Third Week of October » Aldergrove Family Photographer

Post #21 of Personal Project 52 weeks.

Okay, so 2 weeks ago I didn’t post. I didn’t post because I only took 1 photo. Well actually I took 4 photos of the same subject. Because what (digital) photographer takes only one photo of something? I might add that I actually did take a fair number of photos this week, just for others.

So here are the highlights and thoughts of the Second Week of October:

* It was Thanksgiving… which we celebrated by being thankful. Thankful for the countless blessings that we enjoy from God’s hand.

* One of the blessings: We were able to witness the Grand Opening of our church.

* There was an incident with a rat. The carcass appeared in our backyard and Noah thought it was the coolest thing ever. It gave me the heebie-jeebies as I carefully shoveled it into the garbage can. And no, I did not take a photo. Although I did consider it. For the blog.

* Mattias’ favorite word is “no”. Said more like “NNNNNNNNNNO!!!!”. Some might say that he’s just trying to say his brother’s name. However, “Noah” is actually Mattias’ OTHER favorite word: pronounced OAH. Funny how he can’t put it together yet.

* The single photo I took was of a butternut squash potato gratin recipe. Apparently I like to subject family members to experimental recipes. We had a lovely 1-week-late Thanksgiving potluck with the Louwerse clan and I decided to bring something potato. Something tried-and-true would have been sensible. Sensible? Sensible doesn’t come naturally to me. So there I was making potato gratin for 15, taking elements from several different recipes, substituting like crazy and not measuring anything. I was vaguely aware that this could go horribly wrong. But it turned out fine. And I will make this again in a heartbeat. The sensible in me, decided to make a mini ramekin to test out. Or maybe it was my stomach growling. The butternut squash added a delightful creaminess without all the calories. I used whole milk instead of heavy cream. Just a wee bit of butter. I always like a crunchy potato edge. Yum.

And on to the next week!

* Playing in the leaves.

* Flour & sugar. Baking is just so very fall-like. Cinnamon buns. Pizza bread. Marshmallow / chocolate / caramel / graham cracker crumb thingies that Noah picked out from the cover of an old Kraft magazine to make. He gets excited about baking because it’s a guarantee to have lots of sugar and chocolate.

* Mattias is steady on his feet and pretty much running. He falls a lot more than Noah did but it doesn’t bother him.

* Ever year, we head to this location on 272nd when the color of the trees are JUST right. It’s a tree-lined, barbed fenced, fully overgrown driveway entrance to a field. It’s perfect! The past number of years, we’ve tried the self timer photos but this year (since we recently had amazing family photos taken), we just let the kids play in the leaves and snapped some photos.

* Noah really tired at super time. Fell asleep on Art’s knee.

* It’s not sharp which is unfortunate, but I love it!

* Mattias loves to check out what’s baking in the oven. He is the epitome of toddler. He toddles around all day. Checking out this and checking out that. Playing for 5 minutes and then off to explore something else. He is most fussy when he wakes up in the morning and after his nap and during the ‘witching hour’. But for the most part, he just toddles around all day. Happy and secure in his environment.

~ K