Party Time!

I've seen a ton of people link up to this...so I decided to do it too.

Hi! This is  me, oldest of 7 kids, homeschooled, passionately Catholic, 16 year old Junior, lover of photography, procrastinator, peace-maker, dreamer and owner of a  much loved Canon T2i. 

1} What's the nerdiest/geekiest/weirdest thing about you?

Ahhhh, well there are probably a lot. I guess one of them being...I'm very particular when it comes to putting away my clothes, I fold each t-shirt perfectly (I have over 20, I counted) and put them in my drawer ordered in rainbow color. Another, I LOVED Geometry last year, passed with flying colors in Chemistry and this year would rather do my Algebra 2 or Physics homework than my Latin or Logic homework. So yeah, I'm a math person.

2} If you could live in a fictional universe from any book, movie, or television show, what would it be?
Oh it would be the world of Harry Potter. My absolute favorite books of all times! Actually I'll be writing a post very soon about why I think Harry Potter isn't evil. But if you want to see a preview of what I'll be writing, go here and scroll down to the last comments until you see mine. 
3} Little or big, practical or frivolous, what is one of your favorite items in your house?
I have no idea. Probably...our bookshelves in our family room and my bookshelves in my room. We are a BIG book family. As in, every bedroom has a bookshelf (in my case I have two), and before we moved into this house my dad built in two HUGE bookshelves in our family room. And when we go to the library...lol we have easily a couple hundred books in our house, I get about 50, Cecilia (my 13 year old sister) gets about 70-80, my brothers each get about 30 and my youngest siblings each get about 10 and then my mom picks out a bunch of books to read to my younger siblings (probably another 15-20) and then my mom gets a couple books for her to enjoy (like 5). But in all fairness, we don't really go to the library at all in the school year and we keep the books for about 6 weeks. Our library is very nice. :)

One wall (out of two) of our built-in bookshelves in the family room.

 
4} Do you like animated movies? If so, what is your favorite?
Yes! I love animated movies. Well actually there are some very dumb animated movies, I love Pixar and Pixar-Disney animated movies and I like a couple of Disney's animated movies. A favorite? I don't know...Up, Cars, Tangled, Bolt....

 
5} What is your favorite household chore?
Folding laundry or vacuuming/sweeping. 
6} What's your favorite thing to get at Starbucks (or your favorite coffee shop)?

via google images

I have rarely ever gotten Starbucks from Starbucks. However I LOVE their french vanilla frappuccinos (you know the ones in the little glass jars in stores) they are aMaZing!!

7} What is your favorite pizza topping?
Pepperoni or just plain cheese
8} Waffles or pancakes?
Homemade or at a restaurant = pancakes, but the frozen toaster waffles (like the Ego brand or whatever it's called) hold a special place in my heart. :p
9} Do you like to play games? If so, what is your favorite?
Ahhhh....yes I love to play games. Favorite? uhhhhhh...no, I have way to many favorites to pick one. I love Catch Phrase, Boggle, monoply, card games, hide-go-seek-in-the-dark-without-a-flashlight, sardines, Apples to Apples, spoons...just to name a few :)
10} Have you ever let anyone win a game?
younger siblings (as in the little-younger ones) yes. Older-younger siblings and friends = nope
11} Have you ever dyed your hair?
No, unless you count the Halloween temporary hairspray paint, but even when I've had that it wasn't my whole head, just parts. 

One of my favorite photos to date. Taken in June at Ocean City, NJ.

12} Do you make your bed every morning?
Yes. Of course. And I also get up at 4:30AM and do some yoga and balance one hand while listening to meditative waterfall/natureish music and then I eat a healthy, totally organic breakfast and then I jog a mile and then I take a completely cold shower and then I do all my math homework and then...
 Ha.Ha ha. HA. hahahaha.  Noooooooooo. But I make my bed every night right before I go to bed. Does that count for something?
(I hope you all know that the above in italics is FAR from what I really do each morning)  

When I do have to get up to go to school I get to see the sunrise and sometimes it is so spectacular that - of course - it's picture time!

  13} Picasso or Norman Rockwell?
Norman Rockwell. Picasso is weird, sorry but his work is kinda creepy if you know what I mean. And Norman Rockwell has some very hilarious pieces. 
14} Do you like carpet, tile, or hardwood floors? 
Tile = bathroom (sometimes kitchen, depends what type tile) hardwood floors = everywhere else. Actually I happen to really love carpet too, mostly in bedrooms, and anyone who has felt the carpet in my Aunt's basement would LOVE carpet, it is the softest carpet I have ever felt (it's a really expensive carpet, but oh so nice).

 
15} If you could put one thing in a safe under your bed, what would it be?
 All of our family pictures/videos/photo albums and our "special" boxes. (My mom has a box for each one of us kids filled with different special things from the time we were born until now. Birth announcements, congratulation cards, birthday cards, achievement awards, artwork from when we were little, etc.)

From a photo shoot I did for this couple at my church (they wanted 1st year wedding anniversary photos)

16} What's your favorite condiment?
that depends on what I'm eating...

 
17} Have you ever thrown up on someone (excluding when you were a child)?
Thank goodness - no!
18} What was the last thing that made you laugh?
A story someone shared at dinner tonight. 

One of my first attempts at "faking miniatures" aka tilt-shift photography. Does this look like a miniature boat?

 
19} Think fast...what's the first song that pops into your head?
Love You Like a Love Song by Selena Gomez


This was fun and such a great idea!
~ Mary Kate 
P.S. 
I can't seem to make my text the "normal" size. I don't know what is wrong with it, so I'm sorry it's so small. 

The End is Just the Beginning

In other words, fall is almost over and winter is just starting :)
The other day I happened to look out the window and notice that the light was at the perfect golden hour light. Most of our leaves are gone, so I wanted to capture some pictures with the gorgeous light and some to-die-for bokeh. AND as it just so happens, MaryAnn at Shutter Happy is having a photo challenge with the theme being "Color". So my color is a mixture of golden yellows, orangey reds and dusky browns.

The colors started off as a light undertone of the beautiful golden light to come:

I'm entering this photo in Mary Ann's photo challenge {Shutter Happy} :

By the time I found a tree in our back yard to photograph, the sun and sunk a little lower in the sky...

I'm not exactly sure what I love about this shot - I almost deleted it right after I took it because my camera was being stubborn and not focusing on the whole leaf, but I'm so glad I decided to keep it.

The golden light became more intense...

And the following photo I'm entering in golden hour photo challenge @ The Three Photographers Adventure:

Until it forced me to stop because all I ended up with were jack-o-lantern-looking leaves...

{Our five kittens have just started to open their eyes, here are two of them.}

~Mary Kate

Dear Dad

You're goofy

And sweet.

You know how to make people laugh.

You are an amazing story teller and a great speaker.

You are thoughtful and generous.

I love you and I'm so glad I can call you Daddy. 

Love Your little girl,

Mary Kate

11:11 on 11/11/11

Today is 11/11/11. A momentous day in our family. For the past several months my brothers have been obsessed with the time11:11. Each day when the clock turns from 11:10 to 11:11, then jump up and down and do a little dance. I have no idea why this started or what prompted them to be so infatuated with this time each day.
However, since this has been going on for a while and we all know about, my mom decided a few weeks ago that on 11/11/11 at 11:11, we would have a little party. Unfortunetly we weren't able to have the party at 11:11, however we all joined in on their celebrations.
I did take a short video with my brand-new ipod touch that came yesterday (I love it so much! It's my first ipod and I love that it is so similar to an iphone without the monthly charges) and I thought I'd share it with you. I for one think it demonstrates perfectly how absolutely crazy my family is :)

Enjoy:

(And as a side note: I have no idea why the 4 year old (Benny) is pulling off his shirt at the end of the video)
See I told you...crazy! :)
And then John Paul (the 11 year old) made this proclamation:

 (That's Rosie at the end sticking her face in the camera)


And then, a few minutes ago, my mom called me up to the living room to hear what Benny was saying. I pulled out my ipod and pushed record. What cracks us up is how serious he is! lol:

And since I'm on the topic of my new ipod touch... here are a couple of photos I took with it earlier today and yesterday:

And since I'm sharing photos of our five little kittens, here's one I took with my real camera:

Aren't they the cutest little things ever?!?!?
~Mary Kate

16

I had an amazing Sweet 16 party Saturday. It was wonderful! It was exactly what I had wanted. I don't have time to post all the pictures from my party. However I did participate in this weeks Scavenger Hunt show I wanted to share that with you all.  (I haven't done the Scavenger Hunt in weeks!)




Food

Food from my birthday tea party. My mom made the cake herself, isn't she amazing? All the food was homemade :)

Purple

Rosie in all her snow garb. She sure loves pink and purple!
In Disguise

Not sure if this counts, but oh well :)
Shapes

The garland decorations we had up for my birthday party.

Photographers Choice

One of my favorite pictures! It's from our freak October snow we had last Saturday.

 And I have a couple pictures from my b-day besides the two above.

Each place setting had a name tag for you to wear. I handmade each favor box and made a couple of the name tags and my grandmother made the rest of the name tags.

The tables!

Details.... :) Those are the favor boxes I made in the top right hand photo. :)

Our family room transformed into a magical tea room. I took these the night before.

Guests starting to arrive and have fun!

More decorations. My grandmother made the balls (right). They were really simple, just time consuming.

I received this beautiful necklace from my bff, Anna.

And I'll leave you with some of the last photos I took as a 15 year old:

And I took this photo of my sister Rose last week:

And tomorrow I will hopefully be getting my permit so I can start driving!!! :)
~Mary Kate

Apple Pies

{BTW - This is my last post as a 15 year old. That's right, in an hour I will officially be 16!! Let's hope I can finish this before the hour's up!}
Last week Cecilia and I took a day off of school to bake apple pies at Grandma's house. It's things like that - baking pies in the middle of the day - that make me love homeschooling even more :)

Getting ready to start

Anyway, it's become a yearly tradition to bake apple pies completely from scracth with our Grandma. Sadly we couldn't do it last year because my Grandma was having heart surgery and then had all these complications, so it was really nice to be able to do it again!

 I was a little bit mad at myself, I meant to bring my new wireless shutter release remote so that I could get some pictures of me baking as well, but I forgot. Oh well :) I also didn't take nearly as good of pictures as I could have because I was rushed trying to stay caught up with the rest of them. (We each were making our own pie).

But it was a lot of fun! Our Aunt Jackie (picture above: bottom left) joined us with her daughter, Lauren (picture above: top left). We definitely got messy with all the flour we were using!

Okay, so I didn't get the world's bet pictures, and yes I totally messed up my white balance half-way through because I didn't trust my instincts and I changed it (don't ask me why) and no, I didn't get any pictures of myself...but I think still managed to capture the essence of what happened at Grandma's house. We made more memories and laughed and made a mess. We get sticky from the juicy apples, sneaked bites of apple filling, almost tripped over the cat, got a flour bath and then perfected the art of apple pie juggling while riding home. {Maybe I should explain the last part, my grandma only has one oven, so we baked our pies at our own houses. The drive home was a bit of an adventure, every turn and slight incline or decline in the road, would cause some of the juicy filling to leak out. So we had to turn the pies at just the right angle at just the right times to avoid loosing half our filling!}

David, my other Aunt's 1 year old :)

And so ended our adventure with the apple pies.
~Mary Kate

{Phew! I finished this with 3 minutes to spare!}

Little Giveaways..

Who doesn't love great giveaways? I definitely do:) So head on over to Umbrella Girl and check out her wonderful giveaway. She has (I think) 21 prizes. 








And then head over to Allie Photography and enter her giveaway to win a really cute headband!

And a post wouldn't be complete without a picture:

 Yet another picture from my session last week.
~Mary Kate