Warm Weather Picninc

As soon as the days starting turning warm around here we couldn't be outside enough. By mid-March we were outside as much as possible. This quite naturally meant eating outdoors as well. Here is one such picnic. In a fashion that matches my culinary senses we had quite the spread - PB&J, Cheeze-Its and apple juice.

Everybody left the blanket well fed...including the inanimate diners.

And filled with love as well. (There will be a post that will go into greater detail about this picture - I'm just waiting for the final piece...)

The girls friend Abby was over, enjoying the sunny afternoon with us. I love this picture of her - she is so photogenically gifted.

As is this girl - because honestly who else could pull off a shot like this what with food in her mouth and wind whipping her hair around. Yet she does it and still looks good.

Of course after the food has to come a little play time. And after a couple months inside outdoor play just can't be beat.

Baking Time

Those of you who know me pretty well know how much I love my baked goods. And since every now and then I get a little bee in my bonnet and decide to try making something myself only to have every store bought version ruined for life. (It's not my fault that stores just can't compare with most things I make on my own. It certainly doesn't make my life any easier.) I'm finding that in order to consume my little pieces of happiness I have to spend a little more time whipping them up in my humble kitchen. This is quite naturally an undertaking that thrills the girls to no end.

First because they love to help me in the kitchen. Just about anytime with any dish they love being able to do it with/for me. (I just need a more help friendly kitchen - more counter space and designated fold down step stools would be a good start...)

If there is a task to be completed they are always right there (and I do mean right there) to help. One of my favorite things to let them do is divvy up the batter into the cupcake tray. I have no idea why but for some reason this is the job I can let go of with the most ease and not be worried about the level of mess and mayhem that will ensue. (You should see me hover when it comes to cracking eggs...) Probably because they are pretty good at cleaning up all messes made when it comes to chocolate batter.

And really they are very focused and dedicated to doing the best job possible.

This made me laugh. Just before I was about to throw the cupcakes in the oven I looked down and noticed that maybe I should clean it up a little before that batter gets cooked on. Its fun to see which side I did compared to the side they took care of. It makes you wonder who really had more fun with this project.

Because when it really comes down to it - isn't this were all the fun in chocolate cupcakes comes from?

(Well after sprinkles that is...)

Emmuska's ability to lick a whisk clean is something I marvel at - how in the world does she get the inside so well? (Mind you it usually looks like more of it ends up on her face than in her tummy ;)

"All done filling the cupcake cups - we'll start cleaning up!"

Thanks girls - you make baking so much more fun. (Most times anyway) ;)

Bubbles!

Guess what Emmuska learned how to do...I'll give you a hint: it involves a straw and a cup of milk.

You got it! I'm not sure where the notion came from but one day she decided to blow through her struck instead of slurping and was rewarded with big white bubbles (or maybe pink...it's hard to say what kind of milk she was drinking the first time she did this). She was instantly addicted. I couldn't give her a glass of milk without turning around to see bubbles overflowing.

Now I need to research why/how exactly it does this so I can explain it to her. Kids really are the best learning experience!

Photoshop Fun

I snuck a little time this afternoon to play around with some of the actions I have in photoshop - trying to better understand how they work and what they do to the image. Along with that I'm trying to figure out what my own post production style is - right now I use my shots 'as is' pretty much exclusively. Part of that is because I haven't figured out a good post production routine and just haven't had a lot of time to put into it lately. (I mean have you seen this blog over the last couple of months? And this is one of my higher priorities.) For today's exercise I decided to use just one shot so I could really see the difference with what I was doing to each shot - here are some of the ones I really liked:

Original - this is what the shot looked like straight off the camera - not too shabby if I do say so myself. ;)

Soft and Faded plus Boost

Because the shot I was working with was pretty good I wasn't really focused on fixing it but more with just playing around with different styles. I like the faded look of this one - though originally it was much too faded so I boosted it and enjoyed the result.

Boost plus Soft and Faded

Then I was wondering what would happen if I did it in the opposite direction. What if I boosted it first then faded it. End result - more natural look but still a softer feel. I really liked the other way around (more faded) but it's definately a look that I think needs to match the picture rather than being applied to most of ones photos whereas I could see using it this way for a broader range of shots.

Colorized (with tweaking)

I liked this one a bit more when I had finished it than I do now. Of course there is no saying what I will think of it in an hour or tomorrow - right now it's my least favorite of the ones I have up here. Not bad just not something I would do often.

Fresh and Colorful

I do like the strength of the colors in this one but am wondering if they look too powerful. And then I wonder if it's just because I've been looking at those softer ones too long and am used to the photo being more faded. This would be why I wanted to play around with one shot and then post them to this blog so I could come back and review them - go back and forth and really compare the difference to really get a good idea of what I like.

Boost with Edge Burn

I'm not sure how much I want to be using the edge burn (darkened border) but I do like how it minimizes some of the background clutter that is, alas an all too frequent part of my photos. In this case I love how it really makes Samuel stand out. It could just be me but it almost makes this shot 3D and I think it looks great here.

Yummy

As you well know I'm obsessed with food. As one man put it 'I don't like food, I love it.' (However I'm not particularily picky yet - I'll still swallow things I don't love...) Better still than just food is beautiful food. Beautiful food makes me very happy.  And this piece of cheesecake was very pretty.

I probably took more than twenty pictures of it just trying to get the right shot.

I'm blaming the raspberry. It just pulled me in and captivated me. Visually it was the perfect little touch.

And yes it was very yummy.

Budding Artists

It all started with a lot of sunshine and consequentially the need for sidewalk chalk. Unfortunately the store we were in only had one box of sidewalk chalk and as probably know I have two girls.  We might have been able to walk away with just the one box of sidewalk chalk had Liberty taken it off the shelf but Emmuska spied it first, plucked it off the shelf and dumped it in her basket. There was no explaining to Liberty that Emmuska had chalk and that she too would be able to use it (it's a complicated mix of past experience and her unique personality...) So rather than try to fight a battle I knew I wasn't going to win I let her be happy with what she pulled off the shelf and didn't insist that she put it back (you can think I'm too soft and I'd probably agree with you...)  So what was the mysterious product I allowed Liberty to purchase in lieu of sidewalk chalk? Drum roll please!

That's right - finger paint! Some days I'm fairly certain I'm a psychiatric evaluation short of being certifiably crazy. Seriously not sure what I was thinking when I agreed to this undertaking. I know I put some thought into this (notice the big purple shirt Liberty is wearing? Proof that I was indeed thinking ahead) as I did do it outside and had my camera ready to take pictures.  As it turns out it just wasn't ready enough.  The picture above is moments after Liberty dumped half of the orange container out while I was trying to get Emmuska's paint ready.

While I was trying to rescue the rest of the orange paint (simultaneously reaching for my camera in a mad effort to chronicle the proceedings) Samuel spied the large pile of paint and made a beeline for it.

But was distracted by the still open and half full container of paint. (Children seem to have an inner guide about what will be the biggest mess...)

Having rescued the container of orange paint I turned around to find that Samuel had happily reached his original goal...

And he was loving it. (By the way - don't let the whole bare skinned knees on a concrete surface fool you - this boy can move across, well any surface, with alacrity. When on a rough surface he does this by crawling on his hands and feet - bear crawl style - impressively fast. I'm thinking I should enter him in a race of some kind.)

And then he had to taste his masterpiece to make sure it was just right. Doesn't everybody?

Said masterpiece apparently required a lot of fancy foot work to complete given by how much paint ended up on them...

Meanwhile Liberty and Emmuska were very happily working on their masterpieces. One thing I would like to do differently about this activity next time (beside the whole orange all over incident...) would be to have an extra couple of hands to help with Samuel so I could focus more on doing this with Liberty - helping her perfect the art of covering one's hand and slapping them on paper. (Okay that doesn't sound as technical or requiring of instruction as it did in my head...)

Emmuska too was busy making her work of art - just the right amount of blue right now.

What's this?

Apparently her masterpiece is on Samuel's back. Naturally he's only too happy to oblige. (Generally we can end that sentence at He's happy - paint's a bonus.)

I can't really fault Emmuska's logic. Samuel makes a great canvas - a face like that can't help but add to the work.

However all this gave Liberty a bright idea...interestingly enough all the colors combined do a pretty good job of matching her shirt. We'll just assume she's really good at combining colors until they become the exact shade she needs.

According to the time stamp on my camera the entire event lasted less than twenty minutes.  I'm quite certain the cleanup took at least that long (baths all around!) But it was twenty minutes of fun.  And just maybe I learned enough from this time around to be better prepared for next time.