Ten on Ten: once a month, on the tenth, taking a photo an hour for ten consecutive hours.

With news of a super moon about I thought I’d try taking moon pictures. Alan drove us around for a bit and we pulled over and I started taking shots.

Then…my camera died. The battery. I do that too frequently, not recharging my battery.

Anyone else try moon pictures? Mine always come out so disappointing. My 135mm kit lens doesn’t zoom close enough. We went home and charged my battery for a bit and then I tried using the old lens that came with Em, a film camera lens. It’s a 200mm lens. Hmmmm…is it bad that I put a old film lens on my digital camera?

Still not close enough. Look at the nice moon picture Joe took.

We were in Hawaii!! Semi-normal posting to resume…eventually.

And are these the doughnuts from the store? No. They are from the other doughnut fairy in the house. Me! I made them. I’ve never ventured into making fried doughnuts. One of these days I will have to try. But fried sounds complicated with either shortening or lard or yeast and rising or I don’t know what else. So, these are baked. They don’t taste like fried doughnuts though. They are basically like cake baked into doughnut shape, it’s simpler and faster than frying though.

I’ve made them with semi-sweet, milk chocolate, and dark chocolate chips. The kids like them any old way because it’s CHOCOLATE! But I like them like this, with dark chocolate chips.

This is the recipe I use for baked doughnuts. Most of the times I halve the glaze recipe though. I’m stingy with my chocolate chips and I don’t mind splotchy glazed doughnuts. Neither do the kids.

Nathan’s favorite part of a doughnut? The sprinkles. See what I’m left with?

He sits there and tries to pick the sprinkles off.

Nathan loves sprinkles. He’d eat sprinkles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if he could. Isabelle is a little pickier though. She only likes the ants type of sprinkles. But for Nathan they’re not only yummy but fun! How are sprinkles fun? Why sprinkling of course. Nathan likes sprinkling his doughnuts himself. But of course that is how I end up with sprinkles in strange places. Like over my butter.

I think that was the last time I let him sprinkle them himself. It’s weird trying to pick sprinkles out of your butter. And then it’s even weirder when you don’t pick the sprinkles out and then cook pasta and it’s funny sprinkled colors.

I’ve been in research mode for a few days. So, I wasn’t going to post anything but then I ran across this old picture. I have sooooooooo many old pictures, months old. And I know I’m never going to get around to writing about them. Hopefully I’ll at least get around to putting them up on Flickr as a back up. But how I’m going to make the time? I don’t know.

But anyhoo…the picture. It’s from January. JANUARY!! That was ages ago. Isabelle moved up another level in swimming and got a ribbon for finishing the puffer level. She’s now an eel and she’s learning advanced freestyle and backstroke. W.O.W. And I’m sure I have a video of her swimming somewhere. Yep…it’s somewhere. And I WILL find it one of these days. But for now, back to research mode.

Today like usual, he didn’t want his nap. I asked Isabelle if we should all go to sleep early tonight and push through the nap. She wanted him to go down for his nap. I think she enjoys a break from him occasionally.

So, lately, I’ve resorted to trickery to get Nathan to nap. I tell him, we’re all going to nap. Isabelle lays there for a little bit, none too happy, then sneaks off. And it works! Nathan falls asleep and then we’re all happy.

It’s a dutch baby. I’ve never even heard of it before. It’s like a German pancake, I believe. So, why would I make something I’ve never heard of before or tried? Because I wanted to try something new for breakfast. Yep. We had to eat something so I searched through the Eggs & Breakfast section of Cook’s Country for a recipe that was easy and called for ingredients I already had on hand. And I came upon the dutch baby.

I like it because one, it was simple. After the initial first steps I could just put it in the oven and then walk away for 20 minutes. Two, as I already mentioned, ingredients in my kitchen. And three, more importantly, Isabelle ate it and actually liked it. And you know what else is awesome? Dutch babies are like magic for the kids. You put it in the oven and it puffs up all crazy and becomes a big bowl!

It’s funny. As I said, I’d never heard of a dutch baby. But in that next week after I had made it, I saw three different recipes for it. I think we’ll have to try this buckwheat baby with salted caramel syrup from Smitten Kitchen. That sounds delicious. Actually…I don’t know what buckwheat is. Those go in pillows right? Maybe it’s the salted caramel syrup in the title that is making me salivate. Yeah….because buckwheat pillows does nothing for me.

So, anyone have any delicious simple recipes for breakfast?

Ten on Ten: once a month, on the tenth, taking a photo an hour for ten consecutive hours. I have an extra one though because I loved the ones with the kids in the rain so much, I couldn’t pick between the two. So, I put them both up.

Did you have a nice weekend? We’re a little off here. Alan’s changed his work schedule and he’s only seen the kids about two hours in the past two days. Or an hour? I don’t know. What is it honey? And Nathan hasn’t napped in two days trying to get him onto Alan’s schedule. It’s hard not having a break all day.

But anyhoo…Instagram came out for Android phones last week. I’ve played with it before on the iPad but who brings an iPad around to take pictures of everything, too cumbersome. So, I’m really glad it FINALLY came out for the Android system.

Or am I? I thought I’d use it more. But I haven’t been using it much. I cannot figure out how to easily access my photos when I’m not using my phone. Instagram doesn’t have a webpage to all your photos in one place. And if you know me, you know I like organizing my photos just so and I can’t, so that’s a real downer.

On the iPhone version you can upload your photos to Flickr but the Android version doesn’t have that option as an easy click. There are work arounds that involve plugging my phone into the computer or hoping the instagram photo shows up in my gallery folder on my phone to upload or tweeting my photo so I can get to the original page and then downloading it and and then uploading it to Flickr that way but I’d have to adjust the dates and times if I’m being super anal which I am and plus I totally broke up with twitter and and and ….it’s just extra work.

I think I’m being picky. I should be happy with the fact that I found a third party page where I can see all my photos. Maybe I should leave it at that and stop giving myself a headache with extra work. Yeah….