Happy Birthday, Mom!

Happy Birthday, Mom! She stopped by this afternoon with my grandparents and I snapped a few pictures of her with the German Chocolate cake I made her. Yum! (don't look too close--the cake is seriously lopsided!--I was hoping the side-wise angle of the photo would disguise that :)

More Tweaking

the edited photo above....too much contrast? too dark?

the original--James LOVES shovels and brooms. When he sees them he says, "Da -da!!" very excitedly. He feels like the king of the world when he gets to carry them around.....but back to photo editing.

Part of my beef with editing photos is that I'm indecisive about what it is I really like...the above picture is after some tweaking. It's lighter, his eyes show more reflection...perhaps too washed out?

...but I sorta liked the contrast in this one, the original. What sweet cheeks!

Photography...

Since getting my new camera in October as a birthday gift, I've snapped quite a few pictures. Sometimes 10 or 12 of the same exact moment/scene, just so I can try out different settings and buttons. But I've yet to really figure out how to really use it. I mean, I know a few basics. I did take high school Photography 101, or something like that. So, while I'm still pretty rusty on the actual taking of the pictures but able to manage, editing photos is completely new to me. I don't know the first thing. Layers, filters, masks, opacity, etc. It's all gibberish. So to navigate through the new software Mark downloaded for me to use (it's FREE and called Gimp--that's all I know--and supposed to be somewhat comparable to Photoshop), I've been referring to Pioneer Woman's photography section of her blog. I love the way she explains things in terms I can understand. And while she doesn't use the same software I'm using, I can still apply several of the methods. So here's me giving a shot at 'hard lighting.' Oooh. Really fancy, huh? Oh, and I cropped it, too. I was surprisingly proud of myself for figuring that one out. Eventually I'll feel a little more comfortable with this software stuff, right? AFTER a layer of hard light added (or was it a filter?) plus a little cropping

BEFORE

Can you tell? At all? Is it worth it? I like that the colors are more vibrant...everything a little more pronounced. Oh well, more on all this later. James is begging for a snack. It's that time of day!

16 Months

This little guy is 16 months old today! As you can see in the picture, he's got six teeth....the only six teeth he's had for months now! We're just sure he's going to pop in a few more any time...but no show yet!

James feels very cool in 'his' glasses. He likes for other people to put them on also so he can admire them, too. Here he is with his Uncle Jeff.

And now for some toddler antics. James has learned (originally from his Aunt Gail) to drink from a straw and definitely feels like a hot shot doing so. He likes to hold on to the straw all by himself, thank you very much.

This really is the only shot I got of him not attempting to eat the crayon...but he's trying to color a little! This was taken on a very ambitious day when I thought I'd start to teach him colors.

Anything to get just a few inches higher. James is climbing on everything! Kitchen drawers, bottom shelves, laundry baskets turned upside down, toys....I really do feel like I save his life multiple times a day! (never mind the silly outfit--striped green socks, black pants, and blue fleece?!)

Here's where we've seen the most toddler-like behavior showing up: meal time. If there's a spoon or fork involved, you'd better believe James is going to be the one running the utensil...or else. If it's too tricky for him to 'load' the food (say, stabbing small veggies with fork) as soon as we hand it to him 'loaded', he rests it on the tray, and then picks it up himself...I guess so that he feels like he really did it on his own. SO independent.

Anyway, he's totally transitioned to one nap, still using his pacifier at night and naptimes, LOVES brushing his teeth, takes any opportunity to climb up and down stairs, and has been speaking gibberish sentences for a couple of weeks. He looks so sincere when he says them--we wonder what he's saying! It terms of English, his most clear word (with two separate consonant sounds, I might add) is cup. He also is half-way saying a good handful of other words but some of them are most easily interpreted by Mark and me!

Looking forward to the next month--never a dull moment, that's for sure!!

Spectating

Not the best quality photo, but such a sweet face. I love that James loves his daddy so much. He can look out and see the driveway from our kitchen window and was doing just that watching Mark scoop off the mounds of snow. He thinks it's just the coolest thing he's ever seen. If he says anything at all it's a very repetitive 'Da-Da, Da-Da, Da-Da.'

Tea Party Baby Shower

Oh Girl!! My family is getting realllllly excited about my brother and sister-in-law's baby, due in February. My friend Kristen and I were honored to host a shower, a tea party shower, for Elizabeth the week following Christmas. We held the shower in our newly carpeted basement (yay!) and decorated with tables set with china (tea cups and pots of course) and little touches of ribbon with nursery rhyme-themed toile.

The menu was such fun to plan--I've always wanted to throw a tea party! Chicken salad sandwiches and cucumber sandwiches,

chocolate chip scones (dangerously yummy, thanks Kristen!),

fruit skewers,

a GORGEOUS AND DELICIOUS raspberry cream cheese torte made and brought by Elizabeth's mom, which I somehow forgot to take a picture of (how is that possible?), and there were also some cute little strawberry meringues (shown lower right in the above photo).

In an effort to use supplies I had I got in touch with my crafty side and made votive holders out of jars, tissue paper and Mod Podge (love that stuff), painted and framed a few photos of Joel and Elizabeth, and constructed a sweet girly banner to hang on the mantle!

the sweet mother-to-be, Elizabeth

my grandmother and brother Joel, who popped downstairs at the end of the shower to mingle

Four generations! :)

Making lemonade...

Along with many others in the area, we were 'snowed in' over Christmas weekend, unable to drive to my grandparents' house for our annual get-together with aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. It was pretty sad to miss out but we had to choose to be safe. I think it was my cousin Jen (also snowed in in Lawrence with her hubby Jason) who suggested we still attempt our annual Trivial Pursuit game via Skype. We traditionally play men vs. women and had a good mix of guys and gals on both ends of the computer. It actually worked really well. They controlled the rolling of the die, questions, game piece moving, etc. and we helped our teams answer questions!

Here we are mid-game...

and here they are mid-game, propped on a high chair...there are my Aunt Janet, Grandma and Papa! (Tom, Debbie, Dale, and Tim were not shown at the moment...)

And the ladies won!! Here we all are (notice the other gals on the screen). As my sister-in-law Elizabeth said, "talk about making lemonade with lemons." This will definitely be a year to remember!