Photo-A-Day #1821
Allison and Eva made dessert for Easter tomorrow. They made a delicious looking Strawberry, Angel Food Cake and Vanilla Ice Cream dessert. It is a Weight Watcher’s recipe called a Frozen Strawberry Layer Cake. Allison wanted Eva to be able to help slice the strawberries so she used an egg slicer. The problem was that strawberries are much harder than boiled eggs and the egg slicer cut a few of the strawberries and then the strings broke, one by one. Eva thought it was hilarious and she was giggling like crazy. I love it when we involve her in food preparation. Take a look of this collection of additional strawberry dessert preparation photos.
| When taking this photo today I wanted to catch Eva in a moment of having fun while helping. I also took notice of the reflection of the strawberries in the pot. I set the selective focus feature on my D80 to the far left point. I usually turn my camera counter clockwise when I am taking a portrait shot. The pot had all these strawberries in it and I loved how they were swirled along the inner wall of the pot in the reflection. I wanted that to have more focus so I could capture that look. This was one of the last photos in the series because the pot was nearly full. |
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Having Eva in focus as well as the strawberries was very fortunate. I also like how the color pops in this photo with the primary of the red with the pastel blue of Eva’s shirt. We had natural light from the windows in the front dining room. The only post processing done was a counter-clockwise rotation and the addition of my logo, watermark. I have a bunch of other photos from the food preparation adventure over on Picasa.
Today was a productive day. I started this morning helping my Dad, Erik and Tara around the yard. We cleaned up all the old leaves and the sticks. We ended up with three truckloads of stuff for the compost pile. It was good to get the yard cleaned up because it looks nice but also it is ready for Eva to go search for Easter eggs tomorrow morning. I can’t tell you how excited I am for this. I picked up four Hot Wheels cars and one Matchbox one. I also filled some eggs with Reese’s eggs and some money. I brought all the eggs downstairs so that Eva wouldn’t see me bringing them down to go hide them. So, we have about 25 or 30 eggs for her to go find tomorrow. I wonder how long it will take her to find them all.
I wanted also to share a big win with you all with regards to our participating in Financial Peace University. Allison and I have now completed two full months of being on a cash budget. Because of this we have done some really good stuff with our cash. This month when we did our budget we decided to use a little extra to buy gift cards at Shaws. The reason why was that if you spent $300 on a gift card you would also get an additional $30 added to that card. So we put our full food budget into Shaw’s gift cards. Shaw’s is not our usual supermarket but there was no passing up a a deal like that. The deal is still available until April 15. None of it would have been possible had we not been on a budget and doing Financial Peace University.
Shaws just might become our regular supermarket because they have a a gasoline discount with Gulf. Gulf is closer to us than the Stop & Shop gas location. Gotta save where we can, right?
Congrats on the budget success! You guys are doing great! Glad to see Evaboo learning some new recipes- my mom always tried to teach me to cook but I preferred playtime…hence my cereal diet as of late. 🙂
.-= Look at what Dina wrote blog ..Test =-.
Dina,
Thank you very much. Eva loves working with us on making meals. Her favorite however is making her own pizza, a Friday tradition. Cereal Diet, nice.
You know what’s easy to write on pizza with toppings? The Yankees logo.
.-= Look at what Dina wrote blog ..Test =-.
Dina,
Oh that is low. I would certainly not want to put rancid overpriced meat on my pizza.
Love the photos! You captured some great moments there! The perspective of the strawberries reflecting in the pot look really cool!! Of course they are only made better by Eva!! Have fun on the Easter Egg hunt! I’m looking forward to seeing photos from that!! Miss you all!
Mo,
Thanks. I take so many pictures of Eva I had to something more challenging though, at least all my other Eva pictures made it over to Picasa. Thanks for the comments.
Drew,
Happy Easter. I like the new photo info box and pic description. Also you’ve encouraged us to start budgeting again. So we too are now on a mostly cash system. Last time I tried this we found that it was difficult to do things like gas in cash so we’re modifying the system slightly so a limited number of purchases can be done with the debit card. They will simply get recorded against the budgeted item on the day of the purchase. I know Dave would highly object but thankfully I’m not accountable directly to Dave.
.-= Look at what Kevin wrote blog ..The BIG POTTY Incident! =-.
Kevin,
Glad you like the new box and description. I think that Dave would be fine with you using a debit card for the gas because as he said on one radio show that the system was created before they were using debit cards and using debit cards would be fine now. You are doing it the right way, keep it up!
That’s so great that you found another way to save by getting a bonus on your gift cards!
.-= Look at what Deborah wrote blog ..ALL CLEAR: FeedMedic Alert for blogspot/aaJA =-.
Deborah,
It was a really cool thing to see happen. I’m excited to get nearly $100 extra dollars for our budget.