I have a new home!

It's here! The shiny new blog that I have been working so hard on is finally done. And it is soooooo much nicer! You won't believe how much bigger the pictures are over there, compared to here at Blogger. So go check it out, and make sure you update your bookmarks and RSS feeds. I hope you like it!

www.jenmarriner.com/blog

(it's a lot easier to remember that address, isn't it?)

Project 365, Day 54

Last week we celebrated Griffin's birthday with a trip to two of his favorite places - the MOST in Syracuse and Build A Bear. While he made himself a frog dressed like a leprachaun, his older brother created this turtle. Not for himself of course, because at ten years old he is too cool for stuffed animals. No, this was made for ME. :) Her name is Mi-shell (sorry) and she has made her home on the shelf over my computer.

Project 365, Day 53

Here's a sneak peek at something I've been working tirelessly on recently. Be on the lookout for the launch in the next few days!

Project 365, Day 52

This weekend we traveled to the Philadelphia area to visit mom and sis. We spent Saturday at the Franklin Institute, which is a wonderful science and technology museum. We all had a great time, especially the kids. I highly recommend it!

Project 365, Day 51

Here are Grant and Mike working in the Man Cave at Mom's house (otherwise known as the basement). They are assembling a "Soda Can RoBug" that Grant got at the MOST last week.

Project 365, Day 50

Grant bought this yesterday. He spent a good deal of time last night and today just staring at it. I thought he was a little nuts to spend so much time looking at colored water drops, but then I watched it for a while. It's completely mesmerizing.



Also, I will be away from my computer this weekend, so you won't be seeing my daily pictures on Friday and Saturday.

Project 365, Day 49

My little guy turned 6 today. We had a lot of fun - it's nice that his birthday falls on a school break week. Here is the birthday boy trying to lick the frosting on his cake.

Project 365, Day 48

Last Tuesday I made yet another return to Weight Watchers. After a pretty good week sticking to the program, I was down one 5-pound weight plus one 3-pound weight, plus an extra .4 (otherwise known as 8.4 pounds) at tonight's weigh-in. But don't get too excited for me, I always have a big first week. Now the real work begins...

Project 365, Day 47

Today Grant and his Cub Scout den made these rustic, three-legged stools. They came out really well, and are very sturdy, as Grant is demonstrating here. Now we just have to figure out where to put it...

Project 365, Day 46

I saw this little guy hanging out in our backyard today. We have an English Walnut tree out there, and the squirrels just love it.

Project 365, Day 45

Detail of the card my sweet hubby got for me today.

Project 365, Day 44

My original shot for today didn't work out, so I'm left with this. A big, steaming pile of nothing.

May tomorrow be a better day!

Project 365, Day 43

This is my life. The never-ending mountain of laundry that seems to pile up overnight. This is all clean, I just don't have the energy to fold it and put it away. Where is that magical laundry fairy when you need her??

Project 365, Day 42

This year all I wanted for my birthday was a new lens. So yesterday I ordered my new 10-22mm from Amazon, treated myself to the one day shipping, and waited impatiently all day today for it to arrive. The UPS truck showed up just in time for me to grab the box, grab my camera bag, and get the boys in the car to go to piano lessons. When we got there I had just enough time to fire off a few shots of the boys in the back seat. I love this lens so far - I can't wait to play with it some more!

Project 365, Day 41

My husband bought me this lovely mini rose bush in celebration of my 40th birthday today. It's so pretty!

Project 365, Day 40

Funny that the 40th day of this project would also be the eve of my 40th birthday. Yes, today I am enjoying the last day of my thirties. Here are a few of the cards that have come in so far.

Project 365, Day 39

Today was the last meet of the season for my two swimmers. Our team hosted the district meet this year, so we had to take care of over 600 swimmers and their families - it was a very busy day! This is Griffin wearing this year's districts t-shirt.

Matthew at Six Months

Can I just tell you how much I love this family? I love that when I walk into their home I see that most of the pictures on their wall were taken by me. They are so sweet! I photographed Shannon and Robert's wedding two years ago. Then last year I got to meet their sweet little baby. Remember Matthew? He's one of my Bundle of Joy babies now, and I can't believe he's six months old already! We had a lot of fun yesterday. (And as you can see, I'm in a black & white mood!)

We played with some blocks...




We munched on some fingers...


And of course we had to plop him down in my big mug. He wasn't quite sure what to make of it!

Project 365, Day 38

WIth temperatures soaring into the 40s today, Grant spent a lot of time outside with his girlfriend. Or girl friend. Or something like that. Whatever you want to call her, they've been inseperable since she moved in to the house next door last summer. Today they figured out how to climb up on the shed in her backyard. I'm sure I don't want to know how.

Project 365, Day 37

I bought these today while grocery shopping. I thought I might save them for a Valentine's Day picture. But, uh, I don't there's any chance that they will make it that long. :)

Project 365, Day 36

I am sooooo sick of snow right now! I am definitely ready for spring. Please?

Project 365, Day 35

Headache tonight. 'Nuff said.

Project 365, Day 34

It's a nice clear night here and I was hoping to get some images of the stars and moon, but the moon didn't look all that interesting and living in town there is just too much ambient light for good star shots. So I decided to have some fun with a 30-second exposure, and "scribbled" with the moon.

Tonight's Sunset

We had a spectacular sunset tonight. This is the view out our dining room window. I couldn't believe how intense the colors were. The only post-processing (Photoshopping) that I did was sharpening - I didn't touch the colors at all!

Project 365, Day 33

The boys had a good time watching Chuck in 3-D tonight...

Project 365, Day 32

We're having another lovely winter day here today. The sun is out and temperatures are warm enough to play outside. Grant is working on a snow structure of some sort, and Griffin is "helping" and threatening to hit me with a snowball. I'm not all that concerned - he doesn't have the best aim. :)

Project 365, Day 31

Today was one of those rare winter Saturdays with no swim meet, no blizzard-like snow, and no sub-zero temperatures. I made the boys go outside to play in the back yard, and then figured it was a good time to get a picture of the three of us. This is one of those extremely rare photos of me that I actually like!

Project 365, Day 30

This is one of my favorite pictures of Grant. We were living in our townhouse in Mass, and there was this little grassy area across the road. I remember that Grant hated grass. Couldn't stand the texture at all. But he didn't really fuss about it, he just sat there sucking on his fingers, looking up at me and my camera with those big blue eyes. I think this was the first picture that I took of him that made me realize just how gorgeous his eyes are.

This is also my favoite frame. My mother bought if for me on a trip to Italy. It looks lovely on top of our piano.

Project 365, Day 29

I looooove getting new business cards! But I always have a hard time deciding which image(s) to use on them. This time I got smart and ordered a set from moo.com, where they let you have a different image on each one! I've yet to be disappointed in a moo product. Love 'em!

Project 365, Day 28

I had my tripod out on our front porch taking pictures of the NEVER ENDING snow that we have had when I decided to play around with some longer exposures. Of course, as soon as I decided to do this, traffic on our normally busy road disappeared. Naturally. But persistence was eventually rewarded. :)

Project 365, Day 27

Well, we finally got this trial over with; guilty on some counts, not guilty on others. I was satisfied with the outcome.

And gee, look at this spiffy certificate I got! You'd think that after six days in the courtroom I would have at least earned one with my name on it. :P

Project 365, Day 26

Today was a very frustrating, irritating and generally miserable day for me. I spent the day in jury deliberations and then came home to argumentative children. I need something to help me relax. In good weather this would call for a trip out to my garden, to just sit and look at my flowers and wait for birds to come to my feeder. But with a few feet of snow covering the flowers and temperatures in the teens and single digits keeping the birds away, I had to make do with what I have around the house.

This is part of a little flower arrangement that we have in our living room. Fake? Absolutely. But it's pretty and makes me think that spring is just around the corner. Sort of.

Project 365, Day 25

It started out innocently enough. Griffin was looking for his Transformers DVD this morning. We looked through the video cabinet in the living room but it wasn't there. So we figured it had to be in his bedroom. I walked in and immediately realized the futility of this endeavor. Griffin's bedroom was, to put it mildly, a pigsty. It was beyond even my normally lax cleanliness standards.

So, we had ourselves a project.

We spent a good five hours purging all of the crap from his room. What you see here is Griffin atop the pile of stuff we took out. There are four bags of old clothes to be donated to our church, SEVEN bags of assorted old toys (mostly games and puzzles that were missing pieces, Happy Meal toys and what seemed to be a thousand Mr. Potato Head pieces) that are getting thrown away, along with one bag of toys that are in good enough shape to be donated.

If you could see how small his room is, you would be amazed that all of this stuff even fit in there in the first place. I know I am.

Oh, and we never did find that Transformers DVD.

Project 365, Day 24

Today my boys had a swim meet in Norwich. As we headed back home along Route 12, I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw this lovely sky over one of the many farms along that road. As if it were meant to be, right in front of me was a parking area, giving me a convenient place to pull off the road and snap a few pictures.

Project 365, Day 23

Grant and Griffin did a little "Super Smash Brothers Brawl"-ing on the Wii before bed this evening.

Project 365, Day 22

I snuck into Griffin's bedroom tonight to check on him and to take this picture of my sweet little guy. He looks so angelic when he's sleeping!

Project 365, Day 21

I was so glad to see the return of one of my favorite shows this evening!

Project 365, Day 20

While everyone else was either in Washington DC attending the inauguration or glued to their television sets watching the whole thing, I was in a courtroom. Yes, I had been called for jury duty.

And it gets worse. I got picked to serve on the jury. So now you can just refer to me as "Juror #7" for the next few days.

Project 365, Day 19

This is part of Grant's Cub Scout uniform. With the day off from school today we decided we would work on a few more requirements from his book. He's earned fourteen of these activity pins so far, and we completed two more today. There are four more that are at that "almost done" stage, and then that's it. He'll have earned almost every single pin, belt loop, recognition and award that Cub Scouts has to offer. And in two short months he will be up there on that stage, crossing over into that unknown world of Boy Scouts, and I will be sitting there wondering where my little baby went.

Project 365, Day 18

The glow from one of my favorite candles. It looks a little bit like a sunset, doesn't it?

Project 365, Day 17

I didn't have a chance to post this last night because I was at our swim team's annual parent party. I had a few of these and a really good time. :)

Project 365, Day 16

My sweet Grant. The gentle, sensitive one. Always thinking about something, it seems. He has a good heart, and he will forever be a mama's boy. And oh, those eyelashes! So long, so soft, and I'm so jealous. :)

Project 365, Day 15

Today I scoured my bookshelves for all of those (many) books that I have purchased but never read. I am determined to get through these books this year. There are also a few newer books on my shelves that I have bought recently at used books sales or that have been given to me by friends. This is the stack of books that will be keeping me company for the first part of 2009. I'm reading the top one right now. I've also updated my Goodreads account with the rest of the books that I read in 2008. If you have a Goodreads account, be sure to friend me!

Project 365, Day 14

For some reason I had a really hard time sleeping last night. I only managed a few short hours of sleep, and then today I had to trudge through work, the kids' piano lessons, and Cub Scouts. Not being a fan of coffee, I had to rely on my old friend Mountain Dew to get me through.

And now I'm heading to bed...

Project 365, Day 13

My boys had swim team practice this evening, and then the Scouts were having a swimming party at the pool, so we got to stay for that as well. Gotta love the goggle rings around Griffin's eyes! LOL