Good Looking Bunch

Just wanted to share a couple of pictures of the kids in their Christmas outfits. Mycal's grandmother got these adorable ensembles.

Emmuska and Liberty call them their 'ladybug' dresses and both absolutely love them. Liberty was telling me yesterday that she couldn't wait to go to church so everybody could see her ballerina dance in her ladybug dress. Because having the right dress is the first step to spectacular dancing. (And yes I'm saying that in complete seriousness.)

And then you have Samuel in his little outfit. The vest and tie make totally make him absolutely irresistible. (Not that he needed any help with that...his dimples and blue eyes already affect most people's judgement when around him...)

Sam-Attack Turns One!

I know this is terribly late (much like my ice cream sandwich post which I have been informed once or twice happened quite some time ago...) But I still wanted to share a couple of pictures from Samuel's birthday.

We didn't do a whole lot for his birthday but Grandma and Grandpa sent out the perfect toy for him to enjoy:

I opened the door to this rather large box a couple of days before Samuel's birthday. I pulled it inside and started to open it and was quickly rushed by three very excited children. When it was evident that Samuel was very interested in 'unwrapping' his gift I asked the girls to let him try.

Considering the truck is almost the same size as he is he did a pretty good job wrestling his gift out of the box.

Of course he had to give it a good visual inspection to ascertain that it was a well built piece of machinery...

Then he saw that I had the camera out so he had to put his inspection on hold to give me one of his grins - I'm beginning to think he and the camera have a relationship - you know the kind where the camera is hopelessly devoted to him and he is casually interested now and then but other times indifferent...yeah I know it's a timeless tale...

Then Emmuska pushed one of the buttons and the thrill of the truck was back - I mean what can possibly compete with truck noises in a little boy's world?

I mean could this boy be any happier about his truck? 

Probably not. 

 And of course we had to do some cake for his birthday. Samuel was very excited about this part of the celebration. He loved the cupcakes and as soon as one was finished he was off to get another one - sometimes by any means necessary. Let's just say Liberty might have lost a cupcake or two...

Happy Birthday Sam-Attack - it's hard to believe it's already been a year. You're getting so big and doing so much. I only hope I can keep up with you throughout the year to come.

Sam Attack

While I try to get my life more organized I thought I'd actually publish some of the posts I started but never finished...enjoy!

(note: I started this post before I took my grand adventure west where many of you were personally introduced to Samuel for the first time - so this might seem a little repetitive but I still wanted to post it.)

It recently came to my attention that our favorite nickname for Samuel might be a little odd (when within the space of two hours three people ask in absolute astonishment and wonder if I just called my son 'Sam-Attack' it became a question worth addressing). Samuel has a couple of nicknames such as Buddy and Little Guy but Sam-Attack is by far the most used moniker for our little man. The pictures below are just one reason why:

If he's not busy cuddling with me then he can usually be found pulling something apart or going after one of the girls. When it comes to exploration that tends to the destructive Samuel is the forefront in the field. And while picking up the books at least five times a day or putting the canned goods back into the cupboard can get tiring his little smiles generally make it okay.

One of Those Days

and by 'those' I most emphatically mean the kind that is super italicized. Maybe even super-triple-italicized. You know what I mean. It's not just one of those days...it was one of those days which is actually quickly turning into one of those weeks. It pretty much started like most days. The only difference - which really is the big difference and should have clued me into future course of events was that Samuel woke up a little fussier than usual. I figured this wasn't a big deal because I routinely wake up fussy - I'm just not a wake up kind of gal so I understand when others have mornings like that.

Quite naturally the house looked just like I had left it the night before:

This was not discouraging for me as my house usually looks like this in the morning. As much as I dearly want to get everything cleaned up before I go to bed I usually end up crashing minutes after I've gotten the kids into bed and of course up to that point we were busy doing all of the evening stuff. Anyhow I woke up ready to get dishes done, laundry folded and sundry items scattered where they didn't belong put away. I did manage to get a few things picked up in the back yard and the dishes to this point:

Yeah - three cups. That was all I managed to get done. See Samuel had been fussing so I put him in the carrier but he continued to have a fit and three cups later I decided I figured he wasn't happy back there and so I threw in the towel (figuratively of course what I literally did was toss my sponge back into the sink) and get him off my back.  Anytime I chose not to physically hold him with my hands throughout the day I could guarantee that I would instantly be admonished by this face:

So I held him...all day. At the close of the day I finally managed to get him to bed at which point I was able to do a bunch of dishes (not all mind because that would be a total miracle ;) before he woke up. Then I spent the rest of the night cuddling with one upset little boy who cried off and on all night long despite the fact that we were cuddling. (Trust me it was worse when we weren't cuddling.)

Poor Samuel was/is (I don't know if he's quite done yet but he's definitely more pleasant lately...though still not into me putting him down to do dishes or really anything for that matter...) teething and his pearly whites weren't making it easy on him.

Popsicles Part 1

So I was sitting there looking through my pictures for July and realized that while I had taken almost a hundred and fifty photos that month they are almost all of the kids eating popsicles - and the few that aren't of popsicles are of the kids playing outside. But they are mostly of popsicles.

And then as I sat there and looked at the pictures even though I have many (many) more of a similar nature I cannot bring myself to get rid of any and want to share them all with you because they were all so fun. What is it about popsicles that can possibly make them so amazing? They are frozen sticks of juice/colored sugar water yet they are the highlight of our days.

Even though the box comes with four to six flavors and they have eaten them all before they always have to share a couple of licks with each other - you know so everybody knows what everybody else's popsicle tastes like. Although I'm fairly certain that if anybody has managed to get a lick off of Samuel's popsicle they've done it on the sly because that boy is very serious about his popsicle. He doesn't really share his frozen piece of heaven. (He'll happily take care of yours though if you wave it too close to him)

Liberty is another story - generally she will happily share her popsicle and is often waving it in my face so that I can also sample the flavor. This generally drives me nuts as I really don't like things being waved in my face but especially don't like really sticky things being waved in my face. I don't like sticky things. And whenever she does this to help me keep things in perspective I just try to remember that at least she is sharing which is wonderful since she's at that age where she doesn't even like to share singing the songs in the car with other people.

But I digress. Shall we turn our attention again to how intent Samuel is on his popsicle. The girls will occasionally laugh or play around or chat with me while they eat their popsicles but Samuel is all business.

I've only seen this kid throw an outrageous temper tantrum over two things: the door being closed so he can't get outside where the girls are playing and somebody holding a popsicle when he is not. I honestly don't think I've finished a popsicle this summer because I'm a licker rather than a chomper so I'm still sucking away on my popsicle by the time Samuel gets done. When he looks up and see that I'm still blissfully eating a popsicle when his is all gone he goes crazy and starts crawling all over me with his sticky hands. As if that's not enough for my immediate surrender (it usually is - I'm telling you I really don't like sticky) he will usually break down into the most unbelievable mess of tears. And because I can't stand the sticky and to be honest the half eaten popsicle just doesn't seem worth all the tears so I give in and hand over my popsicle.

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.

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.

Time to Play

Nothing says 'we need to spend a couple of hours playing at the park' like a beautifully sunny day after a number of chilly stormy ones.  So that's what we did.

Quite naturally Emmuska was eagerly trying to master the some new obstacle with as little (read 'seemingly deafness'...) verbal aid from her mother which ultimately landed her in this situation:

a few times actually.  Still it didn't hold her back because she is rather (read 'much too clever for her mother to keep up with her'...) ingenious when it comes to puzzling out these sorts of situations.

Yes - it's hard to keep up with her.

Sometimes it's hard for me to believe how big this guy is getting. Since I've been so remiss at keeping this blog up to date (something I'm trying to rectify starting with this post) I'll quickly bring you up to date with what he is doing lately. Mid-March he was quite good at sitting up on his own, mid-April saw his first two teeth and the cutest little crawl (which has worked up to impressive speeds...) and my mid-May he cut two more teeth (four total) and loves to pull himself up onto just about anything and make mad dashes for the backyard door if he has the slightest inkling that it might be open. He has gotten quite good at getting back down after standing up (with the aid of someone/thing) and has recently experiment with standing unsupported. As far as I could tell it went well enough that he'll probably be trying it again soon. And then I can only imagine what I'll be dealing with. ;)

Sorry about that long tangent - point being this little guy is growing so much and quickly. Long gone are the days of me holding him while at the park - he wants to be down and playing just like the girls.

Just like the girls.

Though often he has a hard time keeping up. (Notice they all started out at the same time...by the time Samuel got up the slide they were long gone...not to worry...they are about to lap him and that's good enough for him.)

I'm going to chalk Samuel's love of all things playground up to this tunnel. (Well that and his personality that seems to love just about all things period.) One day we came to the playground and Liberty was feeling quite sick (she threw up as soon as we got there).  I couldn't just take her home as I had an appointment later in the day so we were playing when Liberty informed me that she needed something out of the car. I left Emmuska in charge of Samuel while I ran to the car with Liberty. (Don't worry it was only a little stretch of grass away from the playground - I could see and hear them the entire time I was at the car.) Despite the brevity of my absence Emmuska managed to show Samuel the tunnel and it was love at first sight. Now I can't take him without him working his way out of my arms to get down then climb up to the tunnel.

Because of the slight angle and slick surface he usually has a difficult time making headway. That's were super sister Emmuska comes in. Every inch progress he makes she scooches up right behind him so he doesn't fall back and he continues to make progress.

And Liberty doesn't mind throwing in her help too. (Okay she just likes to hang out with everybody else...she has no real clue what's going on besides the fact that everybody is hanging out in the tunnel.) At just about every little opening Samuel has to stop and look. He's a scenic route kind of guy - all about being along for the good times and enjoying every vista.

I'm okay with that because I love the view too.

And to top the fun filled day off was this wonderful revelation:

Emmuska likes taking her brother down the slide. Samuel loves having Emmuska take him down the slide. I never have to go down a slide with a child on my lap again. No more mess of legs and sneakers trying to make it to the bottom because these things were clearly not designed for an almost six foot tall woman. I can now pass that fun opportunity on to the (appropriately proportioned) older sister. I love parks.