My Adam

Sweet. lovable, funny, social, and independent

That's my bean!

This kids lives and breathes legos.  Oh my word.  He's up first thing building.  When he goes to bed I have to pry them out of his grip.  I'm not sure whether to bless the makers of legos or curse them. 

Depends on whether my feet survive the land mines or not.

Other things he likes:  Soccer, space, books, rocket ships, making pancakes, space, planes, rocket ships, cutting paper into shapes, space shuttles, coloring, and (did I mention?) anything to do with space.  Oh.  And talking.  All.  The.  Time.  And the volume button appears to be stuck on maximum!  

I love his energy, I really do.  I wish I had half of it!  

And I wish I knew where the volume button is hiding!

He's a real lady killer.  He says he has a million girlfriends.  We're in biiiig trouble...  

He is so sweet and loving.  He's famous for his "great big humongous Adam hugs."  You need to see a chiropractor after each one, but they're definitely worth it.  He says all the time, "Mommy, I love you.  I was going to say something else, but I forgot what I was going to say."  

I think what he says instead is just perfect.

My Julia

Silly, shy, caring, funny, determined, and strong.

That's my girl!!!

If I can get her to take her nose out of a book for more than two minutes, she likes playing teacher with her brother--most of the time.  I'm pretty sure that one of the main reasons he's taking Kindergarten so well is because of his big sister.  When she's not teaching him calculus (ha!), she likes playing with her dolls, cooking, and crafting.  Among other things.  


She has always been a bit of a prickly puss, but finally is keen on a few more hugs.  I'll take 'em!

I admire how she recognizes when she needs to improve and works on it.  I can count on her to choose the right when the chips are down--even if everyone else does something different.  She cares about being a good person.  Yeah, she's a little girl so she's a drama queen and we have many  moments when I think, "WHY is this such a big deal??"  But when it's important, she doesn't let disappointment get her down, and that's something at her age.


She informed me today that as well as being a mom (which she has always wanted to be) she is going to be a scientist-inventor when she grows up.  She's going to be a busy lady!


Maybe she'll invent a way that the house will clean itself.  

 I still can't believe I was able to take some photos of her.  Getting any type of keeper photo of my kids is a miracle.  They won't take direction--at least from me.  Any other moms out there with the same problem?  Maybe we can trade.  I'll take photos of yours if you take some of mine!

Plush Puppy

What can I say?

She's one patient doggy.

Easter Table

It's pretty sad that the only photos I have of Easter this year are of the table. None of the walk the kids took with Grandma to find things that represent the Easter story.  None of our friends who were with us.

Just these three of the table.

*face palm*

Yup.  We can all thank Pinterest for our Easter table.

Easter silhouettes:  Beth at Hungry Happenings

Basket printable:  Melissa at "I Still Love You."

Tinted devilled eggs:  Laura at "Real Mom's Kitchen."

**Edit:  A friend of mine, who knows my wacky sense of humor, thought I was joking and that I hadn't actually made these things, just got the ideas from Pinterest and posted them here as a giggle.  But no.  Although I appreciate that as being a funny idea, and may have to use it in the future, I DID actually make these things.  This WAS our Easter table.  And I'm quite willing to crow and gain whatever temporary glory I can for it!  I just thought I should share the glory with the ladies who came up with the ideas in the first place and posted such easy to follow tutorials that these things worked out as they were supposed to.  Alas, I'm not much of an innovator or designer or imaginative figure-er outer.  What I AM, though, is an implementor.  Of other folks' brilliant ideas.  Without them, I am nothing.

Backing up a bit.

I'm a bit behind!  Here's what I made for supper on April Fool's day.

Mmmnn!  Chocolate strawberry pie!

The kids so so excited to have dessert for dinner.

And then realized it was shepherd's pie, with a bit of chocolate and molasses in the meat to make it chocolatey and food coloring in the milk before adding to the spuds.

Bummer.

But one kiddle doesn't like potatoes much and the other isn't keen on ground beef, and both ate without a word of complaint.  Win!

Then I short sheeted their beds and felt more than well with the world.

mwahaha...

Restoration

I'm going to say this right up front:  I'm no expert on photo restoration.  But Vic asked me if I'd see what I could do with some old photos that he had scanned, and I said that although I couldn't make any guarantees, I'd do what I could.  More than likely many of you looking at this will shake your heads, since you might be more adept at this type of thing, and I'm seriously just winging it!  If so, could you comment with some tips on how to go about this?  I'm predominantly in Lightroom, with a bit of cloning in PSE.  Frankly, I find anything to do with PSE frustrating, I can't seem to use the selection tools easily and I end wanting to pull my hair out when what I want to have happen DOESN'T.  And so many of you find it so easy that I'm wondering what is wrong with me! LOL  I need a PSE intervention.  What I need, probably, is CS5 for more ease of control--but that's not happening any time soon, I'm afraid.

Most are little snapshots that are extremely out of focus, so I just bumped the contrast and cleaned up a few marks on the faces, since I really can't spend hours and hours on these.  

But this photo was gorgeous, so I spent a bit more time on it.

Unfortunately, since I really don't know what I'm doing with this type of thing, the photo looks somewhat soft, but if you could zoom into the face, you'll see a great deal of improvement in it, since it originally looked as if a piece of sandpaper had been scrubbed over the photo.

I'm going to go back and see about fixing that softness and bumping up the blacks, also work on that patch of white in the bottom left.  In the meantime, especially for the family, you can at least see what I'm attempting to do!