havocandmayhem.com

Please note the *probably*. I went from 18 photo ideas in January to 12 photo ideas by the end of May.  Theoretically I should be down to about 7 by August. But hope springs eternal! 1. My husband (yes ladies, he cooks as well as shoots over the heads of bears) 2. Havoc (helping Daddy cook) 3. Mayhem (reading while others cook, like his mom) 4 & 5 The dinos & nailpolish. Not often seen together, but I think they match wonderfully. 6. Legos 7. Myself 8. My book pile 9. The clones and 10. The cats (this is Smoke, who recently stayed away for 5 days & is now grounded & not allowed out of the house for a month) This post inspired by Shimelle’s  10 Things Blogged on the 10th for everyone in her Beyond Blogging for Scrapbookers. Please stop by shimelle.com for more posts.

Our after dinner activity earlier this week. Nobody was injured in the making of this film.

Sci Fi Dad’s post today - Of Trucks and Gender inspired my choice for today’s photo This is from March of my 2008 Photo a Day project. These were the boys’ favorite books at the time. One copy of Happy Baby Things that Go and two copies of My First Truck Book.  These were actually copies 3 & 4 of those books, the first 2 having been read to pieces in the previous couple years.

  One of my favorite baby photos of Havoc. He was 6 weeks old. My mother was very insistent that he needed sunglasses in the Florida sun

Thursday I bought 2 dressers from IKEA. Each dresser came packed flat in 2 boxes. Friday night we bought a new TV stand and added a new tv to stand on it. The flat box for the TV stand weighed 85lbs. The TV only weighed 55lbs. I spent 4.5 hours Saturday assembling dressers while DH took Havoc and planted trees with his scout troop. Mayhem played Wii Lego Indiana Jones the whole time. Parenting FAIL but it was a success from an uninterrupted assembly standpoint. First I opened Box 1.  There were drawers in Box 1 Do you know what is the last thing the instructions have you assemble is? DRAWERS! Do you know where the instructions are packed? Box 2, with all the stuff you need to assemble first. Why not name Box 2 Box1, since it is the one you need first? The dresser involves the fun lining up of multiple pegs onto one board And of course you can never get all the pegs into the holes without having to lift up some of the ones that did make it in so you can line ...

I went to IKEA yesterday with my friend Mel. I wanted to get a dresser for the boys’ bedroom and she was looking for a desk for her daughter’s room. I ended up buying 2 dressers, each with 6 drawers (4 boxes) and she found a desk with attached side shelving units. (2 boxes) I have never appreciated the space in a mini van like I did yesterday. But of course you can’t just pick up the furniture you want & go. First you have to walk through the marketplace full of stuff to put on or in or next to the furniture you want to buy. Kitchenware, plates, picture frames, bins of assorted sized and materials, garden things, hooks and shelves, pillows and curtains. And lamps. Mel wanted to get a Chinese lantern lampshade while we were there and after pondering the various hanging lamps, that were basically a cord with a plug on one end and a light fixture on the other that you hang from a cup hook on your ceiling (no wiring required) I, finally, at long long last, replaced a standing pil...

(very photo heavy post) Saturday evening I took some photos in the kitchen and absentmindedly left the camera on the table. Sunday morning, around 8am, Havoc comes in the bedroom and informs me he’d been taking some pictures and the camera wasn’t working any more because it was full. I had taken maybe a dozen photos. The card holds 351. What did Havoc feel he needed to take over 300 photos of? Mostly he was perfecting his composition studies of “Cat with Bowl” First selecting the right angle for the shots Then getting in close Followed by some experimenting with the rule of thirds composition and centering There was also “Cat Wishing for a Bowl” “Cat Relaxing” And the popular “Cat Among the Stuff” series Cat photos accounted for more than 200 of the photos. Then there was “Clone Trooper Parking”   (everyone thinks I pose the toys in my 365 photos, but 95% of the time I just photograph what I find, though prob...

When I started my 365 project this year I came up with a list  of about 15 things I wanted to take a photo of every month, things like groceries, the front yard, sunsets, dinos, the book tower, etc. One of them was the contents of my purse. However I completely spaced that one until last week when Mel and Ruth posted theirs. It’s too late now to do a year of it but I think I will try to get it in at random. This was my purse on Friday. It’s a DSLR bag that I often carry because of the roominess. Please note the lack of DSLR. This is what all was stuffed in that bag Friday I had a lot of time to kill while out and about, so I had various things to keep me occupied – my cross stitch project, the book I am currently reading and my Nintendo DS These are my electronics that accompany me most places. A small camera (since I am using the bulk of the bag to hold books & craft stuff & can’t fit my D40), my cell phone and my Creative Zen mp3 player. T...

I’ve been slacking on posting my 365 photos. Some have made it into Weekly Winners or other posts but these haven’t been posted before. 35/365 – I’ve started a cross stitch project 36/365 – Gnocci with beef & sausage ragu 38/365 - Havoc 40/365 – It was his birthday. He wanted brownies instead of muffins.

A rare moment of peace & quiet Monday at the end of a 4 day holiday. They were watching the Penguins of Madagascar on the TV in our bedroom. later we would have epic drama over practicing TKD forms before class, but this was nice while it lasted.

And 2 of the photos feature clones, one with Legos & one with dinos. And one photo of food. I can see a theme emerging already. Man these guys are short It’s ok buddy. Really. It’ll be ok $130 of groceries lurk behind that juice & under those eggs & meat.   I have also managed to stick to my Lightroom importing & tagging resolution! 5 whole days now! Woohoo! But I am not going to pretend there are loads of veggies under that box of Premium Saltines. I’m still working on ‘veggies are more than a side dish’ That zucchini & the leeks are going to be part of a frittata tomorrow nights, so that’s something anyway.

Some more Journal Your Christmas pages I have the 24th done except for editing the photos, so I am as caught up as I have been all month.