Fence Climber

Even in a dress she can't resist climbing on things.  Here she was wanting to see the three little dogs that live next door.  Peeking through the bottom of the fence was not doing it for her.  So she decided to climb.  Who said little girls were just sugar and spice with pig tails?  Both of mine are that with a bit of dirt and a great ability to climb.

Special People

What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies ~ Aristotle

Hope everyone is having a great weekend.  We are.  Spent the day at Santa-cali-gon days in Independence.  Lots of fun watching people.  Avary got her first air brushed tattoo.  We had some good food and came home with a few little treasures.

Be safe and enjoy the weekend!

Funny things

Kids say the best things sometimes.  For example take Miss Avary here...

Yesterday evening a storm was coming through town.  Lots and lots of rain, wind blowing and then hail.  We were looking out of the window in the backyard at amazement that the wind could blow over Matt's smoker.  Then the hail started.  Garrett and Claire weren't too sure about all of the noise from the hail.  Well Avary, being the concerned big sister that she is, looked at them and said, "It's okay guys, it's just the angels popping popcorn.  They'll be done soon".  Isn't that the cutest thing.  I have no idea where she came up with this, but I love it.  

Happy Friday to all of you.  Have a safe and fun weekend.

Happy Love Thursday

It's Thursday again and another "Love Thursday" is happening over at Shutter Sisters.  

This picture was taken in Kansas City's new Power and Light district.  It is part of the revitalization effort going on downtown.  So far the area is hugely popular.  

Have a great and wonderful "Love Thursday".

A little Princess Bokeh

Man oh man am I enjoying having my DSLR back in my hands!  The weather here is beautiful.  What better reason do I have to get outside and take some pictures.  Though instead of taking pictures of kiddos, I ended up taking pictures of Avary's new princess dolls.  In doing so, I was trying to practice my bokeh shots.

Bokeh?  What is this?  Well until recently I didn't even know what bokeh was.  I had always referred to it as depth of field.  Here is how Wikipedia defines bokeh: Bokeh (derived from Japenese bokeaji ボケ味, "blur") is a photographic term referring to the appearance of out-of-focus areas in an image.  I think of it as the out-of-focus area that creates a shape.

Here are two pictures from our little princess photo shoot that created bokeh.  

If you look in the background you will see circles in the tree and by the fence.  This is what I understand bokeh to be.  Have a great and wonderful day!

Back Home

My camera is back home where it belongs.  I was so excited about this.  The thought was that it would be gone for two weeks. Yet it's only been one week, to the day, that it was shopped out.  

Upon seeing the brown box sitting on the porch I actually let out a happy little "yippee".  I could hardly wait to open the box and see what had been fixed.  I did at least put the kids in the house before running to the door and bringing the box inside.

After dinner and jammies I took Avary outside to give the camera a quick 1-2 run through.  Everything seems to be okay.  They said they fixed the barrel on the lens, but I still don't think it's working correctly.  When I compare the pictures from tonight to the ones taken the first couple of days with the camera things just aren't as sharp.  It might just be the lens or maybe the user.  All I know is I'm a little sad now.  I was looking forward to the lens working like new.  But I'll just remain happy that it is home in time for friends coming to visit this weekend.

Here is the picture from tonight.  After being a little disappointed in the SOOC, I decided to play with the edits in Photoshop.  This is the end result.  

Car Fun

Over the weekend Avary and Matt went up to Omaha to see his folks.  While they were gone the twins and I went out for a while.  They were having so much fun in the car.  I just love to hear them laughing and telling each other "I luv you".  I didn't quite capture it in the picture, but they had been holding hands and giving each other kisses.  I don't think a Mom could ask for a better time in the car than the drive we had.

Another butterfly

Well the camera is still traveling the world and hopefully getting all fixed up.  So for the next two weeks ~ oh my goodness two weeks ~ I have to find other things to post here.  Hopefully I'll come across the point and shoot camera and be able to capture the kids.  But right now it is MIA.

Today I decided to play with photoshop a little ~ in between the twins wanting to help and sit on my lap.  This butterfly picture was so-so in my opinion.  Nothing was crisp and sharp in it.  So I thought it would be nice to add some texture (actually added 2 of them) and run a few actions on it to see what I could create.  

What do you think?  Does it work?  Do you like it?  I'd love to hear your thoughts.  Be nice, but be honest.

Water Fun

Yesterday the entire family went to a birthday party for one of the little girls in Garrett and Claire's class at daycare.  The Mom was smart and had the party at a park.  Not just any park though, it was a water/sprinkler park.  

There were three areas for the kids to play and have fun getting wet.  There was also a playground.  They had so much fun running and playing.  We only had one small casualty.  Garrett was climbing on this ladder thing and fell.  On his way down he hit his chin and proceeded to put his front teeth almost all the way through his lip.  Amazingly after cleaning up the blood and washing his mouth out he was ready to play again and only wanted to climb on the same ladder.  The boy knows how to get my nerves a going...

Here are a few more pictures to enjoy. 

Butterflies, Butterflies and more butterflies

It's that time of year again. Time for the Powell Gardens Butterfly Festival. Anyone who knows me well knows that I LOVE going to this every year. Usually I even go up to three times in the 10 days that it is going on. Here are a few pictures from my trip out to Powell Gardens yesterday. You can click on each of the pictures to see them larger. Hope you enjoy!

Ketchup

Exposure: 1/60
Aperture: f/5
Focal Length: 47 mm
ISO Speed: 500

I don't know what it is, but Garrett and Claire both LOVE to eat ketchup all by itself. They even ask for more. After finding him walking through the house with ketchup cup in hand I sent him back to the kitchen. I then went for the camera to capture the fun of a little boy enjoying his ketchup. I'm also practicing with natural light in the house.

Happy Love Thursday

While Garrett and Matt were out at swimming lessons the girls and I had an oreo cookie. Claire makes the biggest mess with them. She MUST open them up and lick every inch of the creme filling. Then she shoves the entire half of the cookie into her mouth. She has fun and thankfully she washes.

Here she is showing me the mess on her hands.

Of course Avary could not be left out of picture taking. She didn't want to stick around for very many, but she gave me one. Thankfully it was in focus and turned out pretty good. You can see that she didn't get her face too clean when I asked her to wash up.
Everything else here is getting back to normal. Of course our definition of normal has changed a little. The shock has worn off a bit from the layoff news. Still going through some of the other emotions that go along with it all. I'm taking this week to just reflect and think. Next week I will start the resume updating process and go from there.

Have a great day and check out Shutter Sisters for more Love Thursday postings.

~ Ice Cream ~

My Top 5 reasons to eat ice cream...

#5 - Because it's there and because I can

#4 - There is nothing better to relieve a pregnant woman's heartburn than ice cream (no not currently pregnant - just reminiscing) 

#3 - You can reuse the 5 quart buckets as Easter Baskets next year

#2 - The weather man said the high tomorrow is going to be 92 with a heat index of 110!

and the #1 reason for eating ice cream.....

It makes you feel a little better after finding out that your company is eliminating your department and has given everyone in that department their 60 days notice!

Yes, you read that correctly.  Today I found out that the QA department does not fit into the plans of our new company and therefore is being eliminated.  I, along with my team mate, have been given a 60 days notice.  There may be options to apply for a different job internally.  Or, I might find a job else where.  All of that remains to be at this point.  

The one thing I do know in all of this is, I am currently healthy.  All of my kids and family are healthy and we are all together to see another day.  From there I can only hope and pray that it all works out as God has intended!

Craziness

We've had a pretty busy week this week.

Garrett started swimming lessons on Monday. He was not that crazy about being in the pool, which surprised me so much. He did finally settle down and have fun. But then on Wednesday he started running a fever. After four days of a fever and two trips to the doctor he is back to normal. Thankfully.

On Tuesday night it started raining here. A deluge of rain came from the skies. Some areas in town got up to 8 inches. Here in Blue Springs we got about 4 inches - most in a matter of just a couple of hours. I was worried about our roof (having a few issues there) and worried about the sump pump. But hadn't thought about the back door down stairs. Until a couple of days later when the smell started. On Friday we had some carpet cleaning/restoration people out to fix the problem.

The picture above is what our basement looks like today. About half of the family room had water in the carpet. After a super suction cleaning, 3 fans and a humidifier I think we are just about dry. They will be back tomorrow to check on everything. Now we just have the fun of trying to figure out what the problem is before the next rain!

So here's to this week and praying that we can stay dry, the kids stay healthy and insurance comes through on the roof and water damage!