Saturday, January 9, 2010

Sunset and Christmas Light Pictures

"And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so as to go by day and night."
Exodus 13:21
 
I went around took some pictures after reading a great article by a photographer on (shock!) photography.

Here are some pictures I got out of that "photo time."



The ribbon on the wreath that hung on our door.

(We took some more Christmas decorations down yesterday)



One of the neat cloud formations - see the backward, angled "L" near the right side of the picture?

Most of the pictures in this post are black and white.  I love experimenting with colors and stuff so I chose black and white.  It often adds a mysterious, stormy look to the clouds that I think is neat.





Tips on silhouttes:  A silhouette is when an object is black, yet still has form, against something else (such as the sky).  The picture above is an example.  The trees are evergreens, so they were green when I took the picture yet they came out black. I found out that one way to help with silhouetting is to decrease the amount of light.  That means that you need to "darken" the picture.  On my camera I have EV steps where I can go to +3.0 or -3.0 which means that I can either make the picture lighter (+) or darker (-) to where it satisfies me.  Most of the pictures on this post were taken at -2.0 and the normal setting is 0.0.   I hope that makes some sense...leave me a comment and I'd love to try and explain better if you want to know! :)




See the airplane at the top?



Christmas lights



Some more



And more



And then some more!


All for Jesus,
                                                                             Kimber

Congratulations, Hannah!!!!!!!

"Now when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, she came to Jerusalem to test Solomon with hard questions,"
2 Chronicles 9:1a

Hannah returned home today...driving!!!  Yep, she got her learners permit!  This was the 2nd time she took the tests and she got 100% on each one!  We're so happy and proud of her! 

She and Daddy left at 8:00 this morning to make it to the DMV office by the opening time of 8:30 AM.  She called me (per my request) when she was getting ready to go up and take the test, so we could all pray for her.  While we were eating breakfast she called and said "I passed!" and we were all excited and clapped and told her congratulations.  She wheeled in the driveway about 30 min. - 1 hr. after she called us.



We all swept out of the house to meet her!



Victorious!



Hannah



The proud parents and new driver.



Another photo



And one last nice picture with Daddy smiling! :)

Congratulations, Hannah!  We love you!
Kimber :)

Friday, January 8, 2010

Alexis' Snow Pictures


"He gives snow like wool; He scatters the frost like ashes;"
Psalm 147:16

Here are the pictures of my photogenic sister:























All for Jesus,
Kimber :)

Playing in the Snow Earlier This Morning

"For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but waters the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater,"
Isaiah 55:10 


This morning we woke up to about 1-2 inches of snow!  After breakfast and chores Alexis, Caleb, Seth, Eden, Josiah, Daddy, and I went outside to play and sled!

We went and tried to find some good sledding hills.  Lydia was a trooper (I've got lots of pictures of her :) the whole time and we either carried her or took her in the wagon Eden and Josiah got for Christmas.



Lydia all bundled up! :)




Caleb



Eating some snow.


Yum!




Beautiful Eden! :)



Seth trudging up one of the "hills" we tried to sled on. 

It didn't work out too great so we went to try and find another one.



We went to the pasture and sledded down the tiny hills they had there. 

Daddy had graded "the pasture" so there wasn't a whole lot of hilly areas, but they still had fun!



Eden and 'Siah going down.

In the background you see Seth trying to "sled" and also Daddy's feet - he helped push everybody off! :)




Smiles! :-D




"When there is a will there is a way" 

I guess you could call this another version of sledding.



The ground wasn't very slick and since their was hardly any snow with only a small incline, we had to make ways to sled.  Seth, as you can see, was using a shovel.



Cute little Siah-man!




Lex and Josiah - I love Alexis' face!



That's better!




Seth and Eden

After trying out those hills we decided to go down the biggest hill that was on our property.  (Daddy's made several beautiful trails through our 10+ acres over the years so we can get to different places.)  The big hill is behind our house and leads down to the creek.

A few years ago we went sledding down it with our friends, the Sobers, but Daddy and Mr. Sober would have to catch us at the bottom of the hill because there was a fallen cedar tree there.  (We didn't move the tree out of our way because that is our traditional licking log! :)



Eden and Josiah getting transported via the sled and Daddy's manpower.




More smiles!



I absolutely love the country!




Lexi


Daddy



Lydia was transported to the sled so we could get over the "licking log" because the wagon would not have made it.

(By the way, we did not sled down the "big hill")



Another way of transporting Lydia (the babies get it good, don't they? :-D)




Sledding down another hill with Lydia



All of the 7 of us kids who braved the winter cold!  (Nothing against Hannah who stayed inside of course ;)

Left to right: Kimber, Alexis, Josiah, Eden, Seth, Caleb, and Lydia

Yes that is me with that ferocious looking hat on!  Daddy got the hat from Grandma and Grandpa when they went on one of their cruises.  They got it in Russia and, boy, do Russians know what they're doing when they make hats!   They don't fall/slip off your head and your ears and head stay toasty!  The hat is covered in rabbit skin (inside and out) so it is extremely soft also.



Another view.



Caleb

I'm so thankful for all my siblings being flexibile with me asking them to pose for pictures.  Some love it, some not so much, and others don't care.  I'm thankful for all of them!



I can always count on Daddy's for those great pictures!!!




Eating snow...



...gives you freeze headaches!!



Much better!




Precious little Lydia!



It's starting to snow again!



By "snowing" I mean this...  Caleb shakes a tree laden with snow and it "snows!"  Didn't want to trick you into thinking that it was real!




Trying to catch it.






Eating some more snow.



Lexi and Lydia in the winter wonderland.



Cheese!



Another kid photo with our puppy - Carmel!

(Daddy took the kid pictures for me)



Have you ever seen such a cute dog before?  Of course, I think he's absolutely adorable but I guess everyone else thinks the same thing about their own dog.



He's such a great puppy!  He keeps away the deer, protects the homefront, and patrols the property (along with being our best friend)!



Alexis, Daddy, and Lydia under a holly tree.

Lydia was getting unhappy from the cold and wetness but Daddy can always make her smile.



"Look at the tree."




She found a leaf!



Then it got stuck on her glove...which made her smile more after she realized where it was!








Licking some snow off the holly tree.




Snow is so yummy!



All gone!



Once again, Caleb and Lydia under artificial snowing via Daddy bear.



Fun, fun!

Daddy used to do that (artifical snowing) to all of us.  He'd say "go under that tree" and we'd race over there and sit/stand while laughing and smiling as he shook it all over us.  Good memories!  Then, sometimes, he'd also do it when we were unaware which made us a bit unhappy sometimes but...it was still fun.






While Seth was over trudging up the creek he found this hard mass of clay and water.  The water had frozen making the "rock" look like a little cavern!




There's a little bit more detail on the rock.







Daddy

By the way he's in a little fort that he made with some of my siblings a year or two ago.  It was still standing (they built it great!) so we still go and play it in every now and then.




Lexi and Daddy





Seth in the fort.






Inside the fort were these icicles.  It looked like sap that was dripping but froze.  Weird.




The boys (and Daddy) doing a "bear" performance for me.

(They're "chasing" the 'bunny rabbit' - a.k.a. Alexis)



Go, Daddy, go!



Weedels on top of the fort.

After some fort time they sled down one of the steep hills near the fort.  Daddy customized the sledding lane by adding logs to the edges.




Josiah going down.

As you can see, the snow was melting quickly.




Caleb



Eden



Josiah.

It doesn't look like he enjoyed it but he kept going back for more, so I guess he did.



Seth



Caleb again (he's got the Josiah look too).



Lexi screaming for her life.
Just kidding! :) 

So, once I got enough pictures of everyone we went inside to some absolutely wonderful hot cocoa and lunch!

All for Jesus,
Kimber

P.S. - I have so much to post about Christmas and New Years that I just might end up giving you a slideshow.  I also have pictures of Alexis from this morning (we had a mini photo shoot!) that I'm going to put on a seperate post.

One more note - Mama has morning sickness for approximately the first 3 months of her pregnancy.  (Morning sickness is where you feel nauseus and don't feel like eating - some people even go to the extent of throwing up but Mama only gets near that sometimes)  So please pray that it will go away or abate!!