Scavenger Hunt Sunday

The scavenger hunt themes for this week were

• The Weather Today
• R is for...
• Green
• Joy
• Drink

The weather today is cold [relatively speaking] and clear

which is a welcome change from the weather we had most of last week...

cold...

A leaf with frost on it that Grace found for me

wet...

and generally dreary-looking.

R is for...reading, of course!

Josiah (11) and Grace (7) reading on our new sofa

Josiah and Grace reading in the dark in the van

Here is Grace peeking around the green Christmas tree before a skit during this morning's worship service.  I may be a little biased, but she was the prettiest of the "wise men."  

Joy has much less to do with this

No, this is not my house.

or this

Yes, this is in my house...from December 2010.

and everything to do with this.

For a child has been born—for us!

    the gift of a son—for us!

He’ll take over

    the running of the world.

His names will be: Amazing Counselor,

    Strong God,

Eternal Father,

    Prince of Wholeness.

His ruling authority will grow,

    and there’ll be no limits to the wholeness he brings.

He’ll rule from the historic David throne

    over that promised kingdom.

He’ll put that kingdom on a firm footing

    and keep it going

With fair dealing and right living,

    beginning now and lasting always.

The zeal of God-of-the-Angel-Armies

    will do all this. 

Isaiah 9:6-7 (The Message)

I don't have a photo for drink, so why not another sky shot?  This was on Friday at our homeschool group meeting.  I spotted a sun dog in the sky as we were packing up to leave.

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Scavenger Hunt Sunday

The photography prompts for this week's scavenger hunt were:

1. Where I stood
2. Silver
3. Tiny
4. In the cupboard (which I skipped entirely)
5. Shadows

From where I stood in the kitchen earlier this week, I looked out our window to see the last remaining bit of color on our trees in the front yard.  The window was open because of much warmer temperatures that we had for a few days.

A friend braved the rain to take us both to our church's "Secret Sister" party one night.  The raindrops on the windshield looked like gold and silver droplets with the house and Christmas lights behind them.  (Yes, I know it's a stretch.)

Saturday was the Christmas parade in the square.  I have a confession to make:  in the 14 years we have lived here, this was the first time we ever made it to the Christmas parade.  Most  years we planned to go but something came up (other plans or obligations, illness, etc.) and some years it just never made it on our radar.  We went this year, and it was wonderful!

There was a (relatively) tiny and impressive replica of the clock tower and court house as one of the floats.

And this is the real thing:

The clock tower is enveloped in shadows in the next shot.

But these two shot, from my archives and from a time when Grace was 6, are my favorite shadow photos.

June 2012

October 2012

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Scavenger Hunt Sunday

This week's scavenger hunt items are:

1. Pattern
2. Sunglasses
3. Round
4. Looking in
5. Crunchy

Pattern

This was an awesome pattern to see tonight at our church:  Operation Christmas Child boxes ready to be filled at the packing party.

The boxes looked even better filled...

(So far, our church has collected at least 120 boxes for Operation Christmas Child.  November 25th is the deadline for dropping off boxes--It's not too late to put together a box that will make a difference in the life of a child!  Click over for more information on drop off locations, or make a donation to help cover shipping costs.  You can find a video of Si Robertson packing an OCC box at that link, too.)

Sunglasses

Here's Grace (7) sporting her sunglasses...

Round

Poor Bono has had the cone of shame for the last couple of weeks because of a wound he caused on his hip.  He gets around well with it now, and actually stands still when it has had to be put back on because of him chewing at the site again, but it was quite an adjustment for him at first.  (Think:  Large puppy...smallish house...lots of furniture.)

Looking in

Grace received her very own Bible after memorizing the books of the Bible last week!  (Yes, all of them--Old and New Testaments!)

Now she is "looking in" God's word.

Crunchy

It's crunchy leaves, of course...

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Scavenger Hunt Sunday

It's time for Scavenger Hunt Sunday again!  Here are my interpretations for this week's photography prompts.

Table

This photo is from July 2012, when Bono was 4 months old and would sometimes sleep with his head underneath a chair at the kitchen table.  He can't do this anymore...he's too big!

Bono the Bouvier des Flanders

I decided to use a photo from archives, because otherwise this is all I have for "table":   pretty much my favorite thing to see on my kitchen table!  

Grace (7) has said for a while, "They spell it wrong on the label!"  I asked her what she meant, and she said it should read "Mom's Favorite Cookie."

I collect

I don't really collect anything in particular, but I do like snow globes.  In particular, I like the snow globes that my husband finds for me, like this one that is from Italy.  (There's a movie reference here...While You Were Sleeping.)

Music

We have a resident guitar player (Robert, 16) who not only plays guitar but draws 'em, too.

He also has sheets of musical things posted on his wall for reference.

Yes!

When I saw my friend Nancy's Facebook post, saying "YES!" with the image she posted, I knew I had found my photo for this prompt.

Someone I miss

I didn't want to take a picture of a picture, so here's a doll that was my mom's.  It was probably the last doll she received, and she had picked it out as a gift from her father when they went to a festival/craft fair together several years before her death.  (She passed away when my oldest, Robert, now 16, was 9 months old.)  Also, the record behind the doll was my grandfather's (her father).

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Scavenger Hunt Sunday

This Sunday's scavenger hunt had a fall theme...

And I realized just how much I stay at home during the daytime.  I had been complaining remarking to many people online about how everything was so green around here...and it is...or was...very green in my part of the neighborhood.  Outside our neighborhood?  Well, that's another story! 

Orange

There are trees dressed in gorgeous leaves, like these orange ones.

Dress Up

The kids (and a friend) dressed up to go to a local fall festival.  My kids are the ones in black:  a spy (Josiah, age 11) and a ninja (Grace, age 7).

 Candy

 What does a ninja do with her candy?  Sort it by type, of course.

 ...Unless she is feeling less ninja-like and puts it in a silver goblet.

Pumpkin

Grace's silly pumpkin face that she and Josiah made:

Spooky

Spooky is often a matter of perception and conditions.  For instance, this photo looks rather spooky...

 but the original photo does not.

And some people think cemeteries are spooky...

but Grace does not.  In fact, when I stopped by a local cemetery where I've taken pictures before, she asked if she could get out because she saw a vase that had toppled over.  She enjoys righting vases as well as placing loose flowers back where they belong.

Here's another cemetery shot on that same afternoon, looking up a hill in another part of the cemetery so that the lighting is changed.  Spooky or not?

Grace spied more toppled vases, so we both got out of the van to walk among the grave sites.  I found these four homemade grave markers--all for infants--that have piqued my interest.  (These are part of the family plot you can see on the lower right side of my previous photo.)
 

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Scavenger Hunt Sunday

 It's time for Scavenger Hunt Sunday again!  Here are my interpretations...

Change

Leaves have been slow to change color around here, and the (two...yes, two) trees in our yard seem to be the last to change in our neighborhood no matter what the season--the last to be dressed for fall, the last to shed leaves for winter, the last to bloom in the spring.  True to form, the leaves in our yard are still green...so this next photo is a leaf from our neighbor's yard.

I didn't notice the spider's web until I pulled the photo up on my computer...do you see it, faintly, in the upper left quadrant?

Your mood today

Robert (16) has been driving to and from his weekly guitar lesson, but Jason has always been the one to go with him...until last week, when Jason attended a conference.  It's about a 30-minute drive, and this was the first time Robert had driven with me for more than 15 minutes at a time (he has his learner's permit).  It was also the first time he drove with Josiah (11) and Grace (7) in the car...He did well, but  my mood was, admittedly, at least a little apprehensive.  This was my view during the drive, dashboard reflection and all:

And, on the way, Robert pretended in a pretty convincing way that he had made a wrong turn, since he knew the way and I didn't...so I took a picture of the trickster.  (Yes, he has his father's sense of humor.)

Dark

I went with friends from church to the Women of Faith conference.  It was, of course, dark during the CeCe Winans concert Friday night.

Welcome

This was the sweet and silly little face that welcomed me home after we came back from the conference:

Depth of Field

I couldn't decide which one to pick, so I'm including a few for this prompt.  These are the last of my zinnia blooms for the year...

There are lots of little white flowers in the back half of my neighbor's backyard...growing among the ragweed and golden rod

...and here's a bee I stalked at an unsafe distance until I got a good shot of him.

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