A New Jackson

Why are you looking at me so funny? This is where stickers are supposed to go!




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

I knew it was going to happen eventually...

...or "iced" in, rather. Here are some shots I took during the big ice/snow weekend in Charlotte.



If you can't tell, all of these were taken with my iPhone. As Chase Jarvis would say, the best camera is the one that's with you! No worries though, I have some photos with the real camera coming soon; these just take me less time to process and post.

Need I say more?

Whenever there's even a hint of the possibility of snow in the south (namely Charlotte), it's an event. Although it usually seems like there's an umbrella directly over Charlotte when the surrounding areas get slammed. This time, however, there seems to have been a snow umbrella directly above our little section of the city. While all our friends are out building snowmen and frolicking in the white stuff with 2+ inches, we have about an inch of ice. Pure ice! It's no fun to play in ice so we are stuck up in the house trying not to drive each other crazy.

It does look pretty though. Don't be fooled, it's all ice. AND the temp isn't expected to rise above freezing for a couple more days.

Most of my readers know that I am a photographer. Something that I haven't posted about yet is that I am doing a 365 day photography project during 2010 that involves taking (and posting) a photo each day. As if that wasn't enough of a challenge, I am taking (and processing) each photo exclusively with my iPhone. If you'd like to follow this project, you can subscribe to posts here: http://ljphoto.blogspot.com.

I've had so much fun with this project just in the first month, that I've decided to enter some of my daily iPhone photos into a contest that's being put on by Adorama (my favorite photo people). The winners will be decided by a panel of judges and also by popular vote. So I am asking all of my wonderful readers to please go and vote for your favorite iPhone photo (5 stars of course!). The contest ends on February 15th.

Here are the photos that I have entered. Clicking the photo will take you to the page to vote for it. Thanks everyone!! :)

Jack is such a good sport and just loves Jonas to pieces. They are never far apart.

Recently, we had our first experience with making homemade play dough and also discovered that it can be quite fun (and easy). For Jonas' preschool class, January was our month to make blue play dough for the entire class. I had so much fun making it that I made Jonas a batch of orange (well, it was supposed to be red, but turned out orange). After making the blue play dough, I had very blue hands (I may have used a bit too much food coloring gel!). Below is the recipe that I used, which I got from Jonas' teacher. Oh, and here is one of my blue hands and the final product.



Note: Alum powder can be found with the other spices at the grocery store.
Note 2: The original recipe suggests adding vanilla, but it's not necessary.

1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1 tablespoon alum powder
1 cup water
1 tablespoon oil
food coloring

In a sauce pan combine flour, salt, and alum. Gradually add the oil and water. Cook over low to medium heat, stirring constantly. When it reaches the consistency of mashed potatoes, remove from heat. Add food coloring (and vanilla if you wish). Divide and knead in color.