We are all well

Well we have recovered from our stomach sickness. It started with D last weekend having an overall stomach sickness. Then Nathan threw up a small amount on Wednesday night in his crib, I thought it was from his coughing but it may have been the stomach bug, and had diarrhea for the rest of the week. Mallory threw up twice in her bed on Thursday night, Julianne threw up twice on Friday night and I had the bug on Saturday. So after washing several loads of sheets and Nathan's pants from diarrhea we are finally back to normal.

I had Julianne's parent-teacher conference last Wednesday and she is doing very well. She loves school and her teacher. Her teacher said, "I am not a psychologist but Julianne seems like a very happy child". That is probably the best compliment I could ask for. She said that all her pictures and writings are about family, playing, having fun, doing things, hanging out with family and neighbors, etc. She said she is a good friend, respectful, listens and has a good time. She did say that she sometimes gets distracted by talking too much and she has to remind her to get back on task. She said she only has to do that once and she does get back on task. So that is good, I am glad that she is having fun and enjoying school.

Last night I went out to dinner with some mothers from her school and one of Julianne's friends mom was telling me that some of the girls like the boys, as in a boyfriend. So it is interesting that it is happening so soon. I asked if Julianne liked any boys and she said her daughter said that Julianne does not have a boyfriend. So I will have to talk to her tonight to see if I can get any scoop like that. Julianne tells me about work at school, what they had for lunch and snack and other activities but not really about what happens on the playground. I will have to inquire about that soon.

Julianne found these Yu-Gi-Oh cards in our garage and asked all the neighbors if they were theirs and no one claimed them. She had an excellent idea of making a lost card sign and posting it to a tree. So she wrote, Lost Yogy kors. Are thes your yogy kors. Translation: Lost Yu-Gi-Oh cards. Are these your Yu-Gi-Oh cards. It was really sweet. They lasted on the tree for about a couple hours and then she took them down. I think they are still in the house somewhere but it was a sweet thought.



Nathan loves lawn mowers, tree trimmers, trucks, diggers, anything that is big and moves, basically. Our neighbor was mowing the other week and Nathan got his lawn mower out and followed him and observed him for about half an hour. It was very cute and the man was very nice and came and talked to him later.


Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Having D home on his day off
-going to yoga with D
-sleeping in a comfortable bed
-Having everyone well again
-A washer and dryer for pukey and diarrhea soiled laundry

How cute

On election night Dwight and I went down to the basement to watch the coverage after putting the kids to bed and this is what we came down to:



Mallory set this scene up and it is such her personality. She really pays attention to detail and had all the people lined up like they were watching TV. The babies, the adults and the kids were all in their perspective seats with tables, lamps, etc. watching the TV. What you do not see is the bathroom and the computer room set up that she had set up to the side of this scene. I thought it was adorable because she loves to pretend play and I can just her imagining her playing with them and making up a story behind the organization.

The kids are kind of sick today. Mallory threw up twice last night and Nathan has diarrhea. Mallory was feeling better this morning but had a 100 temperature this afternoon. Nathan has the diarrhea and a lingering cold/cough/congestion but he is not phased at all. He still runs around having diarrhea in his pants and does not worry about it. He has not eaten very much today so hopefully he will get his appetite back and eat since he is so small to begin with. So we stayed in today, watched movies and we made play dough in the morning. It was nice to not be running around all morning. I actually had time to deep clean while Mallory laid on the couch this afternoon.




Mallory wanted red play dough so I put the red food coloring on it and forgot that it stains so now I have red dye # 5 (or whatever number it is) leaching into my body. I am sure that is great for me.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-lazy days at home with the kids
-getting caught up on my household stuff
-appreciating Nathan's zest for life and activities

Halloween and fall fun

Well we had an excellant Halloween. The girls had fun at their school parties and we had an even better time trick-or-treating with our neigbhors. Mallory was a princess, Julianne was a witch and Nathan was a lion. We began the day by going to see Julianne's Halloween parade at her school. Then we all got ready and hung out and had dinner with our neigbhors. The girls pretty much trick-or-treated all night with their dad and Nathan and I went to a couple of houses and once he got a sucker he was satisfied. Then, we went back to our house and hung out with our neighbors on the street. Some members of the highs school marching band appeared on our street and played some songs. It was fun to see them and to hear the music. I think the kids realized that they were too old for trick-or-treating but if they entertained the adults by playing they would get some treats. I thought they were pretty smart.





The neighborhood kids.
Additionally, over the weekend I finished with my Lazy Day skirts for the girls. I loved this fabric that I picked up from the local fabric store. It had adorable flower apliques and I thought that they could were pink leggins and a solid shirt with the skirt. The fabric was probably not the best for this skirt since it did not pleat very well and the skirts were a little too long and wide but the girls loved them. So that is what counts. My next project is making the Child's Coloring Wallet. I think that the girls will love them since they love to draw and color.

Julianne really did like the skirt she is just making a funny face.
Fall fun photos



Nathan putting leaves on our neighbor

Nathan relaxing on Daddy

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Seeing a deer on my early Monday morning run
-not recieving any more annoying political phone calls
-seeing Nathan walk around the house with the girls dolls
-Having great neigbors to share our trick-or-treat experience.

More Lightroom work

OK so I worked on other photographs the other night that I have been meaning to work on for while. I took all these photos at the Zoo this summer and have not really had the time to fiddle with them. I am now tired of working in Lightroom and might fiddle with Photoshop now.

Before

I used an aged preset and I like the look of it.

Before

I can't remember what I did with this photo.

Before

I think I used a direct positive preset with this photo.

Before

I cropped this picture and increased the saturation on some of the colors.

Before

I cropped this picture and I think it applied a direct positive affect to this photo. This is probably my favorite change.

My new niece

My niece was born on Monday October 27th at 8:45 p.m. She weighed 8 lbs and 13 oz and was 21 inches long. So she was a large baby but still looked so tiny. I was fortunate enough to be present at her birth. It was a great experience and I was so thrilled to be a part of her birth. My sister-in-law did an excellent job of delivering her and she was very strong and calm during the entire process. That moment when your children are born is so exciting and special. It made me think of my own children's births. I took lots of pictures and here are some of my favorite.




I took the kids to visit with her the next day and they were in love with her. The girls wanted to hold her the entire time we were visiting. Nathan even wanted to hold her and he did not like when I helped him. He was a little unintentionally rough but would give her lots of kisses. He was so cute to see him with her. I did not know how he would react but he definitely reacted in a loving way.



On Wednesday night we carved pumpkins that we got at the pumpkin patch. It was a lot of fun and Julianne was really good at carving her pumpkin. Nathan was not really interested in carving or touching the pumpkin guts. He actually was on the other counter top eating dog treats. In order to distract him I told him he could give the dogs a treat and he sat at the counter top next to us intermittently licking the dog treats. It was really funny. He was all shy about it and tried to be sneaky but he kept doing it so he must have liked the taste.


Notice Julianne's tongue. She was doing that in several of the photos.


Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-seeing Nathan try to comfort Julianne when she was crying in the car. He kept saying "hug".
-Mallory going into school yesterday without crying for the first time.
-Mallory saying she did me a "favour" for me by putting out he chairs and getting water while we were outside. She was all shy but loving about it.
-playing and raking fall leaves.

Some quick Lightroom work

OK so after I composed my last post and I mentioned that I wanted to work with Photoshop more I took some of my pictures and edited them in Lightroom. Lightroom is a program that helps photographers manage pictures and perform post production work. I have not used Lightroom since this summer so I thought that I would export some pictures and see what I remember. Here are some pre and post Lightroom pictures. There are so many interesting and different affects that Lightroom and Photoshop can perform on pictures and I only know a little bit about each program. I would love to learn more but at this point I only know the basics.

Pre edited picture. Notice the bluish color.

I adjusted the color temperature and the picture looks ten times better.

Pre-edited picture.

I used a standard Lightroom preseting to change the look of the picture.

Pre-edited picture

Post-edited picture. I darken the picture, increased the color concentrations for some colors and I do not know what else I did. I know it does not look that different but I can tell.

Anyway it was fun to experiment and I need to do it more often. These programs can transform pictures and I just don't have the knowledge right now to do it.

I am watching it lightly snow outside. Yikes.

Pumpkin Patch

On Thursday I took the kids to a local pumpkin patch and we had a great time. The kids played for a long time in the blow up toys, the hay maze and the corn box. The girls loved the hay maze because it was tricky to follow and it had hidden slides in the middle. I liked it because I could see over it so I knew where the kids were. The corn box was a great idea, it was basically a sand box except that it had corn in it. It was a lot of fun minus the sand in the shoes, diapers, pant cuffs, etc. The pumpkin patch was actually a bust since all of the pumpkins were rotted but the kids had a fun time running in the field.





I was really attracted to the barn at the pumpkin patch. It was an old barn covered in old barn wood and I took a bunch of pictures of it. I wish I was more proficient in Photoshop because I am sure that there are some special effects I could add to the picture. Maybe I will work with it in my free time.




Our craft for the week was making slime. It was so easy to make. It only contains glue, water and Borax. The girls played with it for a long time. They made pizza with it, played doctor with it and cooked with it. Nathan was not too thrilled with it. He did not like it when it was sticky. He threw it around the room. We made it on Tuesday and the girls even played with the slime this morning. It was a great project and one we will make again.



Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Nathan saying "Mama, whereareyou"
-Mallory saying that her new rented Barbie movie "was so beautiful".
-smelling the dogs after a much needed bath