I Heart Faces…. {Anything but A Face}

This week's I Heart Faces photo challenge theme is anything but a face. A person has to be in the photo but focus should be on the hands, feet, etc. This is a photo I did for a friend of her son Ryan who was about a month old at the time.

You can check out all the other great photos here:

Happy 3rd Birthday Alex

Yesterday my baby turned 3 years old. How did that happen? (sniff. sniff) Anyway we had a great day. We took in to Boston Children's Museum, had cupcakes and opened gifts. I do plan to have a family party in a couple weeks for him. Yesterday it was just Grammy, Mom, Dad and Alex. So here are the pictures.

Helping mommy make his cupcakes

Wow...A robot!

Lucy even helped unwrap gifts

Oh Deer

So we have about 10- 15 White Tailed Deer that have taken up residence in or around our property. Its odd to us since I have lived here on and off all of my life and I've never seen a deer here. Now we have 15. They arrived on Valentine's Day and I have seen them every morning and evening since. They are very shy and sprint away at the slightest sound. I believe they swam across a river to get here. We live right on one. My father was a lobster-man and he used to tell us that he would see them swimming when he was on the way out to the harbor on his boat. I am sure they are hungry and looking for food. So far they seem to like our ivy and some purple berries that are growing on a bush next to our house. I was able to get a few photos of them through the window. They are not the best cause our windows are dirty and they have screens on them. Anyway thought I'd share some photos of our newest visitors.

Eating the purple berries. There are 6 in this photo 4 in front and 6 further in the back.

Eating the ivy growing on a tree in our backyard.

This one looks young.

I Heart Faces…. {Red}

This weeks challenge theme at I Heart Faces is Red. I am entering a photo of my little man enjoying a chocolate covered strawberry as a Valentine treat. I like how the strawberry is in focus and his face is a bit blurred. I just wish I could have captured a more interesting composition.

Hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day with the ones they love most. Our was very nice, it was a nice warm day (well warm for February anyway) We made and ate some yummy treats, and we even had a surprise visit by ten or more white tailed deer, which we never see in our yard. I wish I had got a photo of them. They were beautiful.

Check out all the other wonderful RED photos at

Daddy's Valentine

Yesterday we made Daddy a snake valentine made out of hearts. I got the idea from DLTK and you can get templates there too. I didn't use their templates I just cut my own hearts out of green and yellow construction paper. Alex helped glue them all together, and we added some eyes, a tongue and some red hearts for decoration. It is quick and fun craft. Its perfect for little boys too!

 

Also I thought I'd mention that I am adding a new page " What's on Our Bookshelf" with some of the books we've been enjoying.

Collage Valentine's

Today we made a few collage Valentines to mail to family, along with a photo. We used construction paper, stickers, some heart stamping and tissue paper artwork we did last week, and some pre-made Disney valentines.  I cut out heart shapes and Alex helped me glue, color and place stickers on them. I think they came out pretty cute. We still have a couple more to make for Grammy and Daddy, so expect another post soon.

He likes to practice cutting with his preschool scissors

I Heart Faces…. {Hearts}

My new goal is to get better at photographing people and faces. I plan on entering as many photo challenges as I can for practice. I Heart Faces has great weekly challenges. This weeks I Heart Faces challenge is "hearts". I had a lot of fun with my little model. Here is my entry.

Check out all the amazing photos here:




   

Here are a few more from our mini photo shoot this afternoon. I am also practicing editing in Photoshop so the are heavily processed. I'd love to hear what you think about them.

Thanks for looking.

Groundhog Day

"Punxsutawney Phil, America's favorite groundhog, predicted an early spring when he failed to see his shadow Wednesday morning at Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa."  Read the full article here.

 In honor of America's silly tradition, we made a little pop up groundhog. I saw this super cute and easy idea here. There is also step by step directions on Enchanted Learning.

Alex helped by cutting the "grass" (green craft foam). This was his first time using scissors and he did great. He really enjoyed it too. Now I have to go get a pair of kiddie scissors so he can do more practicing. The ones he was using are pretty sharp and he had close supervision.

He also helped me glue the pieces of felt together to make our groundhog and he glued on the eyes. I glued the "grass" to the cup with a hot glue gun. We only had plastic cups in the house. I didn't have any popsicle sticks either so we used a plastic drinking straw.

So pretty sure Phil didn't see his shadow because it looks like this on most of the northern east coast. We just got another foot of snow between yesterday and today.

 

We are really hoping Phil is right and spring will come early this year. 

Some More Hearts

Today we are getting more snow. We couldn't get out and go to our weekly Gymboree Music and Play class so we did a couple of Valentine heart projects.

We made a decoupage heart. We tore up pieces of  bright colored tissue paper and glued them to a heart with some water down Elmer's glue.  Alex really enjoyed tearing the tissue paper.

I also let him do some paint stamping with a foam heart shape.

Oh if you didn't see my previous post. I entered a photo of Alex into I Heart Faces People's Choice Best Face in January photo contest. Please go vote for him (#386) and the other great photos.