Day 31 - January 31

First things first... I've managed to do this for a whole month! Yay, me! One down, only 11 to go. I'm thinking maybe I should've gone with the one picture a week thing.... oh well, I'm committed now!!

Today's picture is not the best technically, but you try to capture the antics of a perpetual-motion toddler and you'll get some blur sometimes, too. I THOUGHT I was focused on her, but as you can see, it's Fred who's crystal-clear.

Anywho. Her new favorite past-time seems to be sitting on Fred. I'm not sure what she thinks he's going to do when she does this, but thankfully he just lays there and waits for her to get bored and move on to something else (which generally doesn't take long).

Added to her activity is her new favorite "outfit" - Jason's old Coast Guard shorts that he sleeps in... as a dress (as she calls it), or a cape. Mostly she just figures out how to get them over her head in some way and then wanders around with them on. I'm so proud.

(For the record, this picture was taken after dinner. Red sauce was on the menu, so she was naked from the waist up to protect the cream colored shirt she was wearing today!)

Day 30 - January 30

I have to thank my friend Bridget for tonight's picture. I hadn't gotten around to taking one today and then she wrote on my Wall on FB to tell me about her nutella, fluff and graham cracker snack (I recently discovered the greatness that is nutella).

So I had to make a snack of my own. And then I took a picture of it. (And then I was reminded of how much I'm loving my new camera + 50mm/2.8 macro lens combo.)

Day 29 - January 29

It's all about Fred today.

Today was an absolutely gorgeous spring-like day. The temperature got above 70 degrees and it was sunny and beautiful out! When I posted that we were trying to figure out what to do on facebook this morning, a local friend said she was going to Fairhope across the Bay. I then googled it, and found out that they have a dog park over there! It's been a loooong time since Fred had any good off-leash time, so we made that our priority today.

He was the old boy of the pack, but that didn't stop him from trying to keep up. Unfortunately, the arthritis that he's been dealing with on and off for the past 5 years or so caught up with him and he started limping a bit, so we left a little earlier than we thought we would. It doesn't seem to have bothered him, though, since he's been doing nothing but sleeping since we left!

This was after about 20 minutes of playing and a dozen trips to the water bucket.

(And for those who don't know Fred, he's only 8, but he's gray like an old man!!)

Day 28 - January 28

Today was a day of food-firsts for Michaela. It wasn't the first day she ate two different foods, but it was the first day that she ate them the way she did.

The first was yogurt at breakfast. For those who don't know, YoBaby yogurt is VERY runny and a little pricey, so we haven't let her feed it to herself, even though she eats everything else herself. This morning, I figured why not try it out... and she was fine. That freed up quite a bit of time for me while she ate!

The second food item was a banana. She's been eating bananas for almost as long as she's been eating solid foods. We started by mashing them up and thinning them out with milk. Then she got pieces of banana that were sliced and quartered. Then we graduated to chunks of banana, and the occasional straight-from-the-peel snack if I held the banana.

After her Fluffernutter sandwich this afternoon, and being a little lazy, I decided to just hand her a semi-peeled banana. She thought it was great and it certainly didn't slow her down. Ironically, when I peeled the second half and broke it into chunks for her, she was done eating for some reason. Apparently it tastes better this way!

Day 27 - January 27

I'm cheating. There, I said it.

I took exactly one picture today and it was not post-worthy (wrong settings on the camera and the kid moved so she's blurry).

So then I took 4 more pictures tonight of the hubs making me some Whirley-Pop popcorn. But I decided not to be mean and post one of those since he wasn't thrilled that I was taking the picture in the first place.

Instead, I'm sharing another picture I took yesterday while I was playing with my macro lens. I'm pretty proud of this shot. It's nothing special, just an old toy train that lives on our bookshelves, but the picture is straight-out-of-the-camera (with the exception of a tiny amount of cropping). I just think it's a cool shot.

Tomorrow, I'll get back to using a picture I'll actually take tomorrow. Really.

Day 26 - January 26

I took a lot of pictures today.... pictures of completely random things around my house. I had good light during Michaela's naptime and I wanted to play with my different lenses and see what works or doesn't with the new camera. (Incidentally, my 50mm and my 18-70 are out because objects in the viewfinder are closer than they appear, and my 75-300 is out because objects in the viewfinder are further away than they appear. So that stinks because now I have a wishlist going on B&H that I'm never going to be able to afford!)

I learned that I'm really ready for it to be spring so I can get out and take the macro shots of flowers that I just LOVE. My macro lens combined with my new camera just makes for some FUN (and no difference between viewfinder and picture!)!!

So this is just one of my favorite shots... my Willow Tree figurines end up on the business end of my macro lens a lot. Today was no different!

Day 25 - January 25

It was a day for the doctor. Finally, after over 6 months since her last visit (BAD mommy!), I got Michaela into the doctor today. The appointment took 2 hours courtesy of a misunderstanding on insurance stuff, my inability to see the stack of new patient paperwork (and not just the top page), and then the actual check-up itself.

So it's only fitting that today's picture is representative of the visit to the doctor.

What I learned is that the kid is tall (YAY for that!! She got her dad's height - along with his ears), but she's skinny; she's in the 90th percentile for height, but only the 25th for weight! What I also learned is that she apparently doesn't like the doctor's office. She was (pardon me as I make up a word here) keeeeee-ranky! She's going to be so happy to go back in 2 weeks for more shots since we're so far behind on them!

So here's her little certificate about her growth.