A lot has happen in the almost a year since I posted here.

Besides my children getting older and growing   my kids (thumbnail) Hard to believe that my oldest will be a Junior this year.

My Furry kids have grown in a different way too.  In February we lost our wonderful friend  Buddie RIP.  He was only three years old and we had found out that he had and enlarged heart. They said he could live up to a year but unfortunately it was only about 3 weeks from the time we found out how bad it was.The vet was so sweet to say that had a wonderful family to be with and he lived a good life as short as it was.

Well a couple of months after we decided it was time to get a new friend for  Lu Lu , although I thinks she liked be queen kitty. I went to the SPCA (where we got Buddie) and found a our friend Jupiter  the slounge. He is such a pretty boy but also the devil at times,  evil eyes . Then about a month later my husband fell for a stray that was left where he parks his work trucks and you guessed it we got our third cat.   chester  he and Jupiter are about the same age 7-9 months. so they hang together all the time  paper weights together they are trouble and a;one the are trouble  paper pusher ..... stretch .  Poor Lu Lu is not happy with these two boys, she will be 2 years old and she is a mature girl and looks at these two as no good. Lol She is a all girl cat. she only hangs with my Daughter and I.

Well anyway this is how my life has changed. Still momof3 but now momof3 plus 3 more. : )

Thanks for stopping by and looking.

........Just busy and doing other things.

Still using the camera when I can. I am now working a part time job after being home for 11 years with my family. I work at a daycare center and love it.

I hope you all are doing well and staying cool.

I realized I have not posted on here since October 2011.  so I am posting some things from my garden (of course).

 From 

 My 

 Garden 

And some times I let the  Weeds  grow. : )

Thank you for looking and your comments. 

A lot of my Photographica friends are now my Facebook friends, This is how I keep in touch with you all. If you are on FB look me up if you have a account. 

Christine DeMartino.  And I don't play Face book games any more so don't worry about clutter from me. Lol

In Memory........

A rose for  Carol 

I know the Challenge is about the sky but for me its what I see in the sky.

This week end as you all know was the Tenth Anniversary of 911.  In Niagara Falls, NY they had the Air show (that of which has not been done in about 6 years)  I did not make it to the Show at the Air Force, But did enjoy some of the planes going over our house and from a parking lot. I did not get many photos but here are some I did get.

This is the Blue Thunder Birds that flew over our house many times, but in this I could get a good capture in the clearing.  Sky the limit 

This is one of the (I believe) the cargo planes that are stationed at the airport. they are so huge and cool to watch flying.  No limits_2 

This is one of the jets that came for the show.  No Limits_1 

This is also a flyer that does not know they're limits in the sky.  No limits_3 

I hope you enjoy the images and I hope you all have a good weekend.

The memory of all those lost in the 911 event will always be in my thoughts and my heart.

I have the original and the PS worked on these flower images I did.

 Original twins 

 twin in B&W

This one is my favorite Day Lilly.

 Origanal 

 Textured 

Have a great weekend : )

I just bought the new Topaz B&W plug-in for my photoshop and I love the way it works. Did not take long to figure it out. It also has many presets Like the other B&W plug-in program I bought earlier this year. But right now it is cheaper to purchase due to it being so new.

Yes, I'm plugging for the new Plug-in. Lol

What I like is the easy work on the color-spotting in the program.  See for your self.

 Camping Mary   My Daughter in her daddy's hammock.  I printed this on to photo paper and it turned out beautiful. 

 Rainbow dragonfly   This image I post before from the fishing pond. I love the rainbow colors in the wings that could not be seen in the original image due to the green grass around the dragon fly.

Let me know what you think.

This image is  Just for fun .. R U ready 2 Rumble

Lu Lu climbed into the ring and my son put the figure in with her. She is a very tolerant kitty. She love to climb into boxes and sleep, I guess this looked like a good place to hang. Lol

My oldest son and I went to check out a local camping grounds for a weekend trip next month.  There are 3 man made ponds for different purposes, one is for fishing and boating. the other is for swimming and a third for looking. We picked a sweet spot to reserve at the fishing pond.

I am hoping when we go I will wake up in the morning to see herons fishing in the early mornings sun rise. But for now I will I got some pics of insects we saw there in the middle of the hot day.

 Butterfly 

 Blue Dragon fly 

 red close up 

 red dragonfly 2 

This image was taken from across the pond. I used my Nik silver pro 2 for the B&W conversion. I like the vintage look about it.

 Fishing pond 

Thank you for looking and the comments of what you think. : )

I have been doing some Black and White conversion Lately. I do have a fondness for B&W. It's because that is what my dad did a lot of when I was younger, he use to develop his own photos.   Although I did not get into photography until a few years ago, I use to love to watch my dad develop his pictures.

Well anyway I have the option  to do it myself on the computer. I like to use the garden images to work with.

Dahlia   B W 1  (if you look hard you can see the Ant Butt on the right top petal)

Clematis seed pod    B W 2 

Rose (singing in the rain)   B W 3 

This next one is not a flower but a shot I took from the lake on mothers day. I down loaded the 15 day free trial of Nik Silver pro2 to try out. I liked what Fishone0 did with one of images. I might buy this one to use with my Photoshop CS5.

 B W 4 

Some of you may know the story I posted on mothers days about the The mother robin rights too nest on our porch.

Well her eggs have hatched this week and I have taken some photos of them.

I have to climb on to our 15 inch wide railing and put my live view on my camera to get the pics. I also use a special flash reflector so not to startal the baby's. It is too dark in the corner to go with out a flash. I must look ridiculous to my Neighbors. Lol

I put together a collage to present the images.

 Robin family 

I hope to get some more photos as they grow, but I am trying to give them privacy too.

And there is a up date on the babies. I guess one did not survive because I found it on my porch today. The last photo was taken 2 days ago.

Went out the garden today with my new camera and my Nikon 18-200 wide lens. I used no macro lens for these flower photos.

The new camera gives so much more detailed image (16.3 pixels). I am so loving it.

  pink tulip_1 

 another pink tulip_2 

 bleeding hearts_3 

 tulip bud_4 

The Neighbors crab apple tree has bloomed. I have post the same images but 2 different shaded back grounds. (photoshop Exposure change)

Not sure which one looks better.

Dark back ground

 crab apple bloom 

or light background (original )

 light back ground 

Let me know what you think.

I also had company of my furry child during this camera shooting.

Buddie is so loving the spring weather. : )

 jungle Kitty_1 

 On the Prowl_2 

It was such a beautiful day.

Hope you all are having beautiful weather too and a great camera day. : )

Ok, weird stuff going on on this site again, I post this last night (5-10-11) and it disappeared  this morning showing it was never posted. :(

To all you that are Mom's, Grandmothers, Step-moms and Mothers at Heart.

Happy Mothers Day!!!

 Happy Moms Day 

Quick story about Mother Robin.

My Husband and she had a fight about whether she was going to nest on our porch or not. She would start to build and he would take it down, Build, take down. This went on for a couple of days. then one day he left for work and she got to work. Buy end of the day she had her nest built and I told my Husband to leave it alone.

Mother Robin wins. : )

I got a early Mothers Day Gift this year, A Nikon D7000.

So Loving it, 16.3 pixels (D90 was 12.3)  What a difference it makes. 

Here are a couple of images I took with it.

 yellow 

 wink 

More to come When I have time. : )

(I'm a busy mom too)

So sorry Photographica Friends, I have not posted since February. Bad, Very Bad. :(

But it seemed every time I would try to up load photos I would get problems, so I gave up. :(

Well to my surprise I up loaded some Images and they loaded very quickly. :)

Happy Days!!!!

Well I have some Bird feeder Photos to share with you all. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Feeder squirrel  Good 

house Finches    Pose     U Again     I C U in there 

Downy wood peckers Mr.  Male and Mrs.  Female 

And my one sign of Spring has come (in color spot form)  Robin 

I hope you all are doing well here in Photographica. I will try not to be such a stranger. : )

Wednesday was a snow day for the kids, but this did not keep the squirrels from the feeders. 

This one squirrel (of 3) found its way to me new feeder tray I put up. It was only about 6 Ft. away from my window so I got some fun pics of it's antics.

 Digging for peanuts 

 Snowed 

 Close up 

 Yum peanuts 

 the Jack pot 

So much fun taking the pics.

Enjoy them and have a great day. : )

We have lots of snow falling here in Niagara Falls, NY.

Did go to get my hair done, But wished I had stayed home. Roads were not safe.

Shoveled twice to keep up with the snow. (wish I had a snow blower)

Between this I used the camera to get some pics of the snowy day activity's at the bird feeder and around the house.

 Snow deep 

 Snowy day 1 

 garden snow statue

 WishToBe out in the snow.

 Something better in the other window. BIRDS!!

 Snow bird 1  (Cardinal)

 snow bird 2  )Male Cardinal)

 Where Did Everyone go. : (

It has finely stopped at about 4pm But they say more to come in the following days. Hurray!  More shoveling! : )

This Set is Dedicated to my Furry Family Members.

The Newest Member was the secret I was Keeping a moth ago, Her name is Lu Lu and she is growing fast. She and Buddie get along well, Buddie does sometime think that she is a chew toy though. Lol But all in all they get along good.

 My Furry Friends 

And sometime Lu Lu is used as   Buddies Pillow Pet_1 

This is the Dwarf Rabbit that we adopted about 3 months ago. She has a cage to eat, sleep and potty in but most of the time she hangs out with the family.

Her name is Oreo and she and the cats get along fine too.

 Oreo Chilling 

Enjoy the Images and Have a great day. : )