4th of July and birthday festivities

hAppY 4th oF JuLy!  

Thanks to all who have made, and continue to make, the USA a free country.

This weekend was a busy one for us.  On Sunday we had a wonderful church service in the park and then enjoyed barbecue, games, and fellowship.  I love how out-going our new church is, it reminds me of the things I did as a child and I am really looking forward to this next weekend's camping trip with our life group.  I'm sure I'll blog about it and post some pictures. :)

Later, after church-in-the-park, we went home to celebrate E's birthday since we had not been able to do it the previous weekend with Tom and C out of town.  Our good friends also celebrated with us since we were marking their son's first birthday as well.  I made cakes for both kids, so it was fun to diversify a bit and make both a "princess" cake and a "dinosaur" cake. Admittedly, it was a lot of work, but we have such wonderful friends who re-paid us with a delicious barbecued chicken dinner...complete with a spinach and strawberry salad straight from their garden.  Wonderfully worth it.

BBQ chicken, garlic mashed potatoes and spinach/strawberry salad.  Yum!

the birthday kiddos

E's princess cake.  I used "ballerina barbie" since she had a molded top already.  The cake was a 4-tier french vanilla with strawberry and butter-cream filling, and of course very pink butter-cream frosting.

Dinosaur cake.  This was a 3-tier chocolate cake with buttercream filling & frosting.  Delish!

the carnage.

Today we headed to another barbecue for 4th of July...which was hot, hot, hot.  I think it got up to 96 degrees or something this afternoon.  I was happy to return home to air-conditioning for a bit and then head back out at 9pm to watch the variety of fireworks across town from the park across from us.  It's a fun way to see everything "from above" and yet not have to deal with hordes of people (and traffic) afterwards. :)

Hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July weekend as well!

{we were just happy to not be re-living last year's July 4th fiasco}

p.s.  I had so many problems getting this post to format that I am now considering the "Big Move" to word press. Not to mention my pictures have been disappearing from old posts. Frustrating!

Happy Birthday to my baby girl!

June 2008

June 26, 2011

Hard to believe 3 years have passed since I first laid eyes on you.

I savor every moment.

:: Week in pictures

A few noteworthy things took place this week, so I was busy snapping some pictures...

C's training wheels are off his bike! He hasn't ridden it much lately so when he started riding it again, we decided it's now or never. I have to admit, I'm shocked that he picked it up so quickly!

:: Happy Easter!

Just to forewarn you, this is a post with LOTS of pictures of our Easter weekend. :)

Saturday we went to church for an Easter egg hunt with the kids. It was tons of fun and the kids enjoyed crafts, face painting, bouncy houses, an egg hunt, and of course a message about the true meaning of Easter.

:: Just for fun

I had a good time taking pictures of the kids last night. I have a new portrait lens that ideally will allow me to rely less on photoshop for covering my inadequacies as a amateur photographer. I'm quickly learning the key to a good photograph is equipment...besides the obvious ability to capture great moments!

:: Spring Break

We are having some fun this week!  C is off from school and it's been quite nice having him around (I say that now, but will probably be eating those words come July).  In an effort to not be too bored, we planned some activities that ensure long naps and restful nights. :)

:: Valentine fun

For Valentine's Day this year Tom and I exchanged (more like shared) a gift that I just had to mention on my blog (could be used for next year's inspiration!).  At Dayspring they have a Mr. & Mrs. Love Collection set that works as a great Valentine's Day gift.

:: Snow days make you do crazy things!

Here it is, day 2 of keep-the-kids-home-and-make-mommy-crazy (or KTKHAMMC for short). Yes, due to extreme cold temps here in Colorado (4 degrees currently...at 3pm) schools have decided that it's best to keep kiddos home and let the parents deal with "I'm soooo borrrrrred!". As a result, I did something I normally avoid. I pulled out the finger paints. Going further, I also thought it would parlay into a fun photo session (inspired by this French photographer...but please don't compare techniques).

:: A conversation I never thought I'd have with my husband...

Tom: "Where is your nail polish?"
Me: "I don't know if I even have some anymore..."
Tom: "You don't have any nail polish anywhere?!"
Me:  "I don't know, check under the bathroom sink.  Wait, what do you need nail polish for?"
Tom:  "I want to put some on E's nails...make her more girlie."

I wish I got a picture of him actually painting her nails, but this will have to suffice as evidence...

And before anyone attempts to tease Tom about this, keep in mind that he is a NRA-card-holding, handgun-carrying, former American soldier. ;)

:: Snow! Finally!

Yesterday we finally got the kind of snow you'd expect here in Denver...just a few months late. I guess this season all the snow is going east.

A visit with Santa

Today we took the kids to a Realtor office where Tom has clients for a visit with Santa Claus. We got the kids all dressed up, drove 40 minutes to the office, and hoped for great pictures...this being E's first time seeing Santa and C's second time since 2007. It didn't go quite as expected. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves (by the way, these are not the professional shots that will come to us later):

As you can see, E is a bit upset about the whole thing.  I asked her later why she was scared of Santa and she informed me that he looks like a bear.  Okey-dokey.  I do know that all of the hair on this Santa was 100% his own though, so perhaps I see her point.  A little.

C, on the other hand, looks a bit devious and conniving.  Perhaps he feels this is his chance to bypass mom & dad for whatever toy he has his eye on these days.  Not sure but it freaks me out a bit.

This by far is the best picture of the day :

I love the look on Santa's face.  And perhaps this better explains C's devious expressions, as he is clearly keeping it a big secret!

E improved quickly and accepted a candy cane from Santa.  Amazing what candy from a bear can do.

Leaves, leaves and more leaves...

There is a downside to having mature trees on our property. 

But while it's a bit of work for us adults, the kids sure have fun!

Halloween 2010

Family Hike

Once in awhile Tom has a Saturday off. This day was one of them. We decided to pack up the kids and take in some fall colors of the Rockies. We didn't find much of that (too early or too late?  Can't say...), but we did have a great family hike...

  Aaaah, Colorado!

 

 Looks kind of like C's resisting strangling E...a subconscious thing?

 Argish LOVES the outdoors

 ...and this is why we love it here in Colorado.

 My favorite photo of the day. :)

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. :)