Covered with Snow

This weekend was my annual family Christmas Party... it is something of a tradition. Twenty four people (half of which are children) all converged on my sister's house in Logan to spend some time together. We talked, laughed, opened presents, and had a fabulous time! (more on that later)

I seems another tradition is that it snows every time weekend we schedule the party. On our way to Logan it started to snow, and it snowed the entire time we were there. Our way hom was pretty scary, especially over the canyon, but we made it! Further south at our house we mostly got rain. Then it started to snow again this afternoon... big, fat, mushy flakes. Yuck!

On the bright side, I will probably have some interesting things to photograph tomorrow morning. Like these beauties from the storm at the beginning of the week:

I love the way my bushes look when they are covered with fresh snow. My driveway... not so much!

The contrast between the colored bushes and the white snow is really pretty, don't you think?

Apparently my neighbors don't really watch the weather channel. Poor mower!

Now I'm off to look at the over 200 photos I took at the family party!

Check out some other macros here:

Sometimes You Feel like a Nut...

I have always thought it would be nice to have a nut tree. Just think... all the nuts you could eat! I am a big fan of almonds, but they are SO expensive. Honey Daddy and I have entertained thoughts of taking out one of our other trees and putting in a tree that will give us shade AND earn it's keep... by giving us yummy nuts.

Then as I was walking around my neighborhood with the boys I had second thoughts about that idea... as I crunched across the sidewalk.

Acorns can be beautiful... or at least I think so.

But I don't necessarily want to spend all that time picking them up off my lawn. Hmmm... so maybe no almond trees for us after all. Then again, maybe they aren't quite as messy as acorns?

Another kind of tree that lives in my neighborhood (but not in my yard) makes walking on the sidewalk somewhat squishy. Maybe I don't want this type of plum tree either.

Our yard and garden is home to several fruit trees (including peach and apricot), but the fruit is larger and not quite this abundant. I guess for now maybe we will stick to the trees that just have these:

The leaves are getting more and more beautiful around here, and I LOVE it. It's not even too much of a pain for us to clean up the ones in our yard.... Honey Daddy just sucks them up and bags them in the lawn mower!

Walk With Me

Long weekend... long bike ride... and today is my birthday!
I'll post about my 100 mile bike ride and my birthday later on this week.

I will say that one of the gifts I got for my birthday this weekend was a great camera bag. The one I had was too big to carry around conveniently. Now I can easily take my camera and lenses with me when I go walking with my boys. I will have to take a picture of the bag to show you what it is like.

Here are some pictures I took while out on a walk with my boys last week... before I had the nice bag and I had to carry my camera around my neck!

There is a tree near our house that is covered with acorns. At least I think they are acorns! I think they look pretty in the morning sunshine.

I also found some late fall bloomers. I liked how this photo turned out. I actually took it with my zoom lens, so I was pretty far away from the flowers but still managed a close-up.

And for my last macro, can you guess what this is?


My only hint is that it is something that we saw while walking in our neighborhood!

The Caterpillars Under My Nose

Have you noticed that this summer BUGS seem to be a common topic on my blog? Do you think it might be because I have two little boys? Hmmm....

I am starting to think that I need to subtitle my blog: Honey Mommy, a.k.a Boys and Bugs!

Since Jonah is so fascinated by insects right now, I have been on the look out for a caterpillar. Now there is one bug that I personally find fascinating and not in the least bit revolting!

I thought it would be fun to keep a caterpillar, feed it leaves, and watch it make a chrysalis. Maybe we would even get lucky and get to see the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly!

I have been looking everywhere in my quest for a caterpillar. Any time we went on a walk we kept our eyes peeled. We looked in our yard and at the park. The only time I have ever spotted any caterpillars was when I was out on a long bike ride. When you are 10 miles from home on a bike it is hard to figure out where you are going to keep it until you get there, know what I mean?

So I had all but given up on finding a caterpillar this year. I thought we were getting too close to fall and winter, so we wouldn't find one. Then last week I was outside and decided to water my hanging petunias.

Wouldn't you know it was crawling with caterpillars!

So naturally I ran and got my camera first, and then got some mason jars. I caught three of the little guys that evening, and have since noticed at least four more that I have left on my plant! So basically my petunias have turned into a caterpillar sanctuary, and I didn't even notice until now!

Smile for the camera!

So we have three little caterpillars in jars and more on my plant. We are hoping to watch their life cycle here in the next couple of weeks. I am pretty excited about it, but definitely not as excited as Jonah! He has decided that the caterpillars are his new pets! (I even managed to let the leaf bug go without him even noticing!).

We really hope that we get to see butterflies at the end of our experience. Do any of you experienced mommies out there have tips to help us out?

Bloomin' Onion and the Leaf Bug

Friday afternoon we went and picked Daddy up from the airport, and boy are we ever glad to have him home! We went out to dinner and spent a quiet evening at home... as quiet as it can get with two excited little boys bouncing off the walls!

Saturday was busy as ever! First we went and picked five LARGE bowls of tomatoes from the garden. Guess who will be canning salsa on Labor Day?!

While out in the garden I noticed that some of our onions have gone to seed. I have never seen them get to the point where they are growing baby onions, so of course I had to grab my camera and take a picture!

We weeded the garden too, and it looks much better now. Then Honey Daddy went and clipped the rose bushes. We still have a few holdouts adding color to our yard.

Earlier in the week we managed to accidentally catch another bug while we were picking peaches to make raspberry-peach jam. I am not sure, but I think this is a leaf bug.

I tried to convince Jonah that we should let the bug go, but that resulted in tears. He has decided that this leaf bug is his new pet and if we let him go we will never see him again!


I decided to pick my battles. So for now we gave the bug some leaves to eat and left him in the jar outside. Maybe in a couple of days Jonah will have lost interest and his pet bug can "escape" or something!

Busy Bees near the Honey House

I was taking a walk with my boys one morning, when we found some bees gathering pollen from some little flowers near the road. The bees were interesting colors, so I decided to see if I could get a nice picture of them.

The first bee had a bright, almost-metallic green body. Just check out the pollen he is toting around on his legs! If you click on the photo you can see the pollen dusting his body as well.

I thought the rust-colored band on this bee was interesting. He seemed quite a bit larger than the other bees, and the flowers almost nodded down when he landed on them.

I was really happy with these macros! What do you think of them? Bee Honest!

Don't Bug Me I'm Taking Pictures!

Sometimes it can be surprising what is right in front of your face.

Recently I was out taking photographs of some pretty wildflowers (ok, I admit it... these are from Wyoming -again!). I had my eye glued to my viewfinder as I moved from one little clump of flowers to another. I would take a couple of pictures and then look at my screen to check out the focus and composition of my capture.


Once when I looked at the screen I thought, "What is that in the middle of those flowers?" As I zoomed up on the picture I realized they were bugs! Sure enough, when I looked past my camera to the flowers, the bugs were still there.

Sometimes the most amazing things can be found right under your nose.

Stuff N Fluff

I have been a fan of Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos for a while, but haven't ever participated yet. I don't have a macro lens for my Canon yet, but I have been practicing my close up shots.

Here are a few that I took recently while I was at my parent's house in Wyoming that I thought turned out really nicely.

Look at all the little seeds, ready to be carried away on the wind.

I don't even know what kind of plant this is. Probably some kind of weed, but I still thought it was beautiful in it's own way. It was reminiscent of a dandelion, but much bigger.

How was that for my first attempt at Macro Monday?