Playing with Photos

I am starting to really experiment with photos and how to manipulate them after the shot is taken. I use a "point and shoot" camera right now, which means that I don't have a lot of control over the final product. The camera works pretty much on auto and if I don't use the flash the pictures come out very out of focus.

I was reading my new favorite blog, Confessions of a Pioneer Woman, and she talked about brightening up pictures after you take them. I don't have a fancy program right now, just whatever came with Windows, but I think it works pretty well. Example, here is an original picture, straight out of camera:

After I played around with the brightness and contrast levels, I ended up with this:

Definitely a brighter, more vibrant picture. Maddie pops! The background is a bit glaring, but not that bad for what I am using. I am planning on purchasing Photoshop Elements which will be more effective and hopefully teach me a lot. Another future dream is a DSLR camera, probably the Nikon D60, but that is a purchase for another day!

Here is a Katie before and after, just so she doesn't feel left out! (This was brightened and cropped.)

Widgets

Since I am new to this whole blog thing, I was trying to spice up my page with "things you can put on the side" as I incorrectly call them. I found this site www.widgetbox.com and it has a ton of "things you can put on the side" - I want to get pregnant again just so I can add a baby ticker! (No, I'm not.)

You can get the weirdest widgets there - from Maukie the Virtual Cat (scratch him between the eyes) to a Baby Diaper Calculator (I don't even want to know...).

I haven't decided which one I am going to add, yet. Hmmm ... suggestions?

Broken

Oh, I want this part to be over. So very badly.

I finally have the girls convinced that their beloved ba-ba's are "broken," which Katie repeats forlonly but matter-of-factly several times a day. She sighs in the middle of coloring, "Ba-ba broken," and resumes with her favorite color yellow.

However - now I am dealing with a liquid strike of sorts. Maddie barely peed at all yesterday, which of course sent me straight to the phone to call their doctor (who I love to death)...

"Is she dehydrating?"

Chuckle. "No."

"They aren't getting any calcium now!" (I don't have a single cavity and I think my brothers each have one - and I am determined for that gene to be passed along to the girls. I know ... that's been predetermind - nature vs. nurture, etc.)

Chuckle. "Give them an extra yogurt. Give them their vitamins."

Through this conversation, Maddie consumed two cups of water/juice mix. Good - now at least dehydration is off my mind.

Katie is a bit easier to deal with - I have resorted to holding her in my arms and she will drink a good portion of her milk that way. She isn't crazy about holding it on her own, though. Case in point: yesterday morning she bit down on the sippy cup spout and pulled the cup part down. Cup opens - milk everywhere - she is soaking wet sitting in a puddle of milk in her high chair. Ugh. Andy, my knight in shining armor, gives her a bath before getting ready for work.

Don't even talk to me about potty training.

Poll: Which cup is the best? Leave me a comment! I need to know!

The moment where it all began .... (Maddie on top, Katie on bottom)

Andy's eyes

Just two of the reasons I love him.

They may have won the battle, but ...

Andy's attempt at sippy cups:


7:30 am: Pitter patter of little feet running in the kitchen. Giggle giggle.

7:31: Clicking of the high chair straps. "Ba-ba?"

7:33: Crying. "No cup!"

7:36: Screaming. "BA-BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

7:40: Banging - cups falling - kids wailing. Strangly, no sound from Andy.

7:41: Complete and utter silence.


Back to basic training, Private Carroll.

Calgon, take me away

This past week has been ridiculous in so many ways. Andy was away in North Carolina and I really really really don't like being in this house alone. My mom used to stay with me whenever he went away (which thankfully isn't often) but last time she said I snored (AS IF!) and she didn't sleep at all. Since my mom goes work when the rooster crows, I figure she needs here rest and I told her I'd be OK alone. But really I'm not.

I sleep with the light on. I sleep with the TV on. I sleep with toys stacked up in front of the backyard door from the playroom because the deadbolt is broken - and won't plastic keep the burglars away?

It poured this week and all Wednesday night the lights flickered. Great.

Last night the TV went out - and it freaked the ever-lovin out of me. I was convinced that someone cut the line - even though it would have made more sense to cut the phone line. Maybe they just wanted me to miss the last few minutes of Project Runway - burglars are mean. After calling Andy and being more frustrated with him than was necessary ("Come home and fix it!") - I finally turned the power strip on and off several times until the cable box rebooted. I'll never know how all those peacock feathers ended up on that dress.

Then, I get the GREAT idea that THIS will be the week I break my girls from the bottle! Because I don't have enough stress in my life. Yes, I meekly say, my girls are still on the bottle. I know, I know - they should have been off by 18 months, 12 months, 9 months, never have started one in the first place. But after my attempts at tandem nursing failed, I pumped. A lot. And I had to find a way to get those nutrients into my babies. From ages 2 months to 8 months they drank 4 ounces every two hours. Let's see ... 12 bottles, times two ... 24 bottles were being washed and dried EVERY DAY. (Many of you were there for that craziness - go on ... raise your hand ... be proud.)

Once they started on solids and really began to eat the bottles subsided little by little and now they only get three a day. I don't think I noticed or cared very much until this summer when I started tons of playdates that no one else's two-year-old drank from a bottle. Embarassment set in. I remember we were at a birthday party and all the sippy cups were being plopped on the table and I reached into our bag for the bottles - Andy looked at me wide-eyed and shook his head quickly. It was time.

That was 2 months ago.

My efforts this week have been so-so. The first day the girls thought the sippy cup was a great - "Isn't Mommy being cute giving us this new toy? Take a drink? Sure - just this once!" By day two it was "Umm .. didn't we do this yesterday? No - really - you had your fun." Days three and four I gave in (I knooooooow ...) and today it was outright screaming and flailing and banging and throwing. Everyone in a ten mile radius heard, "BA-BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Andy came home tonight (yay!) and he knew the plan. He does the morning shift 99.9% of the time and the three of them have their routine down pat. I warned him about the threats I have been receiving in little crayon scribbles if I ever dare to give them a sippy cup again. He said he could handle it - and went to bed.

I am off to bed myself now. I'll let you know who won.

I Love This Picture!

This picture is great. It totally shows the girls and their personalities in so many ways!

Katie is a drama queen. Many people think it, I actually say it. She freaks out at the smallest things - the other night she started screaming because she couldn't eat spaghetti ("cobetti") with a spoon. It wasn't that I wouldn't give her the spoon - she had one - she just couldn't figure it out and it frustrated her to no end. But along with the drama is perseverance and spirit. She will do something over and over until she gets it - and will say "Mama helps you" if she needs me. She also loves to dress up - she picked out that outfit herself - down to the bells on her ankles. The hat is too small for her but she HAD TO HAVE IT and we squished it down. She is such an individual and I hope she never loses that.

Maddie is a stubborn one. She cannot be persuaded to do something she does not want to do. When I want to change her diaper and call her over to the changing table, she flings herself onto the closest object and sighs/grunts loudly. I copy her and start flinging myself all over the place, too, and that cracks her up - she laughs in a hearty belly laugh like Tim the Toolman Taylor - but she still is not coming to the changing table. She is still my baby in many ways and is a little rag doll. She loves to "flop", as you can see above, if we are trying to get her to go somewhere or do something she doesn't want to - she just relaxes all her muscles and falls to the floor. But her concentration level is amazing - and once she gets involved in a task she stays there a good while. She takes a book and says, "I reading" and will mumble her way through it. If it's a book we read a lot she remembers and recites most of it as she turns the pages. Her memory is great.

I always wonder what they will be like when they get older - I can't wait to see.