a little of everything

Here are some things I've done this week:

No, I didn't have a baby. ;) A while back, I offered to take pictures of one of my friend's kids because I wanted to practice my photography skills and learn how to use my camera better. We haven't done it until now because of busy schedules, but she thought this would be a good time because I could help take pictures of the new(ish) baby, Amy (sort of named after me!). This is an edited version of one of the pictures (hopefully it's ok that I'm putting it here, I didn't ask permission...but I'm not identifying her other than by first name). I liked it even with the pacifier.

Brian and I went to Hayden Run Falls yesterday. It was much prettier than the last time we went (a lot more water). Not a great picture, but I couldn't really get far enough back to get everything in. Meh. At least Brian's in it to make it look good. ;)

These are some ducks we saw at the falls. I thought they were cute, so of course I had to take pictures of them with my zoom lens.

I've become crafty lately. Or at least, I've decided lately that I like doing crafty things. I think I found the idea for these cute little magnets on Pinterest, though I'm not a member. I just glued scrapbook paper on the back of large-sized mermaid tears (I'm not sure what they're actually called, that's just what I call them). I think the original idea used Mod Podge, but I wasn't about to buy a bottle just for one project - though I'm sure I could find more things to do with it - so I just used white Elmer's glue, which I already had. Once the glue was mostly dry, I used a stronger glue to attach round magnets to the back. Voila!

More crafty things. I've discovered that I love making cards. These ones just use scrapbook paper and blank cards left over from our wedding thank you notes. I liked the first one so well that I had to make more of the same kind until I ran out of brown paper. I do similar things with other ones using blank white cards. Sometimes I use cute stickers as well.

My mom gave me this yummy recipe when I was up in Michigan for Spring Break this week. My sister-in-law had given me a bunch of chocolate chips (and other kinds of chips), so my mom figured this was a good way to use them. I made them tonight and we just tried some a minute ago. Very rich, but oh so good.