Stacy at The Land of KA had a theme for today of flowers.
My challenge to you is to name all these flowers because some of them I know and some I don’t.
So here’s what’s in my yard and in my neighborhood’s yards Stacy!
Theme Thursday – Flowers
Memorial Day Fun
Just to show you the range of our weekend I’ve put together the extremes of our weekend in a 4 part picture show starring my husband.
The weekend began like this…..
Part One
Part Two
Part Three and Four
…….And ended like this!!!
side note: (As I was trying to get a picture of my very brave hubbie jumping from a 40 story cliff and landing in the water this boat full of people came cruising by right in front of my perfect shot!!! Oh, how rude!!! Not to mention I was trying to hold the camera steady with 14 other people in or around the boat, riding the jet skis and I was just a little nervous about one of the kids knocking my arm and me dropping my camera. Yep, I was a just a little nervous)
YESTERDAY…
Yesterday a friend invited us to come and swim at her pool. The other mom and I didn’t get in the freezing cold water but the kids had a blast. She even made dinner for us….
Homemade biscuits, fresh strawberries and vanilla ice cream…can you say yum, yum?
It’s a family tradition of theirs, one I’m glad she let me in on.
When we got home last night I tried to do some work with my 18% grey card outside. It’s awfully hard to get a accurate reading with moving targets. I didn’t post process any of these pictures but wanted to share some with you.
This was taken at my friend Lisa’s house when we took a break from swimming. I love the bokeh (background blur).
This one turned out a little blue despite my attempts at using my gray card but I’ll process that out later…..I love her sly expression.
And this is what I got from #3 son when I asked him to stand beside his sister…..
I loved this one….despite the Propel bottle!
We caught a turtle and had fun watching it cruise around the yard. He had a broken shell that had mended. It was really cool to look at how the shell had healed back together. Here’s Thomas the Turtle…
And last but not least, flowers picked by all my kids just for mom…
One of those weeks…
Some weeks are just “blah”, ya know?
This was one of them. I try to remember those poor people who have no rice to eat and are starving in China because of the typhoon and not feel sorry for me. But then I remember that we have each been given a lot in life and what is hard to others may not be difficult for me and vice versa.
So I try to give myself some grace in this “blah” week. Hormones, hubbie being gone, being tired, not feeling good….who knows what it is – or maybe it’s all of them combined!
Yesterday evening we ate dinner at 3:30 at Applebees. I was on my way home from the chiropractor, all the kids were hungry and I had no energy for cooking so I succumbed to the restaurant temptation and we feasted on cheese sticks, salad and water. It was SO nice not to have to worry about dinner come 5pm when all mine are usuallly STARVING (or so they say).
We enjoyed the evening without anything to do and the kids all ate a bowl of cereal before bed. I’m thinking my next Works for Me Wednesday might be just that….feed kids dinner at 3:30pm EVERY night!
Since we ate so early I took the camera outside and took pictures. My daughter is about the only one who will sit still anymore for me. The rest of the gang was here, there and everywhere.
So here’s baby girl….a straight out of the camera shot with a touch of saturation. I didn’t have the energy to do any more tweaking so here she is…..sippy cup and all…
Here is a shot of my FAVORITE bush in the yard and yes, I know it’s name but I don’t have the energy to look up how to spell it…
So here’s the pink bush…
Hope you have a great Friday!
Works for Me Wednesday
I admit I’m a little at a loss for a good tip on What Works for us….
The thing on my heart most today is homeschooling I think. Homeschooling works for us. No carpools, no buses, no lines, no homework, no anything we don’t want in our lives. We do use school occasionally. We have two in school this year. All three boys will be home next year and our daughter will be in a half day K4 program.
You know, what works for us changes sometimes daily, weekly, or monthly. Each school year is different. So what works today may not work tomorrow. And I think we’re good about changing once it doesn’t work anymore. I remember hearing that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Makes sense to me.
Leaving you with another “works for me”…..always having my camera! This was taken through my storm door. Aren’t the reflections cool?
(more Works for me Wednesday found here)
Get your flare on baby…
This was a fun assignment (See the assignment here!) although I didn’t have much time to complete it. I snapped this as the sun was setting in our neighborhood while I was supposed to be watching Dora with my 3 year old. I was sitting on the couch so you are looking out of my den windows.
Shutter Sisters asked us to try the “other end of the spectrum” by shooting with our F-stop high (narrow) instead of low (wide open). I admit, that like Sarah I love shooting with a 1.8 (lowest my camera lenses will take me) f-stop. But after admiring her photo at the link above I had to try this. 10 minutes later this is what I had.
This is what Sarah had to say about shooting at the narrow end of the aperture range (f-stop)
“The narrower the aperture, the longer the exposure you can use, and that’s how you get those lovely rays in the form of star-shaped flares”
Canon Xti
Aperture at 29
Shutter way down to 3.2
ISO 100
Manuel
Isn’t it cool? I love the starry sun!
Oh cloning tool how I enjoy you!
Yep, the cloning tool is one of my favorites!
Here’s a shot from this week’s football game.
Here’s my SOOC shot…..very dark and Mr. Shane is in the background of all the action! I think he’s a little distracting, don’t you?
And here is my first attempt with Mr. Shane taken out of the background, lighting corrected and a little cropping.
Shane’s a really good friend and all but he was in the wrong place at the wrong time!
Sorry buddy!!!
Oh, oops, I missed his toe…do you see it? And in between Keeshawn’s legs I see some jeans I missed. Let’s try this again and add a little saturation and some more sharpening.
Here we go………..
Photoshop Elements 6.0 Tip 2 – Making a Smile
The liquify tool….making a smile
Ok, so let me show you the photo first. I didn’t retouch these at all except for the tool I’m showing you so know they could have been a little brighter and sharper but no time!!!! So, onward…….
Here’s NO SMILE….
and here’s a SMILE……..
Pretty cool huh?
Ok, here’s the steps.
Open the Editing part of Elements 6.0
Choose Filter, then Distort, then Liquify
In the Tool Options on the right hand side of the page choose a brush size that is about the size of the person’s cheek.
Place the brush at the base of the cheek, click and hold your mouse down while you drag slightly up.
If necessary (which it wasn’t in this photo) do the other side.
And as the wonderful book indicates be careful how far you tug or you’ll turn your cute little one into Joker from Batman Returns
Click OK to apply the change adn save as a copy!
Have fun!!!
(taken from The Photoshop Elements 6.0 Book which can be purchased here.)
The neverending attempt at blogging….
This is my third attempt to post this particular post.
Maybe this one will stick. I’m having trouble with Mozilla locking up so I’m trying this in the dreaded IE! I much prefer Mozilla Firefox.
So, me and baby girl did the trampoline thing this weekend. Here are a few pictures from the weekend. While you are blog perusing check out the trampoline pictures at Live and Learn. Alyssa has some crazy pictures over there!!!
Ahhh….I love this expression of total childhood on her face. All is right with the world when jumping on the trampoline
Today’s post at Shutter Sisters is about chopping off heads. You’ve gotta see that one! It’s great. So here is my chopped off head. Dad, this one’s just for you!!!
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