Pictures Galore!

 It's been a very eventful weekend! Thursday was Naomi's birthday.  Naomi is my forever friend (cheesy term, I know, but it fits :)  So she spent the night and we had a lot of fun staying up till 6am!  Next day, my cousin and her husband came to visit and it was Eowyn, my niece's, birthday!  She turned 5-years-old and we had a big cookout.  Over the weekend I took quite a lot of pictures and have enjoyed editing them and exploring the many ways of Picnik. 

Ooh!  While Naomi was over I had a very defining moment in my music life.  I played her the song that I'm writing, and she told me what the song made her envision.  And guess what?  She said exactly what I had in mind when writing the song! I was beyond excited and very encouraged.  So then, I played it for my parents and they told me they know that tune from another song.  Good feeling gone.  I'm still not sure I believe them (one can only hope they are wrong).  I'm not really sure how I'm going to figure out if I "stole" the melody of another song, but I'm still going to finish it. I've worked too hard on it to just stop.  So anyways, that's my weekend in a nutshell. 

Tomorrow is the 4th of July.  I'm hoping our neighbors will do fireworks again this year; they're so pretty. I think my camera has a firework setting, so I plan on putting that to use :) Here are some of the pictures I took this weekend.

I went out to get more shots of the sunflowers after getting some inspiration from another photographer's blog. 

I took this one a long time ago; before I was even into photography.  I'm not sure why I love this picture so much.  After all, it IS a dead sunflower, but I still think it is beautiful.  I think of someone who is lost, dead, and without Christ, humbled to the point of bowing their head to their Creator and receiving the sun (Son) shining down on them.  This picture is what made me realize that I wanted to do photography.  Not necessarily as a business, but for the purpose of getting myself in the habit of acknowledging God's beauty and worshipping Him all the while. 

This is the most amazing bread ever.  And my church bakes it :)  This loaf was made by my sister.  There's a long story that comes along with this bread, but that's something you should ask my pastor ;)

This picture was an amazing accident.  Naomi was hitting the balloon up in the air for me so I could try and get a picture of the balloon but I couldn't really see (the sun was too bright) and I snapped it and this is what I got (Well, after some editing)!

Greeeeen!

Random, I know... I played Yahtzee and was impelled to take a picture of the dice.  I think it came out well!

Waterfall into our pool.

Water drop on a pool float.  Vibrant.

You know that nest I took pictures of last week with the egg still in it and an unknown number of babies?  Well, here they are!!  This is the only one that would really poke its head out.  So cute!

Nice and cozy in 90 degree weather. I don't know how they do it. Especially when the Mama Bird comes and sits on them!

Same one as up there.  He moved around and was looking right at the camera :)

As if I wasn't lucky enough, we found ANOTHER nest! These babies were more lively, but smaller.  If you made the slightest noise, they would skyrocket up with their mouths wide open.

I told you they skyrocketed :)  Loooove this one!

  Wishing everyone a relaxing day off tomorrow and fun celebrating your freedom with your loved ones.  Hopefully next post will include firework pictures :)