Shutter Love Tuesdays: Tints

I've been working on my black and white conversions lately, and I've found myself drawn to black and whites with just a hint of color, like the photo of Ella I posted here. Here is a new photo of Ella - a black and white with just a hint of color.

Menu Planning Monday

(Grilled sirloin marinated in soy sauce, lime juice, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and Rotel that I used in my beef quesadillas last week).

• Breakfast for dinner: Pancakes, eggs, and breakfast sausage.
• Pasta with meat sauce. When I made lasagna last week, I made 1/2 lb of ground turkey, 1/2 lb of ground beef, and 1 lb of Italian sausage. I used half for the lasagna, and saved the other half to use this week.
• Grilled steak with some sort of potatoes and roasted green beans.
• Tacos with Mexican rice. Want to get that yummy Taco seasoning without having to buy a special taco seasoning packet? Use cumin. The moment you smell the spice, you'll know!
• Crockpot broccoli beef.

Last week I made PW's Beef with snowpeas (although I used green beans instead). I generally liked the recipe but it was overly salty. Yes, I know, it had quite a bit of soy sauce in it so what did I expect? Next time I try it though, I'll tone done the soy sauce in it.

Do you plan your meals? I'd love to see your plan . . I'm always looking for new ideas! Link 'em up!

Tot School Organization

We haven't gotten back into the swing of things with Tot School quite yet after our break for the holidays; however, I do plan to start our activities again this week. I thought I would share a new organization system I'm putting into place to help me with Ella's Tot School activities.

I'm incredibly busy. More busy than I care to be, but that is life sometimes, I guess. In order to really to the things I want to do with Ella for Tot School, I've come to the realization that I need to be better organized going into the week or I will get overwhelmed during the week. My friend was showing me an organization system for homeschooling she heard about from the Confessions of a Homeschooler Blog, called the Sue Patrick Workbox System (You can read the COAH post about it here). Now, please don't misunderstand me. I'm not implementing any kind of full time homeschool program for Ella. Rather, I'm using this general idea of a workbox solution to help keep me organized for her Tot School activities. Down the road, if we decide to homeschool, I'm sure I'll investigate using this organization system for homeschooling, but that's another subject for another time!

We're using this storage tower from Office Depot for our workbox organization system. The very general, basic idea is that you put one activity in each drawer (aka workbox) and you work through the activities for the day. My plan is to fill each box with different activities the night (or week) before so that we are ready to go when the time comes during the week.

You could put all sorts of things in the different boxes from puzzles to coloring sheets to games to books, etc. I like this particular storage unit because it has some larger boxes at the bottom for larger activities. I plan to share what I'm putting in the boxes in my weekly Tot School posts.

The Paper Mama Photo Challenge: A Different View

I took this photo of Troy a couple of weeks ago . . . he was enjoying some floor time (when Ella was asleep - he doesn't get much floor time otherwise because I'm afraid she'll trample him, lol). I love this shot because it shows his perspective-what he is seeing in the world around him.

I was thrilled when I saw that my photo of Ella was chosen for first place last week! YAY!!

2011 Project 365: Week 2

Day 8 (1/8/11):

Day 9 (1/9/11):

Day 10 (1/10/11):

Day 11 (1/11/11):

Day 12 (1/12/11):

Day 13 (1/13/11):

Day 14 (1/14/11):

Oh, in case anyone is wondering what happened to Ella's face . . . she was carrying around a Tupperware container of snacks, tripped, and landed on the edge right across her cheek and eye. Then, the next day she fell on one of her other toys, cutting her eyelid. She's had a rough couple of days!

What is in my camera bag?

I'm linking up with some other Project 365 blogs. Check them out!

Week 1

Monkey Is Potty Trained!

When I started this blog, there were things that I knew I wouldn't write about or post pictures about . . . specifics about my children's potty training experiences are one of them. I'm not condemning or looking down on anyone who does - I just decided that I personally didn't want to embarrass my children later down the road. With all that said, I don't mind sharing our general experience. After all, if parents never shared their experiences we wouldn't be able to learn from each other, would we?

My husband and I decided that we would tackle potty training Ella this week with what he dubbed "potty training boot-camp." We had several folks recommend the three-day potty training method. We modified it to fit our life (after all, it would be impossible for us to stay at home without going anywhere for three days - our schedules just don't allow it), but the basic method uses these ideas: 1) let your child go naked from the waist down during waking hours; 2) encourage the drinking of juice and water so that they need to use the potty; 3) constantly watch for signs that they need to use the potty and take them to it (we used this stand-alone potty our friends handed down to us); 4) when the child uses the potty, get really excited and give some sort of little reward (we used jelly beans, but other things I've heard include M&Ms and stickers); 5) if the child has an accident, explain that they should do their business in the potty and get them to "help" clean it up.

I'm not going to sugar coat it . . . the first day was rough and really hard work. I was exhausted by the end of the day, and my husband had been here helping the entire time! Even though Ella was familiar with the potty, actually getting her to understand it was OK to use it was a different thing completely. But, we survived day one with several uses of the potty and only a few accidents. I was not looking forward to day two, but things went SO much better. Although it was still hard work, things were going much more smoothly. By day three, I knew we were on a roll when Ella took monkey to use the potty. :)

Now, Ella isn't night-trained or nap-trained yet - those will come with time; and we haven't ventured out of the house without a diaper yet, but she knows to use the potty when she needs to go - and goes to it without our prompting. I like the way my husband put it: Although Ella isn't potty perfect, she is potty trained!

Splashing Water

Over the past year or so, I've spent a lot of time working on portrait photography, but very little time working on other types of photography. One goal I have for myself this year is to learn the art of some other areas of photography. With all that said, several bloggers that I follow have been taking some water drop/splashing photos, so I thought I would give it a try. I'm semi-pleased with my effort, but I think I'll try again tomorrow when I have some natural light to work with (I took all these with my speedlite). My water was also a tiny bit soapy (I had washed out the sink earlier) . . . it would have worked better without the stray bubbles.

By the way, there is a tutorial on this blog, for some types of the water drop photos (although I really didn't follow it . . .maybe if I had my photos would have turned out better!)