Labor Day 2010

Hope everyone is having a nice long labor day weekend! Tom is off bow-hunting so I'm home with the kids cleaning and doing laundry. Not very labor-less of me, I know. We do have a BBQ later today to head off to, so that helps. :)

I was trying to master my camera again and got a few shots of the kids playing in the yard...

They still love their sandbox!

I can never get enough pictures of this face...even through the awkward growing of permanent teeth.

Her's too.  She definitely has her Daddy's eyes.

C stepped on a rock and skinned his foot (never mind that I am *constantly* telling them to put their shoes back on).  E ran into the house, brought him back one of her band-aids, and put it on his owie:

I love my kids. :)

More photoshop fun...

with my new online BFF Rita and her CoffeeShop Blog.  I am a *very* novice photographer and am still working out how to manipulate my DSLR.  Every now and then I see amazing photos with beautiful edits and highlights and I wonder, when will I ever be good enough to do that?!  Well, by sheer luck I came across Rita's blog and found the "Actions" application which is essentially the manipulation of existing photos in Photoshop.  I had so much fun playing with it today I just had to post about it.  Here's some of what I experimented with (so far):

Here's the original picture of Argish...

and here's a brighter, softer manipulation of it.

I was going for a "Norman Rockwell" look here...

still missed the mark, but I love the depth and contrast!

The original profile shot of E...

played around and got this which reminds me of my old photos.

Same photo but in B&W with a glow.  Purdy. 

This was taken at the aquarium the other day...which is pretty good...

but adding some "pop" really made a difference.

For fun, here are a couple of E goofing around:

I love my new hobby. :)

A day in pictures

         

                        Can you guess what this is?

Or this?

No?  Perhaps this will help narrow it down...

It's the downside of having a German Shepherd.  Yes, that's his fur all over the yard from a good brushing.
Too bad they don't do "Locks of Love" for dogs, Argish would be a gold mine.

And since I was having fun with my new camera, here's some other (more enjoyable) pics:

He is going to be SUCH a heartbreaker!

I think she will be too! :)

Let Them Eat cake...er, frosting!

Today was a day of creativity for me. I spent some of it re-designing my blog for no other reason than it's just fun to experiment with HTML's and templates. I'm happy with the result (facebook friends can see it by clicking on "view original post" at the end of this entry), so perhaps it will stay put for awhile.

Then it was time to make a cake for me the kids. I've been on this cake-making kick since getting hooked on the TV show "Ace of Cakes". I'm going to take classes in September for cake-decorating...mainly because I am so bored with staying home and not honing my creativity in kitchen design anymore. Actually, I'm still not sure which hobby I want to pick up: photography or cake decoration. Photography is kind of out for now because the camera I want is a Nikon DSLR and it sells for upwards of $1k. Cake decoration is cheaper, but then I know I will eventually find my kitchen too small and my oven too inefficient...which will make the camera seem cheap in comparison. I feel for Tom as he will bear the brunt of this vexing issue.

Anyway, I made a traditional white/yellowish cake with chocolate butter frosting. Not too complex, but I focused on technique more than anything. Dare I say it turned out quite nicely..?
The kids enjoyed it too...