Project 366: August 1-7th & August 8-14th

Late Late Late... Sorry, I have been chasing Noah around and haven't been able to fiddle around on photoshop as much as I would like.  Here are two weeks worth of photos...

1.  Noah and I on our daily walk around the neighborhood.

2.  There is one forklift that's been parked on our street for a few weeks.  It makes it pretty tough to find a parking spot!

3.  Where HE sat... Noah is trying out his new high chair.

4.  Jonathan's desk is just full of change.  If I want to feel really rich I just clean his table top and roll around in quarters!

5. We have 6 major apple products in our house.  We have have a slight addiction to electronics already, but I really really really love apple and we have been using apple computers since before they were cool.

6.  Our new chalkboard wall that has the phrase "let them eat cake" written across it.  It may sound like I am being a little snoody, but Jonathan and I just watched a movie about Marie Antoinette and it was the only thing that I could think about writing.

7.  Lights down low and working on getting little No settled down for the night.  You can tell that he was wide awake at 8 o'clock that night!

1.  Noah wearing my new glasses

2.  My nephew hijacked my sister's phone and decided to make a complete mess of our conversation. If you look closely there is some jibberish written in Russian via text.
3.  Look at those perfect blue eyes with rings around them.  Gah... this boy is too much!
4.  Purple flowers I passed by on the way home from the grocery store.
5.  A lovely bouquet from trader joes... no matter how hard I tried, I could not get it in focus.
6.  I've lost the simplicity of being able to take photos without a little boy crawling towards me or grabbing at the camera.  I better be fast and I better do it right the first time because watch out, here he comes!
7.  Watching the cars line up as everyone files onto the beach.  Some cities have snow days... LA has beach days

project 366:July 22-31

Wow! 4 days into August and I am finally getting to share the last photos from July.  Oops!  Many of you are friends with me on facebook, so you know that I have been taking photos... just blog lazy!

1.  9am and Noah's still sleeping.  He's just like his Daddy and loves to sleep in!
2.  My reflection in the car mirror as we drove through the Mojave Desert.
3.  Living in a tourist spot means there are always strangers in our neighborhood.
4.  He steals my heart! This shirt was a gift from my awesome sister.
5.  Sunshine
6.  On the road, just me and my Gus.
7.  The pathway outside of City Hall in Santa Monica
8.  Last thing I bought...Tzatziki Sauce!
9.  Left over photo from our trip through Joshua Tree... It's amazing that a desert can be so tranquil.
10.  What a beautiful assortment of toothbrushes.

project 366: july 15-21 late

I have been good about keeping up with the photos, but not so good with posting them lately.  After being on vacation, coming home and trying to get settled again, I have managed to fallen behind on my photo blogging duties.  It didn't help that I ran out of space on my harddrive and was teetering on the point of losing everything.  Good ole hubby saved the day though.  He supped up my laptop with a terabyte of space.  I  should  be good for a while.  *fingers crossed*

Anyways, lots of things have been going on, but now I think we are slowing down to a nice pace where I should be able to get back to my regular postings.

1.  Chubby fingers of Noah... They are so sweet.
2.  I live in a shoppers paradise... store signs everywhere.  Thankfully I am not a shopaholic, I just do a great deal of window shopping!
3.  My most recent obsession: watching these two interact.  I am IN LOVE.  I know women/new moms always say "I never loved my husband more than when I saw him holding our baby" and blah blah blah and I used to roll my eyes, but it's true it's true!
4.  Not on topic but just two beautiful to not share.  Our GORGEOUS California sunset and rainbow!
5.  My furry critter, Gus! He always tries to hide from the camera, unless I don't want him in the shot, but here he is walking about the city.
6.  Getting blown away by the windmills in North Palm Springs.  It's so fun to driver through that part of California.
7.  I took photos of several people's eyes; my eyes, Jonathan's eyes, Gus' eyes... you get the picture.  No one had anything that compared to Noah's eyes.  They are just gorgeous!

project 366: july 8-14

I had a lot of fun taking photos this week.  While all of THESE photos might not of been taken with my digital SLR, I did take my camera out several times this week and have a ball.  I am working on lighting and experimenting with natural ways to get vibrant colors.  Life is technicolor and I want to see it!

1.  Noah is constantly moving and going.  Here is is from the ground level taking a chomp out of a friend at a pool party.
2.  Gus likes big dog toys and so does Noah... walking through our living room is like a toy graveyard and you can't tell what toy belongs to whom.  Changes are if it's really interesting it's Gus' and Noah is playing with it and if it's new and sanitized Gus has run off with it.  Crazy little things roaming around my house.
3.  My favorite colors are a mesh of blues.  I actually don't have many examples of it in my house because my favorite colors didn't go with the decorating scheme I had in mind.  This is a mobile of Noah's where I got to add a few of my favorite colors to his life.
4.  Noah is slowly getting a chance to learn his letters.  We recently introduced the letter N and G, there was M, but Gus ran off with that before I even got a chance to share it with Noah.  Did anyone notice that I gave him the letters that matched his initials first?  hehe
5.  Jonathan is always talking about food texture.  Wispy onions... chopped ultra fine for a salad.  They don't have that same overwhelming onion taste that a coarsely chopped onion would.  It's refreshing.
6.  Everywhere I go, I try to expose Noah to the environment.  Here is a wipe open space (with grass)... something he doesn't get to see very often considering we live in a high rise building and we have astroturf grass in our neighborhood.
7.  Not on topic but definitely worth sharing.  I got to go with my friends Rachel and Kaitlin to the Hollywood Bowl for the Grease sing-a-long.  It was a blast!

project 366: July 1-7

1.  This is an attempt at a self portrait.  Obviously not too amazing.

2.  On beautiful days like this... the beach is always so busy.  It's nice that I don't have to drive to get there.

3.  The best part of my day is any time I get to cuddle up with my love bug, Noah.

4.  On the 4th of July I was able to capture the fun Jonathan was having as he started up the BBQ.  Eagle Scout turned pyromaniac.  

5.  We don't have a garden per se, but our building and neighborhood has many different flowers to look at as we walk outside every day.

6.  National Fried Chicken day.  My friend, Marion, and I dined at ChaCha Chicken in celebration.  It was amazingly delicious.

7.  The Chair... It's funny I never thought Jonathan would be the type to have a chair, but we have a really comfy leather chair that he loves to get comfy and watch tv in.

project 366: june 22-30

1.  we have a ton of jars from all of our canning and pickling and salsa making fun.  This photo was taken from a high angel.
2.  This photo is supposed to demonstrate movement. Sometimes I make Daddy be the bad guy and move Noah around while he's still groggy and or sleepy. **Jonathan says it's like moving a sack of mini potatoes** hah
3.  Texas is always on the back of my mind... This recipe book has been great for curing my homesick belly from time to time.
4.  While I would like to use Noah for ALL of my photos, I promised I wouldn't.   The subject of the day was something cute and that day while walking through China town... I saw this, which is indeed pretty darn cute!
5.  I shop at many places, but these two stores (other than whole foods) are probably the places I shop the most these days.  Online shopping is a new mommy's best friend!
6.  I was supposed to photograph my bathroom.  My bathroom is white and boring and was probably a mess the day I was supposed to photograph it.  I chose to show off Gus' bathroom.  Much more interesting astroturf in the front of our apartment complex. 
7.  What was on the shelf that day... pretty french radishes.  They were a great addition to a few salads we had over the weekend!
8.  I changed this subject.  My mom came into town on this day and she is just too much fun to not photograph and share.  
9.  Even more fun!  My cousin. Michael, and his buddy Shane came into town and were cool enough to hang with us for a night.  We took them to Korea Town for some awesome Korean BBQ.  We had so much fun and enjoyed having them around!

project 366: june 15-21

I am pretty proud of myself.  I managed to pick up the digital slr four times this week for project 366, even more if you count the weekly Noah or any other photos I have shot.  I am starting to play around more with lighting and different focal points.  I will not say that I am by any means AMAZING, but I will say that I feel as though I am improving and that makes me happy. :-)

I may have also taken some of the topics and changed them on one (or two) days, but that was only because I really wasn't feeling those topics and I want to be excited by getting out my camera.

1.  Spring and summer in SoCal is gorgeous.  Heck, it's gorgeous here year round, but I will say that one can find the most amazing flowers in the world just a few feet away from my building.  The topic of that day was yellow and I was able to find all natural yellow subjects to photograph, which was really fun.

2.  I get cabin fever really easily.  It's funny because I guess I am a homebody?  I have to make it a point to get out of the house at least once a day and I have been doing so by taking Noah on a walk around our neighborhood every day.  Sometimes we stroll to the beach, sometimes to the promenade or sometimes just to the grocery store.  It's great and I usually feel quite refreshed afterwards.

3.  Okay, here is one place where I cheated a bit, but I couldn't help but share what I had been working on all week.  Noah's fat little foot print in a salt dough mold that we made for the grandfathers and Jonathan for Father's Day.  It was great fun and such a mess.  It made me realize (yet again) how much I am missing doing activities like this in a classroom.  I love being a stay at home mommy, but really I do want to teach again.

4.  This was supposed to be me sharing a secret about myself, but I guess it wasn't that big of a secret.  I bite my nails... nervously, out of boredom or just out of spite.   I don't know why really... I just look down at the end every day and notice that my nail are still crazy short from a nibble here and nibble there.  I have managed to quit several times, for months or sometimes years, but like any addiction... it's hard to kick.

5.  Imperfection.  My scuffed up nails, my scabby hand, but definitely not my precious baby who likes to gnaw on me all day long.

6.  Here is my other cheat for the week.  This is supposed to be the best photo I have ever taken.  I honestly don't have the faintest cluse as to which photo that would be.  I decided that I would forget that and just photograph something that pretty and caught my eye.  This is the flower from a Bottlebrush tree.

7.  This is where I sleep... minus Noah (most of the time).  Sometimes he manages to sneak in with me for naps and early morning visits.  I really prefer my bed to be just for grown-ups, but sometimes I am tired and grumpy and really needing an extra hour of sleep, so I give in.

project 366: june 8-14

1.  I still haven't had a chance to make a post about Noah's diapering situation, but you have probably noticed he is cloth diapered.  I purchased a fabric that is well-known and loved in the diapering community and made some of my own pre-folds.  This was taken at 6 o'clock in the evening after a full afternoon of sewing.
2.  This is a shot of a view of my Saturday.  Jonathan, Gus, Noah and Fiona.  No, we didn't get another dog... we were doggie sitting for some friends of ours.  It was a fun day.
3.  The best bit of my day is watching Noah and Jonathan interact with one another.  I especially love it because I get as many bathroom breaks as I like unlike during the rest of my day. ;-)
4.  Our new apartment has the most boring front door, but that's what the subject for the day was... so I obliged and tried my best to make it look a tad bit more interesting.
5.  This is a view from a low angel. Shot at my friend's little bungalow... aren't the colors in that rug just delicious?
6.  Oddly enough, I didn't have to stage this... I was actually working on a little art project for  Father's Day.  It's fun to get messy and crafty!
7.  Things take so much more time than they used to.  Here Noah is trying to help me wrap Jonathan's father's day gift.  Something that would normally take me 10ish minutes too me half an hour... I hear it only gets worse. haha

project 366: may 29-31/june 1-7

I promise I have not been slacking in the photo department (just the blogging department).  I have actually been SUPER busy this past week and I had to pick and choose what projects I participated in.  I figured that as long as I was still taking the photos that it wasn't that big of a deal to be late blogging about them.  All 3 of my readers (my mom and my in-laws) will just have to be patient until I can get my act together. haha

1.  Oddly enough, it was hard for me to find something dealing with numbers to photograph.  Everything is so technology driven in my life that we don't even own a manual clock, scale, watch or any other numerically driven device.  It took my beating my head against the desk to realize I was typing away on something with numbers.  Voila!
2.  In the past month I have been attempting to get my fit on.  This meant rejoining the exercise world.  My friend Karla, humored me and allowed me to start working out with her on the weekends.  After we have worked every inch of our body to the core we treat ourselves to some delicious fresh juices.  This is a photo of me trying to recreate my favorite juice without a juicer.  To my surprise it actually worked!  It definitely would have been easier with a juicer, but hey... look what I can do!
3.  When I am walking around Santa Monica, I always manage to see some pretty interesting things.  This tree sweater was found as I was walking back to my car at my friend's graduation ceremony.  Sweet, vibrant and surprising!

1.  Me and Noah start our mornings with a hop in the shower.  It always gets us in the mood for a fun day!
2.  Jonathan has been experimenting a lot lately with sauces and other various recipes.  One of his biggest successes has been with his salsa batches.  This empty jar has been filled several times with tasty salsa to help cure our homesickness for Texas.
3. Another tasty dish of Jonathan's is his chicken mole from scratch recipe.  How will I ever get back to my pre-pregnant self with all this finger-licking goodness floating around our home?
4.  This is a closeup shot of a brick wall and some grass around our neighborhood.  Simple details can be so amazingly fascinating.
5.  This is from my day trip to Underwood Family Farms with my good friend Abigail.  We picked berries and veggies in hopes to make some jams.
6.  Noah is a drool monster and this hat doesn't help his case.
7.  My friend, Colleen, took pity on me and my not having a juicer and invited me over to make my favorite drink.  My friends take such good care of me!

project 366: may 22-28

Sorry for posting this late... that three day weekend threw me way off! It sure was fun having the hubby around an extra day, but I also like not feeling like time just slipped through my fingers.  Hopefully the week will SLOW down a bit and I can catch up.

1.  I am pretty much attached to some form of technology at all times of the day; iphone, laptop, desktop, camera, ipad, playstation or something.  Since Noah has arrived, I have had to learn to be a bit disconnected, which is SO hard for me, but with young children its a necessity.

2.  Standing in line at a grocery store is so different now.

3.  Woolzies dryer balls... natural fabric softener and way to speed up drying time.  Why did it take me so long to join the club?

4.  Lavender schnapps... a little something Jonathan brought back from Austria last year.  Isn't that strange?

5.  I never know whats going to be going on at any given hour of the day, but on this day at 12 o'clock noon, I was watching a chunky monkey catch some zzzz's.

6.  Something sweet... a baby strawberry!

7.  Oh man... the weather on Memorial Day was amazing and beautiful.  Jonathan, Noah and I took a 3 mile innercity trek and had such an amazing afternoon.

Project 366: May 15-21

It was an interesting week in photos.  I feel like a rock star because I used my nice camera three times this week! yay! Let's hope I can keep it up.

 1.  I can't even express the amount of love I have for this little boy.  Noah is such a gem and he makes me SO happy.
2.  Being an early childhood educator made me have an intense collection of children's books... having a baby has made baby books my newest addiction.
3.  I was able to steal some time and hang out with a dear friend.  We decompressed and had some sangrias.  It was great!
4.  At least one day a week, I have been crafting.  This day I was dying some cloth diapers.  Turquoise, purple and orange.  Such striking colors for my striking young lad.
5.  If I could go anywhere, I would most likely pick one of two places... my bed or the beach.  I love the beach!
6.  I can hardly make it one day without a sip of coca cola.  I have taken many hiatuses, but I just keep coming back to it.  Someday I will hopefully kick my nasty soda habit.
7.  Flowers, flowers everywhere... these are Pink.  So beautiful!

Project 366: May 8-14

I feel bad... This past week I took a bunch of fun photos with my fancy camera, but only one showed up in my project 366. It sure is hard to make sure to bring my camera with me everywhere I go and get some interesting shots... I guess I need to grow a third arm so that I can hold Noah and take magical photos all at the same time!

1. What's your favorite smell? Bread baking in the oven, clean laundry, freshly cut grass? I love the smell of a sweet little baby... especially my sweet, little Noah. Babies just smell so fresh (when they don't have a dirty diaper that is). I can't even begin to explain how pleasant their smell is.

2. What types of daily routines do you have? Every day I walk our precious pooch. He doesn't get as many walks as he used to now that Noah has entered the world, but he and I at least get one LONG walk in the afternoon and I enjoy that time with my Gus.

3. My favorite word (more like a favorite word because I can't really pinpoint just one word) is navel, well actually it's bellybutton, but that's two words and the subject requested just the one.

4. This is a shot of our kitchen while Jonathan was cooking our dinner. When the hubby is cooking, you can be certain that many pots and pans will be in volved.

5. I love the water. I especially love sitting out by the pool on a warm summer day. We visited Las Vegas last weekend and I was fortunate enough to spend a few hours at the pool and just relax. It was DEVINE!

6. Mom: This was my second mother's day, but the first I was able to celebrate with a living baby. Jonathan brought me some pink tulips to thank me for being Noah's mom. ;-)

7. Grass... I don't have REAL grass in my neighborhood, so this photo had to be taken in another friend's neighborhood. It seems like this grass is needing a bit of a weeding and a trim. Even though it was overgrown, the grass was still rather fun looking with the succulents popping through.

Alright, I am off to photograph another week. Let's hope for some good stuff!

Project 366: May 1-7

1. Aren't a fresh flowers so peaceful? Sometimes I wish I could just roll around in bed of soft flowers and find peace.

2. This photo was actually supposed to be of a skyline, but since I live IN the city and most of the buildings are rather squatty, I couldn't get a very good looking one like I could when we lived in Dallas. So I decided to showcase my anti-skyline.

3. Again a little improvisation... it's supposed to be what "I" wore, but Noah and I are pretty close, so if one of us looks cuter than the other (usually he outshines me), we showcase that person. This is Noah's new Avenger hat.

4. This topic is supposed to be FUN. We had originally planned on attending a movie premier with Jonathan's office, but the cranky-teething baby kind of made us think that wasn't a good idea. So we decided to catch a quick bite to eat and have a little fun with a martini.

5. The prettiest day of the year and I could not find a bird in site, which was oddly enough, the topic of that day. I ended up waiting around on the beach for quite a while until I saw one flying over a building and was finally able to snap this shot.

6. this was supposed to be a self portrait, but as many of you mothers know, once you have a child you pretty much lose all sense of that (not that I mind in the slightest).

7. This is supposed to be someone who inspires me. This has been a topic before and I chose my mom in the past, but this time I chose my wonderful and brilliant husband, Jonathan. He has been with me through so much in life and I depend on him for more than I should, really. He is an amazing provider and father... did I mention he's a genius? He really is! I just love to watch him think sometimes... it's like you can actually see wheels turning. He inspires me to do my best in everything I do so that I can seem half as brilliant as he is. haha. I absolutely love him. He is amazing.

Project 366: April 22-30

I decided to combine last weeks photos with the last two days of the month rather than have two separate posts...makes things a tad bit easier for me ;-).

1. Visited our new dentist last week and ordered a whitening kit since I am no longer pregnant and I can do things like that again.  This photo was taken the day the kit came in.

2. Swiss Chard, black bean, and tomato dish.  TO DIE FOR!

3. This is a photo of something (or rather someone) that I am grateful for.  Mr. Noah Grey is such a wonderful blessing in our lives.

4. On Wednesday, I was finally able to get out for a long walk and enjoy the beach that is practically in our back yard.  Anyways, since it's spring there are so many gorgeous flowers in bloom and these beautiful purple flowers were found when I looked down over a cliff.

5. Same area as Wednesday, I was able to capture a beautiful shot of a very whimsical tree (I believe it's a eucalyptus).  Anyways it did an amazing job of naturally showcasing the shadows and it looked fantastic once I added a black and white filter to it.

6. My first full day in Dallas, I caught lunch with my in-laws at La Duni at North Park shopping center.  I am still smacking my lips it was so delicious!

7.  Saturday afternoon I hung out with family and we went to the restaurant Smoke.  The subject was supposed to be 1 o'clock.  At 1 o'clock my nephew Liam was using the booth as leverage to hold down my sister.  It was pretty hilarious!

8.  an interesting circular bowl from a mexican restaurant in Dallas.

9. This is an angel medallion that mother gave me.  It is symbolic of our sweet baby Mason who is heaven.  My mom brought this to Mason's grave and took a photo of it there and then gave it to me since I cannot visit his grave very often.  It's a piece of him I can take with me wherever I go.  It's sweet, but it definitely makes me sad that I can't be there to visit him in person.

Project 366: April 15-21

woah this week went by FAST! Thank goodness I was able to take photos to help me remember some of the things happening in our life. Sorry I'm a day late!

1. Jonathan's dad was in town part of the week, so we were able to go out and eat with him at Wurstküche Restaurant in Downtown Los Angeles which was a total blast. Anyways, this is actually an octopus that someone had drawn on the butcher paper at our table. There were several interesting drawings and we added some as well. It ended up being a really fun evening.

2. This is the orchid plant that sits in our living room. It was given to us by our dear friend, Miriam on her last visit to Los Angeles. I guess it was a welcome to the world flower for Noah or something. Anyways, it's absolutely beautiful and I thought I should capture it while it's still blooming.

3. This is the label on our recently submitted tax returns. This is the first year we have owed the IRS, so it wasn't a particularly happy memory to document, but I guess it's worth making note of.

4. Guess what (or who) this is... This is a photo of Noah's luxurious head of hair that is growing more and more every day. Everyone says it is basically the same color as mine, which it's funny because I don't see my hair being that light any more, but I guess in the right light it still is.

5. This is of a giant bag of clementines purchased in preparation for making a fruit salad for my dear friends, Colleen and Justin's baby shower/birthday party extravaganza. Colleen and I made several trips to the store this week and had quite a bit of fun trying to find supplies for their kitchy party!

6. This is the card I gave Justin and Colleen for their shower... yep I drew that happy face all by myself.

7. Beers, lemonade and pina diablo were ready for the guests at Justin and Colleens. It was great fun!

project 366: April 8-14 LATE

yep...this week is late and yep almost all of the photos were taken with my phone. Ugh... was feeling a bit like a failure for not being able to keep up, but really... it's no big deal and really it's more important that I gave it a shot at all.  So here are this weeks photos.  Remember you can check out fatmumslim for the photo topics... I mostly stay on topic, but sometimes I do my own thing.

Let's hope this next set of photos are more exciting!

Project 366: April 1-7

A little late, but here my photographs from the first seven days of April. The first three were taken in Los Angeles and the other four were taken in Dallas.  I had a very interesting time in Dallas... a purely gastronomical experience (which is a pretty common whenever I go home).  Anyways, I didn't get to photograph as much as I would have liked in Dallas (due to the fact that my hands were mostly filled with Noah rather than my lovely new camera), but I do have some fun photos to share in the next coming days after I get my bearings.

Project 366: March 29-31

This photograph collection only has three because the OCD part of me did not want to mix March and April, but now that I am thinking about it, it doesn't even matter.  Anyways, even though it was a short assignment, I only used my phone camera once out of the three shots, which I feel is quite an accomplishment.  Unfortunately, Noah ended up being the subject of all three photographs, which even though I love love love taking photos of him, I promised that I would try to branch out and take photographs of things other than my darling offspring.  I guess that means I REALLY need to get out of the house more often so that all of my 366's aren't revolving around him.

This next week will have images partly in Los Angeles and partly in Dallas, so hopefully I will be able to have more creativity.  Until next time...

project 366: march 22-28

Well... I am pretty proud of myself this week! I was able to get out the nice camera three days in a row!  That's really a big deal since Noah has been taking up so much of my time and I usually only have my cell phone camera on me.

Anyways, I had someone ask me the other day what type of camera I use and I wanted to share that I actually use two different cameras.  The "nice" one I use is my Pentax K-r and it is digital SLR that is bright red.  Jonathan gave me this camera for Christmas and it is fun to play around with.  I keep telling myself I am going to learn how to properly use this camera, but I have NO idea when this will actually occur.  The second camera I use is my iphone 4 camera and I usually use the editing app called instagram.  If you have an iphone or android phone, you should definitely look into getting this app because it has the potential to make your boring photos very fancy!  If you want to follow me on instagram, my username is chriata or you can click HERE and check it out.

Project 366: March 15-21

Things are moving fast...WAY TOO FAST! Ever second of every minute of every hour is melting together and I hardly have the ability to capture it all.  The only thing I can do is hold my breath and try to soak it all in. And sometimes... I can grab the camera and capture something.  I know I keep making this promise, but I really do mean it... it's just going to take time, but I totally plan on using my real camera more and improving my skills.  I guess until I do you will just have to watch the improvements whenever I post the Weekly Noahs... whenever that will be.