Snow day and candy heart photos

We had a snow day here last week. The kids were so excited. Poor Anna was sick (again) so she didn't really get to play... plus the snow only lasted about 5 hours, lol.

Dominic had a great time playing in the snow! He built a little snowman and threw many, many snowballs at his father.


Jenny brought Charlie out to play too! Curtis threw him a few snowballs and I attempted some continuous shots to try to capture the fun. Focus fell on the street behind him, but you still get the idea.


It had been so long since I had a good opportunity to get my camera out. I'm still recovering from knee surgery and it's going so slowly (and painfully). I got inspired to take some shots just for fun. This is our fence.


Jenny noticed these cat paw prints by her car and I wanted to get a shot of them. So cute!


The snow really accumulated the most on on my van. I like how you can see the snow on the windshield through the window and the colors are great too.


This is our deck railing so show how much we got. I like the bokeh in this shot.


The sun was out in full force by mid-day so it didn't last long, but it was fun!


I also wanted to share a fun contest that I participated on Clickin' Moms a couple of days ago. I didn't win (it was whoever could post first and I came in third) but it was fun and got my creative juices flowing. Sarah prompted us last week to pick up some conversation candy hearts, you know those little Valentine candy hearts with words printed on them? I have to say that I've eaten way more than I've photographed!

So the first challenge was the first 15 people to post an image with one conversation heart moved onto the next round.


Then it was the first 10 people to post a 5 word phrase made with conversation hearts moved onto the next round.


Round three was the first 7 people to post an image of 7 stacked conversation hearts moved onto the next round.


Things started to get more nervewracking as the first 5 people to post an image with three pink and one yellow conversation heart moved onto the next round. Hurry!


Getting closer now! The first 3 people to post an image of a heart shape made out of conversation hearts moved on to the final round.


Made it to the final round! The first to post a shot of a conversation heart with a large aperture and a creative depth of field won a gift card. I was too slow!


It was a lot of fun and I noticed that my camera delivers pretty good results SOOC. I only adjusted white balance slightly in ACR, then resized them in Photoshop before uploading them to Flickr. I did not sharpen for web and I'm really pleased with the clarity. Some of the shots are underexposed but I like the composition in them and the DOF also. If you are looking for a way to get your creativity sparked, try something like this. I've hardly been able to put down my camera since!