Nose Kisses

My little boy is growing fast!   Every day I swear he grows taller - currently reaching heights of 39" at our best tape measuring attempt.   He is so full of joy and excitement.  He has so much energy bottled up in that little body of his that it sometimes spills into just sheer crazy movements of his little limbs, flailing and jumping about.   Sometimes requiring one of us parents to tell him to calm down, buddy!!

He talks a mile a minute in such perfect English - there are no baby words, rarely a simple sentence either.   He talks like a mini-adult... a mini-well educated one for that matter.    He picks up vocabulary and proper usage so well.  Whenever he does have a misapplication of a word I smile so big and help correct him, because those moments of my toddler preschool boy are fleeting (they were rare anyway!)

He loves to run, sword fight, and (currently) watch as much Kim Possible as we'll allow.  He'd watch it all day long if we'd let him.  We do not.   He enjoys going to preschool and plays well with the other kids.   He still is pretty shy though and if an adult talks to him he's unfamiliar with, his head tilts his head to the side as if he's trying to burrow away into his shoulder.  

He loves to make faces of any kind.   He's pretty good at them too.   He loves to laugh and in recent days really wants to pick up  his sister.  Mom and Dad (and Sister sometimes) are less than a fan of this recent development.    He loves his dad like no other and can't wait to see him and show him anything and everything he's done with his day. 

He is always seeking out something 'special' - whether it be a 'special' drink when we go out to eat and it can be as simple as a lemonade and he'll call it 'special' - but sometimes we get creative and get him a milkshake or a Shirley Temple (that was his favorite to date.)  He also now asks to hear a 'special' story every now and again at bedtime.  I tell him the story of his birth and he loves it.  He gives the best hugs all the time, but he gives even better ones after I tell that story.

He is always wanting to do a 'new project' at home with me.   Finding new and exciting things for him to do can be challenging, but he isn't seeking a grand production just something new and exciting and as long as the delivery sounds exciting he's pretty keen to go along with it.

Most of our days my dear son is like this...

But on some rare moments he's calmer and loving and wants a nose kiss.

I love Ace with all of my heart - his quirks, his crazies, his loving and sweet spirit.  I love that without prompting he'll come up to me: tilt his head, squint his eyes nearly shut and nod his head and say "I love you too, mom"     I love you, Ace!

Cherry Trees

Every year we make it a point to venture to see the cherry blossoms.  Even last year we went prior to moving to Mississippi.  It's just a fun tradition and I absolutely love to look back on the past years to see the changes in our family.  This year we waited a little too long and almost all of the blossoms were gone, but it was a gorgeous day in the NW and it was such a blessing to be out in the warm sun.  As usual there were many pictures taken!  :)

It's so fun to see Ace try to climb the trees now, how big he is getting! It's adorable to watch Mae want to climb them too - to chase after her big brother. Both of them loved being up in the tree with their father. Although Ace was a bit gun shy with the heights in a general sense. I suppose that's good instincts. This mommy certainly prefers caution over chaos, not sure dad does though. ;-)  I just love their pensive looks in these two shots...

There was a lot of fun climbing in trees and running around in the grass.  The kids enjoyed picking up grass, dirt, sticks and leaves.   Ace and his father enjoyed 'listening' to what the grass blades were telling them - often it meant being tickled.  

Trying to get the kids to take a picture just the two of them was nearly impossible, until we found an electrical outlet in the ground and that struck both of their fancy and that was my moment, my shot, my only picture of the siblings together - still enough for daylight-speed photography to catch a clear shot that yes we have two kids that like being near each other.  Otherwise they were too busy, wild and having a grand time independent of one another.

Stopped to say a prayer to Jesus

It was a great day that was followed by lunch out and then a mother son date (more on that to come!) We enjoyed a sunny afternoon and were able to capture it on film, only thanks to the fact that I always carry a back up SD card in my camera bag! The SD card that I usually have was sadly left in my computer.  So a note to photographers, be sure to always have those extras tucked away - otherwise  our outing would have been a whole lot of cell phone shots.

Until next year...

Friday Fixins

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I am new to a lot of elements when it comes to photography.   I am even more green when it comes to post process editing.   I own books and read lots of online tutorials on the how-tos of editing.  I really enjoy it.  For the longest time I used Picasa for exclusive editing.  For a free service it is great!   In the past year I have added Photoshop Elements and Lightroom to  my arsenal of editing tools and have really enjoyed the results that I am able to achieve with them.   I thought I'd share a little bit of what I've learned.  For this post I'll be focusing on Lightroom.

I'll be honest a lot of my editing is just boosting exposure/brightness/recovery/blacks until I get the photo 'just right'  there isn't a lot of specifics that I do to each photo.  Part of that depends on lighting, other parts of it depend on my mood or what type of exposure/look I want the picture to have. So if there is a "right way" to use Lightroom, I am not necessarily the source to look to for understanding - if you're looking to achieve a little better quality then I might be able to help!  Let's start with a picture taken the other day on a somewhat sunny day.

1/180ss, f/4.5, ISO 100

Cute model, decent background... slightly underexposed, Mae could have done well with a little lotion, and a hideous work van in the background! A good picture SOOC but just a few linger things that with Lightroom can easily be fixed to be made to look like this...

So what did I do?   Well like I said I think that for anyone using Lightroom it is a personal preference on the level exposure that you want.  Use that toggle and play with the exposure/recovery/brightness/blacks.   These are the four main areas that I tend to adjust when I am trying to get the exposure/lighting in my picture just right.    I know that's not very specific and you might be looking for an exact formula, but that's what I am saying - there isn't one! :)

OK ok not so helpful - so let's move onto the next task at hand.  Getting rid of that awful van!  Yes I hate it and I hate it even more that it's in my picture. So next up is grabbing the Spot Removal tool.   Now with the picture on the blog it is very hard to tell in the original that Mae "needed lotion" but when the picture is in a size large enough for a poster print it is glaringly obvious so I fixed her up a bit.  Now it looks like a zillion dots, why not just use one bigger spot and remove it all at once?   I find if you use one big spot on a face you're going to have a very obvious fix and not a more blending effect.  So hence the lots of little spot healing circles in her t-zone.  ;)

But the van is gone!  But oops I also grabbed a strand of her hair to cover it up... so after that I did a few more spot removals to eliminate that.   Yes an extra step or two but ah well.  Now my opinion on spot removal/healing in Lightroom is that it's good, but I'd say between it, Picasa, and PSE it's my least favorite.   PSE has a far more forgiving and 'smart' healing tool, at least that has been my experience.

Next up was brightening up Mae's eyes.  She has such pretty blue gray eyes, I like when they stand out a bit more.   So I used the adjustment brush to focus specifically on enhancing just those.  This can be done in (at least) two different ways.   You can increase the size of the brush to then make the circle fit right over the eye and then adjust accordingly.  Or because Mae's eyes aren't wide open creating not so much circles, I downsized the brush and made smaller circles that I sort of 'painted' over her eyes and then once they were fully covered then I made the adjustments.  I didn't increase the exposure much more- I didn't want them to be electric white-blue.  I merely wanted a little bit of a 'pop'!  Then I increased the clarity and the sharpness significantly more.   Just be careful to not do it so much that eyes end up looking cartoony.

And then wala - I was done.  Is it perfect? Probably not.  Could I edit it more?  Probably.  Is there such thing as over editing?  Yes.   Is it an adorable shot of Mae Mae?  I certainly think so!  :)

I also always love photos in black and white - my husband isn't as huge of a fan as I am - so I try not to have them always be black and white, but look how cute she is?   Lightroom has lots of starting off options and ways that you can alter a photo to change the 'feel' of it and I always have a lot of fun doing it.

See this one might just be my favorite :)

The other photographer in the family...

Yes there are two photographers in this house.  Ace too is an aspiring shutterbug!  He got a camera for Christmas and I have been remiss to publish his body of work.   He loves to take pictures - it could be derived from a desire to be like his mom, but either way - he's got a pretty unique eye for taking pictures.  That first one of Loving Husband and I was one of the very first pictures he took with his new camera.  (Mommy did edit it and make it visible as there is no flash on his camera and it desperately is needed.)

I'll be back soon with his latest captures of creativity.   I find children's perspectives to be great and a fascinating look at their view of the world. 

Fast Food B-Gone Challenge

Anyone that knows me knows that I love McDonald's.   Obsessed about it?  Possibly.    Willing to eat it more than once in a day?  Occassionally.   Eat it more than twice in a week?  Often.   You healthier folk are certainly cringing right now, I know I know.  It's TERRIBLE for me.    Ironically, it was McDonald's that in the Summer of 2000 gave me food poisoning so severe that required a shot in the rear to cease vomiting - it was so not awesome.    I have not ingested McDonald's chicken products since.    I easily could give up everything at McDonald's except their fries and their coke.   OH SO DELICIOUS!

Now, my fast food menu is not exclusive to McDonald's.  No I also happily am willing to entertain food from other drive thru establishments like Taco Time for example.   Sometimes we've even been known to do a medley meal.  The general point being - I eat a LOT of fast food.  Anything with a drive thru while the food isn't a culinary treat always (ok rarely) it is a convience.  Not having to get out of the car with two kids and even getting food that the boy can eat locked in his carseat (he eats so much faster when in the car with little distractions!)   Convinence often as of late has won out over healthy.   Bad news! 

Now an additional factor to this plight of convienence eating is the cost factor.   Drive thru ain't cheap!  The ironic part to this is that aside from the drive thru eating (and dining out) when we do buy food and make it at home we're almost nearly 100% organic, no high fructose corn syrup, and no perservatives.   Although we still enjoy our Kraft Mac & Cheese on occassion and occassionally certain juices that are just too yummy to not enjoy.   We're not hard-core but aware of labels certainly.     That being said the food that we purchase isn't the cheapest, so it remains to be seen if drive thru vs increased grocery bill actually is a cost saving element but we shall see because the month of May is the month we've chosen for our Fast Food B-Gone Challenge. 

So for the next thirty one  thirty days and counting we will be eating out a maximum five times a week.   It seems like a lot until you look at past behavior and expenditures.  In the week leading up to this challenge I went out to coffee, drive thru, or sit down dining 15 times. This seems average and thus why we've decided to engage in this challenge for the month of May.  While I don't plan to fully eradicate McDonald's from my life entirely,   I certainly hope to decrease my extreme codependence on drive thru dining and as a result we should be healthier and maybe a tad richer for it.  

Now in full disclosure this challenge (or scientific experiment as Loving Husband refers to it) comes with an incentive for me;  because I'll be honest "health" and "savings"  just isn't enough motivation for me to go cold turkey from the convinence of the drive thru.  I needed a bit more motivation, does this make me a weak person?  Maybe.   But honest certainly!   If I can successfully execute this challenge then I will earn myself the Canon Macro lens that I have been drooling over.  Oh the things we do for our hobbies health... definately our health.  :)

Wish us luck!  I'm not twitching yet as a result of no McD's but that could be that it's only been 48ish hours since my last fix.   I'll check back in a week or so from now and let you know if cold sweats or anything have developed.  Cheers to health!

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

I absolutely love to bake - the problem is that I also like to eat it all (but I didn't say of what... it doesn't matter.)   See when I cook I tend to think my efforts yield a sub par result.  My taste buds by the time I'm done with a main course are not salivating but are often underwhelmed by all that effort that was just put in.   That is not the case when it comes to baking.  Maybe it's the high contents of sugar and butter involved, but any way you go about it I love to bake and consume what is baked.  

I am always looking for something new to try and whip up when I find the time.   Between a lack of sleep and a lack of motivation derived from sleep deprivation baking is often on the back burner (ha!) of life.    Every now and then I come across a motivator (often found on Pinterest) that gets my creative juices flowing and I head to the kitchen. 

Yesterday that was a lemon crinkle cookie.   After the kids went to bed I got to work.  For a brief moment I thought that I had run out of sugar and while I searched the cupboard for some I laughed at the thought of having to go to the neighbor's house to borrow a cup of sugar.   Eventually I found my massive bag tucked in the back and refilled the easy access container that lives on the counter top. 

Next I started to zest a lemon.  I have to say I find zesting to be a really fun activity.  Don't ask why, I don't really know... but I love it.  With all the ingredients out and measured - the mixing began!  With two sleeping children - that often don't sleep with any duration or regularity I find having everything premeasured before beginning the mixing process works great.  This way if I am interrupted I can either ask the husband to dump stuff in OR more likely, I won't be distracted and dump in tablespoons of salt when teaspoons were asked for.  

For this recipe I looked at several different ones around Pinterest and ended up doing my own adaptation of ingredients and amounts of them, but as far as directions I followed Lauren's Latest

Ingredients (makes about 2-3 dozen):
½ cups butter, softened
1 C. sugar
1 t. Vanilla Extract
1 egg (room temp)
1 organic* lemon zested (about 2 T. worth)
2 T. fresh lemon juice
¼ t. salt
¼ t. baking powder
⅛ t. baking Soda
1 ½ C. flour
Powdered Sugar

Directions:Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In the mixer using the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Whip in vanilla, egg, lemon zest and juice. Scrape sides and mix again. Stir in all dry ingredients slowly until just combined, excluding the powdered sugar. Scrape sides of bowl and mix again briefly. Pour powdered sugar onto a large plate. Roll a heaping teaspoon of dough into a ball and roll in powdered sugar. Place on baking sheet, squish it down a bit (I know totally a technical term!)  and repeat with remaining dough.

Bake for 9-11 minutes or until bottoms begin to barely brown and cookies look matte {not melty or shiny}. Remove from oven and cool cookies about 3 minutes before transferring to cooling rack. If using a non stick darker baking tray, reduce baking time by about 2 minutes.

This recipe made 29 cookies... by the time they were cooled and ready to be put away for the night there were 18 remaining.   They were delicious, lemony, and soft (my favorite!) The lemon wasn't over powering and it wasn't "lemon scented" as one friend of mine described about some store bought lemon cookies the other day.     YUMMY!  I actually went and bought more organic lemons so I could make more later this week.

Ok one more picture of my cookies with a lemon...because it's the thing to do.

One last thing!

* You want to use organic anything if you are putting the outer shell of citrus into whatever it is you're cooking.   The pesticides that are used on non-organic lemons (oranges, grapefruits, etc..) are not held to a edible standard by the FDA because that part of the fruit is not consider part of the edible fruit.  Therefore, no amount of 'mild soap scrubbing' is worth the what-ifs associated with what else you're zesting into your cookies.  Bleck!   Buy organic, at least for zesting if not for other reasons.  :)

Favorite Photo of April

As a bonus in this here post, since I failed to post either February or March's favorite photos - I've included them here just for continuity sake.  :)   I love my sweet snow angel in the soft black and white edit and it's even more fun next to the vibrant shot of Mr. Peacock that I shot at the zoo in March.  Both make me happy and I think that is a key component in the making of a 'favorite' photograph.