205/365 ren faire

One of my son's friends had his birthday party at the Renaissance Festival this year. So yours truly had the pleasure of creating an outfit for said son. Other than the belt, I made the entire costume. I was actually quite pleased with how it turned out and he was very happy with it as well. They had a blast - 5 teenage boys having the time of their life amidst swords and other weaponry. The birthday boy came home with a very nice sword, in fact.

97/365 working for a living

My husband is a tool guy. No, not one that sells them, but he uses them in his own line of work. Naturally, our boys have been learning things about various tools over the years. He decided it was time they begin their own collection. So he got them each a nice starter set of tools. He presented them as he called them out to help him with some work. Things passed down from father to sons. Love it.

82/365 birthday cake

Yep. Sixteen candles on that cake. Sixteen years old. My youngest son.

81/365 larry boy

My son never ceases to amaze me. He watched Larry Boy earlier in the day and then made this from memory later.

77/365 my birthday boy {11*/52}

I can't believe my youngest is 16. Wow.

76/365 orange buds

71/365 waiting

I'm pretty sure he was grateful to have his iPod to play with while we waited for John. And yes, he wears shorts year round. Even with his heavy winter coat. And sandals.

65/365 on the roof

Crazy kid of mine loves hanging out on the roof.

51/365 tired

We helped a friend move over the weekend. My son worked very hard, but boy, was he tired at the end of the day.

23/365 big feet

Holy smokes! The pair on the right belong to my YOUNGEST son. The Merrells are mine. And I have no idea why I focused on the boot tray instead of the shoes.

352-365 snow sweeper

That's my boy - shorts and sandals year-round.

The colored lights on him are the Christmas tree lights reflected in the window through which I'm taking this picture.

325-365 black and white

I'm not sure why I have such trouble getting well-focused eyes. But I do. And it drives me crazy. I used to shoot with manual focus all the time. Then I switched to auto, but I'm not sure how much that's benefited me. Sometimes it helps, but other times, not so much. Of course, now that I look at this shot, I realize that the eye in the shadow is better focused. Although not as sharp as I'd like.

There were too many colors going on with the red wall and green shirt, so I liked it much better with the b&w conversion.

288-365 what I get

Even though neither one knew the other one did it, this is apparently what I get after taking too many a lot of pictures of my boys!

283-365 shoes

279-365 clay guy

277-365 seriously

265-365 engrossed

263-365 my boys...

...don't mess with 'em

121-365 fireman-style rescue

Yes, he did succeed.

120-365 boys & balsa

The boys picked up some of those balsa wood planes at the craft store the other day. They've provided quite the entertainment around here. Naturally, we had a couple of tree landings, but the planes survived.