saying thanks for spending the day together.

01.16.2011

 When Jeffrey was little, Tyler and I used to take him to all of Tyler's City League basketball games.  Then we had Macy and Tyler started grad school, so it  has been a few years since we've been there.  Last night, it was a family outing.  Both the kids were excited to watch Tyler play ball.  After he missed a shot, Macy yelled, "Come on Dad!  Come on man!"  It was so funny.  (We really enjoy Boomer's "Come on, man!" segment on Monday Night Football.)  Jeffrey took a quieter approach to watching the game.  He was serious and paying close attention.  I wish I would have caught him with more of a furrow in his brows.  That's what he normally looks like when deep in thought and concentrating on the task at hand.

01.15.2011

This is Macy.  These are her sparkling blue eyes and her adorably sweet freckles.  That is her mischievous little grin with her winter chapped lip on top.  That is her favorite hat and her blonde curls straggling from out of her ponytail.  Yup, this is my Macy.

01.14.2011

Tyler, the kids, Dale, and I spent Friday evening at the ice house.  The kids thought Papa Dale was awesome because he wrote their names in the frosty window. 

01.13.2011

Jeffrey finally let me take a picture of him. He agreed because he wanted me to take a picture of his Sauger tattoo.  (Yup, I'm a pretty cool mom when I can get my kids fish tattoos.)  What I wanted to photograph was that it warmed up to 10 above yesterday, so Jeffrey was boiling on the way home and wanted the window down with his coat off the whole way home from daycare.  He was actually fanning cold air inside the vehicle.  He is definitely Tyler's and my son.  Hot all the time.  :)

01.12.2011

It was -24 degrees this morning.  I hopped out of the Tahoe, put the camera on auto, and snapped three pictures before my fingers were screaming at me from the cold.  Though I have been trying to take all of my pictures on manual with my new camera, there was no time for that in the frigid air.  When I took this picture, I knew that it would be my picture for today. 

01.11.2011

Shelly gave me the idea for today's picture.  She said, "You need to take a picture of the hill by Cartwright to show everyone.  They can see what the roads look like when they aren't so bad."  She's right.  This road has been much worse and is probably as good as it is going to get for the rest of winter.  Gotta love ND!

--On a side note, I was so excited when I took this picture because I really got some pink from the sunset to show through in the sky.  I don't notice it as much on my computer screen, but hopefully you do.--

01.10.2011

I have a feeling that unlike my mom's amazing diversity of pictures she is going to have for the month of January, I am going to have pictures of snow and Macy.  Neither Tyler nor Jeffrey will hardly let me take a picture of them so Macy it is.  She will stand in front of the camera and make silly faces for me all night long.  So last night, that is what I had her do.  No snow picture from last night because by the time I got home from work it was dark.  It will be interesting to see how my pictures change as the day light gets longer.

01.09.2011

Where is the bale?  Tyler and the cows look pretty lonely out there in field.  If we get much more snow, I'm not sure how Tyler will be able to feed the cows.  He'll have to borrow his Dad's big Steiger to push snow around to make a trail for himself in our tractor to drive out there.

01.08.2011

Tyler and I peer pressured Josh and Shelly into coming down to the ice house with us for awhile on Saturday night.  The fish weren't biting, so we wound up plaing poker.  Good thing it was only chips, because I am way too cheap to play with real money.

01.07.2011

This is Macy and her friend Kambree at a basketball games.  Kambree's Dad and Tyler used to coach together so although the girls are into cheerleading now, I'm sure that the Dads will try to convince them to be into basketball later.

01.06.2011

Tyler gave me Tex as a wedding present on the day before we were married.  That means he is nearly seven years old.  Tex has always been a very crazy dog, who kept the "puppy" in him a little longer than we though.  This picture made me really see how old he is starting to look, though. 

(I put it in black and white because I got a new camera - a 7D just like my mom's!!! - and had a hard time adjusting the snow to not look blue.  I was sick this day and the kids were fishing down at the ice house with Tyler so I snapped a few pictures on my way in from the Tahoe.  I didn't fiddle around with the settings much, but still, the snow was blue in most of them.  I'm trying to shoot on all manual.  I'm sure if I would have just put the camera on auto it would have been okay, but I didn't.  After I took these pictures, I took a nap and didn't take another picture.  I'm glad Tex made the project, though.  Man, I love that dog!)

01.05.2011

On days like yesterday, I had to make myself remember to take a picture.  On days like today, I had plenty to choose from.  I wish that I knew how to make a collage out of pictures (quickly and easily) because Macy and Tyler were making so many silly faces that I had a hard time just picking one. 

01.04.2011

I got a new water bottle and am trying to drink plenty of water this year. 

01.03.2011

Back to School = Lots to do and a messy desk.

01.02.2011

Since I went to Fargo with my mom, I left my camera home over Christmas and used her camera instead.  Well, that didn't work so well for me for my picture a day project.  Luckily I had my little camera in my purse.  I stopped on my way home from Fargo in the Badlands to take a picture of all the snow.  What a snowy year this has been so far.  (Now I just have to get the picture off the other camera and upload it here.  Maybe before February!)

01.01.2011

Payton (21 months), Abby (6 1/2 years), Jeffrey (5 1/3 years), Macy (3 1/6 years)

My mom and I decided that we would each start a 365 day photo project.  The picture each day will reflect what is going on or where we are in our lives on that day. 

This is my first photo.  I love it.  It absolutely reflects where we were at that time.  We'd been snowed in an extra few days at Derek's house.  We were tired of being cooped up inside.  We were acting a little crazy and making silly faces.  But most importantly, we were together and having a blast. 

To view my mom's photo's, go ahead over to http://robynlig.blogspot.com/.