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Friday, July 30

Macro Friday!


I saw Karli's "Macro Friday" post, and figured that today is a good day to join in the fun!

D-man is having a nap, which of course gave me a perfect opportunity to take multiple close ups of his beautiful long eyelashes. I am mildly obsessed with them, so this isn't the first macro eyelash photo I've taken, but it's the first one I'm entering into Macro Friday! :)

(It's probably not the last one.)







Go join in the fun!

Tuesday, July 27

Stress


I had a fun, and stressful, weekend.

How about you?

Tyler bought our house in 2006, while we were dating. He, and his family, proceeded to completely gut and renovate almost the entire interior of the house. We got married in 2007, and since then finished the back room and the two bedrooms upstairs. We now have to put up a ceiling in our living room, put in six more windows, paint our front porch and rebuild our back porch (small thing, not that hard to do) and then we are DONE.

We've put a lot of backbreaking effort into making this house into our home, a beautiful home. 

However, there is one small problem.

We only have a 1/2 acre of land. It's a nice half acre, but it's only a half acre. We won't be able to have a barn, or animals, which is what we'd LOVE to do. Both of us were raised on small family farms, grew up around animals, did chores when we were young and we both agree that it is close to our heart and we want to raise our kids with that. 

So, we went to look at a house on the weekend.


This house.

It is very dilapidated. It needs a LOT of work, just like our house did in the beginning. It sits on 3 acres of land, so that's a bonus. But it has a gigantic bank barn that is falling over and will need to be torn down, which is a minus. It also needs extensive repairs to the brick and to the roof, which is not good. It needs to be completely renovated inside, especially the kitchen, which is not cheap or easy.

The farmer who owns the land is severing it off from a field, and he is asking WAY too much. Which is bad.

It's been for sale for over a year, which is both bad and good. Bad because it's obvious there are a lot of things that need to be repaired, which the average person is not willing to do, but good because perhaps the farmer will be willing to sell it for less because he just wants to get rid of it. 

We don't know. We're not sure if we're even willing to sell our beautifully renovated house and move into another fixer-upper. We definitely are NOT willing to pay the price he's asking, so we might have to wait another six months to a year and see if it's still for sale, and then offer a low-ball price and see what Mr. Farmer says.

It's all very unsure, and I hate being unsure. I'm the type that likes structure and order and organization and knowing A to B to C to D in advance. Being in limbo sucks. 

We're in no hurry to move, since our child is only 11 months old. Five, six, maybe even seven years from now I'll be more eager to get some land and start having animals, since D-man will be big enough by then to start doing chores. For now, he has Brady and Lucy to help take care of. ;)

I don't know. I wish I did know. 

We'll definitely be praying and considering our options very carefully over the next year. We're in a good position now, so we're not going to be stupid and pay too much for a property that we will never be able to get our money out of in the future.

We'll see! And I'll keep you posted. 

Tuesday, July 20

Touch--up Tuesday!

It's Touch-up Tuesday time again! Wooo! Wooo! YEAH!

I'm easily amused, if you haven't noticed that before.

But anyway! 

Here is my Straight Out of Camera shot of my 11 month old *sniff* that I took during his "11 month pictures!" photo shoot.


SOOC
ISO 200
Shutterspeed 250
Aperture F3.5

I thought he was super adorable, covering his face with his hand as he laughed. He's started doing that lately, which is very cute, but also annoying because I can't get many pictures of him smiling! But what can I do, gotta work with what he gives me. ;)



Edited!

Here's what I did....
In Photoshop Elements, I
~straightened and cropped the image
~used the quick selection tool to select only D-man and used the sharpen action to reduce the Gaussian blur
~clicked on inverse selection in order to increase the Gaussian blur on the background
~raised the brightness to +15 and contrast to +4

And that's all folks!

Oh you should probably know, I always re-size my pictures, because it would take for-froofing-EVER to upload them if I didn't. ;)

If you want to play along with Touch-up Tuesday, go put your link in at Karli's! :)


Monday, July 19

11 months old!


I know I'm three days late for this.

I know I promised to post "tomorrow" (which would & should have been Saturday) and I didn't get around to it.

And I really don't have a good excuse.

Sooooo....

Distracting pictures of cute baby boy!!! 















Bam!

And all is forgiven.

I hope.

It's hard to believe my baby boy will be ONE in less than a month! Ack! 

He's a walking machine, he hardly ever crawls anywhere anymore. 
And he's drinking out of a sippy cup with a straw! Which is awesome, because he wouldn't take a bottle or drink out of a regular sippy cup, but he apparently loves the one with the straw.  It's awesome because now I don't have to worry about him being thirsty all day when I go back to work! :)

He loves anything with wheels, and he loves balls. He even says "Baw". It's so cute!
He loves loves loves dogs, any dogs, except for Chester. I don't know why he doesn't like Chester, any other dog in the world (or on the TV, or stuffed animal dogs, or pictures of dogs) he loves. His best friend is Brady, and she is super protective of him, too.

He is SUCH a joy. He lights up my life. :)

Friday, July 16

Storm!



My brain doesn't work today.

I keep on trying to write something, and it looks so stupid that I erase it.

Ugh.

Ducky has been teething, so I've been up waaaay too late and up again waaaaay too early every day this week. My brain is mush.

So, it's not just because of the storm last night that I haven't blogged, I just don't have the required brainpower.

I'll try to blog tomorrow, with something far more interesting. 
Love,
Mush for brains.

Tuesday, July 13

Touch-up Tuesday!


I didn't do Touch-up Tuesday last week, although it would have been easy to because all I did ALL day was edit and touch-up pictures to get developed.  I was just fed up with sitting at the computer, I think.

But this week! This week I am ready to play! :)

SOOC

ISO 200
F3.5
400 

It was a really bright day, and I was taking pictures of the kids at Adeena's who were over 10 feet away from me. Then I saw Justin, who was only 4 feet away, holding Ducky, so I turned quickly to snap a pic, and it came out waaaay too dark.




Edited!
In Photoshop Elements, I 

sharpened the image
upped the brightness to +25 and the contrast to +4
ran the "reduce noise" filter
reduced the colour saturation to -22

And, voila! 

This one didn't need very much done to it, really just a bit of brightness.

I love how good Justin is with babies... he's a really good big brother, big cousin, and just an all around great kid! :)

Go play along at Karli's!




Monday, July 12

Camping, again! :)


I've decided I love camping.  Ty & I want to get a small tent trailer, like the one Adeena & Jeff so graciously allowed us to use this past weekend, so we can go camping and be like all the cool kids. 

The weekend just plain rocked. It was so much fun! The weather was gorgeous, warm but not humid, and even Ducky was happy to be away from home. He loves playing with the big kids, and he always has a blast with Hannah. I have pictures to prove it!


 Hannah Banana is so good at climbing chairs, she can climb in and out and loves to show off her skillz. 

D-man thought it was a hoot! They played peek-a-boo together, and completely entertained one another. And, of course, their mothers. :)






Hannah, clapping her hands, something she's been doing since May. Such a smartie. :)




She also kept on tasting her toes -mmmmm tasty toes- and I got this pic of her smiling at her Mommy! It was too ridonkulously cute.




I love this picture, but my stinkin' camera went and changed the F stop on me as I was snapping it, so it was so dark and almost not salvageable. I fixed it up as well as I could... it's not so bad. ;)




Hannah-na!




Ducky tried to imitate Uncle Jeffie, who planned on being the Kraken in Granny & Poppa's pool.

*splash* "WRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!" *splash*






Then he checked out Banana's tasty toes.




He never did figure out how to climb onto the chair, though.





Then Hannah was bored.....




And said, "Here's my bum. Go away."






So, Ducky played with his Diego plane instead.






And hung out with big cousin Dimples, otherwise known as Becky-Lou.






Camping kids....






Beck-a-beck






Mighty-brows.....




Stretch & D-man...





"I was having fun, but since Mommy mad eye contact, I am no longer happy!"






Mini-Heather and Banana....

Doesn't Ava have THE most crazy beautiful eyes? Yes she does.





And, of course, the token eyelash photo. 







The campfires both nights stretched way into the morning hours. Friday's campfire lasted until 2:30 a.m. Saturday morning, and Saturday's campfire just never stopped. I gave up at 5:00 a.m., but Adeena, Heather, Dave & Kate didn't go to bed until the kids started waking up in the morning. Crazy people! 

Ah well, therapeutic campfires have a way of never ending. Or, you just don't want them to end. 

I'm sure we'll do it again next time.... 
Which, I hope, is SOON! :)

Friday, July 9

Face to Face with the Ferocity of Nature

Well, not face to face.

Through a window. It was an open window, but there was a screen.

Oh, and I was like, 30 feet away. Or more.

But still!

I had a terrifying encounter!
With a creature so fearsome, so utterly ferocious, so full of sharp pointy teeth!

That I ran away.

To grab my camera.




"Awwwwww! A cute widdle bunny wabbit!"

That's exactly what he wants you to think!



"Don't mind me, I'm just a cute widdle bunny wabbit. Heh heh heh."


"Oh, and don't worry about locking your doors at night. 
I promise I won't try to get in and eat your firstborn. BWA HA HA HA!"



He knew I was watching him the whole time. He bounced around, watching me watching him, and then he disappeared into my rhubarb patch. As if to say "Next time you walk outside, you better be careful... I could be hiding in the rhubarb patch."

At least, that's what I deciphered from his subtle little nose wiggling.

I didn't sleep last night.

I'm going camping tonight, and the next day, and the next day.... so this will be my last post until probably Monday. (Unless I am devoured by an evil rabbit.)
So have a good weekend everybody! Try not to let the rabbits bite you! They have sharp pointy teeth!

Tuesday, July 6

Beach Day!


After fireworks Wednesday night, and a campfire well into Thursday morning (I think we went to bed at 4:00 am... I'm not sure, I wasn't wearing a watch. And I don't have a cell phone. Or an ipad.) and a full day of lazing about in the Sun on Thursday (sunburns are ouchie.. although, actually, mine wasn't really that bad. It looked worse than it felt.), we went to the beach Friday afternoon.

Tyler drove up to spend part of the day with everyone, and so he could finally take us home with him. He missed us. :)

We went to Wal-Mart to get a few things, and then to the beach!

Ducky enjoyed the swings! :)




Ty needs a haircut. Badly. 





Eyelashes!!!!!!

Then, Daddy played with Ducky on the beach.


This picture makes my heart melt!


Then, D-man played in the sand with Justin! The scary thing is, I remember Justin when he was Ducky's size. And it doesn't seem like that long ago. :/




Baby Banana loves her Daddy. :)







And Joanna loves her new baby.



Isn't she precious? I love chubby baby arms, with all that beautiful soft loose skin that needs to be pudgy! The only thing better is chubby baby legs... or chubby baby hands, or chubby baby face.... ah, it's all awesome. So awesome.


 This picture makes my heart melt, too. Ava loves her Mommy. And her Mommy loves her.

Well, it was a fun time at the beach, and then we went back to Deena's for supper and a game of soccer. I didn't play soccer, because I had a D-man who was grumpy and wanted to be held, but I did walk around the edge of the soccer field singing "La la la la la" with a few of the kids. :)

I'm looking forward to this weekend, because Ty will be coming camping with us, too! Hurray!

Creekside Family, thank you for your hospitality!