Little Boy Stuff

A Boy and His Hat

I finished Nathan's hat recently, but he didn't really get the chance to wear it (with me and my camera around, anyway) until this weekend.  Here's an Instagram recap:

 

I designed the hat so it can (hopefully) be worn for more than one winter. The striping pattern is supposed to remain the same no matter where you fold up the brim, but I guess the hat is just a little too big for it to work out that way now (or maybe Nathan's head is too small?  Doubt that!)  I'm sure it'll look the way it's meant to next winter.  When I include it in my someday knitting book, I'll be sure to write it for three- to four-year olds instead of two-year olds with larger-than-average head sizes.  :) 

I really liked this Instagram, so I thought I'd add it in, even though it's completely unrelated.  Sometimes life is like that.

Fall Sunset & Fun with Instagram

I love fall sunsets, even if they're not as spectacularly colorful as summer ones.  The low angle of the sun is fun to be in -- I feel like the sun is shining just on and for us.  (Although I hate driving when the sun is so low and always shining in my eyes -- that's quite a different feeling!)  I love the fall sunset's orangey hue and the yellowish glow it casts on the fading grass and trees around us.  It just makes me feel good!

(unedited)

It turns out that my iPhone takes pretty good pictures.  They're not as good as the photos my old point-and-shoot Canon takes, but in a pinch, taking photos on my iPhone a good, easy solution.  And it's really fun to use Instagram, a photo sharing application for iPhone. 

I'm not really into apps -- I just use my phone to look things up, go on Facebook and *gasp* make phone calls (shocking, I know) -- but I'm really enamored with this one.  It lets you take square photos and then quickly apply filters to transform the look and feel of the photos.  (You can also crop and use photos you've already taken on your iPhone.)  And then the photos show up in your Instagram feed and you can tweet them, share them on Facebook or send them to people via e-mail.  Really convenient and really fun.

Here's what I did with the photos I took at sunset on Friday night.  I posted the original photo below each one I edited in Instagram.  (Pro tip: You can also choose not to apply a filter to a photo on Instagram and share it as-is.)

This one's my favorite.

I love the old-school feel of this photo.

Old school, again, and it really makes me think about fall compared with the original photo below, which is greener.

Awesome colors and border. This is one of my favorite effects, but it doesn't work well with every photo.

I'm sure you can imagine what happened directly after this photo was taken...

Was that fun, or what?  (I'm sorry if you answered or what.  I thought it was!)

If you're on Instagram, my username is kellypatla, in case you'd like to follow along.  If not, you can still see my pictures -- I tweet some of them on Twitter (KellyPatla).

A Hayride

<< Yarn Along  |  Main

Over the weekend T.J. and I took our orange-wearing boy on a hayride with a friend and some “big kids.” 

They hayride took us on a tour of our local farm, the one where we bought our pumpkins last week and picked our strawberries in June.

We got a nice view of the Delaware River, which gives the farm its silt-y, fertile soil and only sometimes devastates their crops when it floods badly enough.

We saw freshly ploughed fields, eyed the strawberry patch we drooled in in June and checked out the flowers and some unusual crops for this area, like broom corn, cotton and okra.

But really it was a great chance to photograph my two boys…

...and hold my precious boy close at a time when he was content to be held and didn’t try to wiggle away while he looked at the nature and wonder all around us.

It was such a sweet time.  And, no, I don’t remember what made me laugh.  But knowing I was laughing is good enough.

The Great Outdoors – the Hummingbird Garden at Dusk

~ If you took seasonal outdoor photos that you love this week, join in and post a link in the comments!  What is the story behind your photos?  Anyone can join in—it's not farm or garden specific—anything seasonal and outdoors goes.  I'm replacing {this moment} with The Great Outdoors while the weather is warm. ~

Dusk has been my favorite time to be outdoors lately.  The temperature is cooler, the light is soft and the sunsets are amazing.  And the hummingbirds—ohhh, the hummingbirds.  I think dusk is their favorite time, too.  They buzz all around my gardens and the pots on my deck, feeding often from my red salvia, lantana, tangerine sage and bee balm.  At dusk, my deck-slash-hummingbird garden is the best place to sit still and watch, read book in the fading light or water the flowers and enjoy the sights and sounds of the nature around me.

Thanks to the pots on my deck, I haven't had to make hummingbird nectar (recipe here) and hang my feeder.

These lantana lure hummingbirds right up to my back door.  I can see them all the way from the kitchen!

  

This hibiscus flower will bloom tomorrow.

I can't wait for these trumpet vines to bloom.  Hummingbirds love the bright red little trumpets...and I do, too!  Bee balm is on its way out.