Day Thirty

Today is Neely's 36th Birthday.  Happy Birthday, love!

Day Twenty-nine

This is my sleepy boy.  He will always fall asleep when we drive for any distance.  And of course where I live, any time I get in the car, I have to drive a good bit.  He fell asleep shortly after I snapped this shot.  We had just dropped his brothers off for an overnight visit with their mom, so not only was he sleepy, but he was also sad.  Couldn't you just kiss that face?

Day Twenty-eight

Neely and I went to the mall with Clayton & Daniel while Will was at his dance.  Neely needed new work boots so I treated myself to a new pair of Chucks.  These are, in fact, my first pair of Chucks in many many years.  I think I had a pair when I was around 14.

Day Twenty-seven

James & Daniel playing Wii today.  I'm not sure, but I'm guessing that the makers of the Wii didn't intend for people to play while sitting on the sofa.  I could be wrong though.  James seems to be able to box just fine while sitting down.  Daniel on the other hand needs a lot of room to play and really works up a sweat.

Day Twenty-six

Daniel was "playing" his guitar tonight.  He was also singing Linkin Park and a few other songs that Will & Clayton listen to from time to time.  He loves to imitate Neely with the guitar and Neely says he has a good sense of melody, but of course I wouldn't know.  He was really cute tonight playing and singing that I had to capture it.

Day Twenty-five

This was actually taken with my cell phone, so I apologize for the quality of it.  I thought people might look at my funny if I carried my camera into Daniel's allergist appointment today.  Anyway, this is art on the wall of his doctor's office.  I want to take it home with me and hang it on my own wall.  It's gorgeous and colorful and abstract and I want it.  I asked Daniel to count the circles in it today and he said "1, 2, 3, 10, 89.  There are 89 circles."

Day Twenty-four

Neely has an inability to throw things away.  Things that I would consider useless (like extra screws from an installation at work), he keeps and buys things to use to organize them.  This afternoon he started cleaning out his car and ended up sitting at the kitchen table sorting screws and various other pieces of trash, er I mean hardware into this new $25 bin.  Hardly seems worth the effort to me, but if you ever need a screw for something, I'm sure Neely has just the thing you need.

Day Twenty-three

Photoshop is my life today.  I took over 600 photos last night at Liberty High School's Battle of the Bands.  I've been editing all day and am only finished with the first band.  I love Photoshop and I especially love actions, which make editing so much easier!

Day Twenty-two

Neely and I went to a Battle of the Bands at Liberty High School.  I took pictures and Neely sponsored the grand prize (a three song recording session, a photo shoot and graphic art package) for the winning band.  Here he is presenting the prize to the winners, Call Ahead Seating.

Day Twenty-one

My son, James (most of the time he's called Earl, his middle name) coached JV football this year for the Taneytown Jr. Eagles (12 & 13 year olds).  He loved it, even though they had a really bad season.  He really loves football and he's a good coach.  He got this plaque yesterday in appreciation for coaching this past season.

Day Twenty

This is how I found my oldest and my youngest this morning.  Sarah spent the night and slept on the sofa and when Daniel woke up this morning he snuggled up with her to watch TV.  I love how much they love each other!

Day Nineteen

The kids got bikes for Christmas and have ridden a few times.  Clayton is still not able to ride his yet, but is learning.  Will is already a pro. Daniel is a little slow to take off, but is doing well.  I anticipate by this time next year, we will be removing the training wheels for him.

Day Eighteen

We had my chicken cheese & rice casserole for dinner tonight.  It's a favorite around here, with everyone except my biggest boy, James.  You can get the recipe for it here.  I had to modify the recipe again to make more, because there were never any leftovers and we love leftovers!

Day Seventeen

Daniel finally got his hair cut today.  But he was not having it when I wanted to take a picture.  He had just learned that it was bedtime, so that might have been why.

Day Sixteen

I took a ton of pics last night and tonight I'm playing in Lightroom.  It's fun, but lots of work!  If you want to see the finished photos, check out my flickr photostream.

Day Fifteen

Neely had a show today at Club Sonar in Baltimore.  His band, CARBONSTONE, played 5th out of 8 bands.  It was a long night, but we had a lot of fun!  And I fall in love -- OK, you got me, it's just lust -- every time I see this man play on stage!

Day Fourteen

Self-portrait.  The lighting sucked so it's black & white.  I don't get many pictures of myself because I've always got the camera.  I like this one.

Day Thirteen

These two are here to stay.  You can read all about it on my personal blog here.

Day Twelve

What does your husband bring home from work?  Dinner?  Miscellaneous office supplies?  Yeah, this is what Neely brings home.  He installs high performance audio equipment in schools, churches and government buildings.  He frequently gets first dibs on old equipment.  Today was one of those days.  I just smile and nod and think about running away from home.

Day Eleven

This is Neely's cell phone.  It's the HTC Hero Android from Sprint.  I think he loves it more than me.  He spends hours at a time downloading apps for it.  He can tune his guitar with it & access his home PC with it, along with various other unique and probably useless things.

Day Ten

No, I'm not pregnant.  These are from when I was pregnant with Daniel (yes, I still have them!).  I realized today that I found out I was pregnant with him, about this time 5 years ago.  It certainly doesn't feel like it's been that long.  I miss the little baby that he was, but I love the little boy that he's become.

Day Nine

Way to play, Ravens!  Looking forward to next week!  Final score, Baltimore Ravens 33, New England Patriots, 14.

Day Eight

This is Maliyah.  She's my great "niece".  Her mom, Nicole, is my god-daughter.  She turned 2 on the 7th and today was her birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese.  I love every inch of her!  You can see her when she was fresh from her mommy here.

Day Seven

Daniel is having a very bad hair day (and makes the funniest faces when I want to take his picture).  I've been waffling about whether I want to let his hair grow out some or go ahead and get it cut.  Today I'm definitely leaning towards the latter.

Day Six

This is Billy.  Today is his 19th birthday.  He's my son James' best friend.  He came to stay here, for what I thought would be a few weeks and it has turned into several months.  I think we'll keep him, for a while anyway.  He's less annoying than he looks.  Happy Birthday, Bildo!

Day Five

I love this boy so much, I can't stand it!

Day Four

Spaghetti.  It was for dinner.

Day Three

Today was the boys' first day back at school since December 18.  It's been a long two weeks and I sort of dreaded the morning routine, thinking they would be grouchy and not happy about going back to school.  To my surprise, they did really well this morning and daddy treated them to McDonald's for dinner.  These pictures were taken during dinner (and while Will was talking to his mom on the phone).

Day Two

All of the boys received new bikes for Christmas and therefore they all received helmets.  Daniel's helmet had elbow and knee pads with it and for two days now he's  insisted on wearing them "so he wouldn't get hurt if he fell down" inside.  I oblige him because he's cute as can be.  Today after putting his  helmet on, I asked him to let me take a few pictures.  I would point the camera at him and tell him to say "poop" or "I love Cheetos". After a while, I ran out of things to tell him and so when I pointed the camera at him he asked "what do you want me to say?"  I love this boy!

My first 365 Project - Day One

I'm going to try to commit to this and hopefully we'll have a great year of photographs and you can also see me improve (*crossing fingers*) over the next year.  I'm starting today instead of yesterday because I suck at remembering to do things, but it's still close enough to the first of the year to be OK, I think.  (Right?)

Here's today's photo:

In my house there is no shortage of guitars.  I think there are 10 total including one for each of the boys and 2 bass guitars.  This is Neely's newest acoustic.  It's special to him because it helped him through a very bad time in his life, so it's equally special to me.