Diggin' In The Archives...

Sniff. Why do I get so emotional looking at old photos? I am looking for digital videos to burn onto a DVD and also badly need to clean up and organize my digital pics, and these were some notable ones I came across. My sweet friend Katie and her husband Wendall.

Samuel listening to Jude's heartbeat - oh, I could just cry looking at this!! I miss being pregnant...

My brother Joel and I on his wedding day.

Goat and Samuel - possibly the sweetest picture ever.

My siblings - Colin, Sarah (Joel's wife), Joel, Mary, myself holding David, my brother John, his wife Gen and Elizabeth.

Wisa's daughter Olivia, Samuel and Nicole's son Maddox. Back in the day.

Sarah and I working on dinosaur fossils at OMSI.

Play date with Jonah gone terribly wrong.

This one really got me emotional - this is Nicole's baby Maddox the day he was born and her mom (who has since passed away) is holding him.

Wow - this is Samuel and explains itself.

Random Blogging

After not so subtle prompting from my Bible study leader this morning, I decided that in order to be a sane mom alone with my kids for long periods of time, I will need to just focus on them and let the house stuff go for awhile. I really struggle with this because I have what I like to call a "Better Homes and Gardens complex". Which is very comical because I live in a very definite work in progress of a home and hardly anything is put together. Anyway, I decided that I really never take time to just sit on the floor and play blocks with the boys - I do bake with Samuel, but that doesn't really count for play time. So after letting Samuel choose our special activities for the afternoon, we built block towers (which we promptly destroyed) and made a paper mosaic from construction paper. I think it did a lot to fill his little love tank, and Jude really enjoyed it as well. I did ask my husband if he would rather come home to a messy house and a happy mom and kids or a clean house and a frazzled wife. He chose the former without hesitation. Here are some pics:
Jude peeking under our dining room table - I could just eat him up!

The block tower and surrounding debris.
Our construction paper mosaic - funny the things you keep when you have a kid...
Jude and Samuel pulled out the PS2 (yep, we're old school like that) and all of the electrical cords - they had lots of fun playing with those.
Here is a picture of our family project - seedlings we are growing before we plant them outside - the broccoli is blowing up like no one's business. I hope it transplants well because I would not be mad about fresh produce from our backyard. I am even composting into the soil - something I really never thought I would do.

This is just a funky picture of Samuel with terrible directional lighting, but different nonetheless. He of course was riding his bike.

Where Did The Day Go?

We ran to Costco to pick up my final choice for dishes - they aren't terribly exciting, but they are different and sturdy, which are both big pluses in my book at this point in my life. Did I ever mention that my life feels like the movie "Groundhog Day"? I love staying at home, don't get me wrong, but it feels like the same routine at the same times every day. As if new dishes will change that!!
Jude worked his way over to the Easter graveyard, if you will. I emptied out the baskets and placed what I thought to be all the empty eggs in them.
This is what Jude's expression was when I took the egg from him after smelling chocolate on his breath. And dripping down his shirt.
And this is what he was clutching in his hot little hand (I'm not even sure what form of chocolate he managed to get in his mouth). I had forgotten how much baby proofing goes into having a mobile almost 1 year old. I have come to the realization that candy may just be a parent's worst enemy - inducing hyperactivity and really only creating happiness within a child for a brief moment. Being the sugar fiend that I am, however, I can't talk much smack about the substance. I must run - I think I am going to make those yummy oatmeal cookies again =).

Pictures From Today

What is with Jude's flock of seagull hair here? Anyway, he is much happier now that he's mobile and getting into everything. Jude never crawled because he refused to be on his belly for any amount of time, but for the last five days or so, he inch worms on his bottom wherever he wants to go. It really never gets old watching him do this - I really should post a video.
Here's a sweet naked picture after bath time tonight. I really gambled by letting him go diaper free on the guest bed, but he didn't take the opportunity to pee.
His last smile of the evening - he promptly melted down after this in an urgency to get into his crib for the night.

I'm not sure where Samuel dug up these gloves, but he thought he needed them while throwing the slimy tennis ball for George. Yuk.

So, I'm going to take a moment to bash a movie that Colin and I endured last night and I think it's nothing short of the spawn of Satan. It was the older version of Sweeney Todd and I really didn't know what it was about when I ordered it off Netflix. There was so much fast forwarding and covering my eyes that we should have turned it off, but we were waiting for that redeeming ending that never came. In short, it had gratuitous sex scenes, horrific violence and monochromatic (is that the right word?) characters. I was so disturbed by it that I slept fitfully, bothered by nightmares. I would NEVER recommend this movie and will never get those two hours of my life back. Just my two cents.

Colin works the next 96 hours straight, so we won't be seeing him until Sunday after church. I may be blogging a lot, calling people a lot, or just rocking in a corner by myself while pulling my hair out. We'll see!

Three Easters!!

Here's Grandma Jan helping the boys open thier Easter treats.

I love this one - it's so telling of Rainier's pace - just sitting around looking out a window.
Here's Samuel doing an egg hunt with my mom.
Here's my dad with the boys - they love him.
Here's Jude on Aunt Michelle's lap admiring his new toy duck. Look at those jowels!!
And yes, these are the matching Easter outfits. I love them and think the boys look precious dressed alike. I only have a limited amount of time left to dress them as I please, right?

Yesterday was absolutely insane! We went to church in Sandy, to West Linn to visit the Niehart family, to Gresham to see my family and then to Rainier for the final stop. We decided that next year we will be doing our own Easter at our house - that much travelling with two boys left us absolutely exhausted. At any rate, yay for Ressurection Sunday and the sweet loved ones we shared it with!!

Before and After

I started by saturating the photo, adding a sepia tint, decreasing the opacity on that tint, adding glassiness to his eyes, and adding brightness. Does anyone know how to burn the edges in a brown color instead of black?

Just out of the camera.
This one I converted to b&w, then increased the contrast and brightness and added glassiness to his eyes. Then I burned the edges, which I haven't done in photos lately.

This is just a fun comparison at what comes out of the camera, and what happens in Photoshop. The middle one is just out of the camera. Boring!

Jude Turns 11 Months

I personally love the garbage can in the background here. I'm going for the construction zone look. I took the rest of the photos and added a sepia tint to them - all except for this one. This has harsher colors and more contrast - it's just something different.

The famous "deer in the headlight" look. Or "Why are you taking another picture of me?" look. Look how long his hair is!! And I could just eat up those cheeks of his. I did the eye trick in Photoshop here - it makes his eyes look a little more glassy, I think.
He went back and forth between eating rocks and Goldfish.
Sweet baby concentrating on two rocks. This picture probably represents him best right now - he has an odd fascination with rocks. And Jude's concentration face is identical to Samuel's at this age.

When Samuel turned 11 months, or 5 months, or any other monthly birthday for that matter, I would take him in to get this pictures taken. I thought money grew on trees then. So, Jude turned 11 months yesterday and, being the second child he is, I took his pictures. I'm so glad I didn't take him anywhere because the last picture was the first attempt at picture taking. So after a nap and some food, I tried again. Taking him outside really helped, not only for better lighting, but he was happier.

Jude Rides a Bike?

Colin's co-worker, who has three girls, gave us a brand new bike for Samuel. The only drawback? It's a girl's bike. Colin removed the girlish stickers and I think it can now pass for a unisex bike - Samuel loves it! He spent the day riding it around the house and Jude even got a chance to ride it. You can see from the pictures that he was not too sure about it. Sorry for the bad pictures - I was laughing too hard to take good ones.

Book Review & Recipe

Well, instead of reading what would have probably been the intellectual and very literary choice ("Sophie's Choice"), I read "The Friday Night Knitting Club" instead. And after reading it, I might compare it to eating a Costco size bag of Doritos - it's soooo good while you're eating it, but afterward your stomach hurts from all the junk. It was a quick read (300 some odd pages, but easy prose and interesting story) and one easily becomes attached to the characters, but I had to wonder why some of characters made the choices they did. The author does a wonderful job at keeping the readers guessing about the relationships and how they will develop, however, after I read it, I felt like maybe the time could have been equally spent watching Dr. Phil or possibly even Jerry Springer, if you know what I mean. I would recommend it for a mindless, kind-of-like-a-train-wreck-I-must-keep-reading, beach read, but nothing more.

In other news, I stumbled upon what could be the world's best oatmeal cookie recipe. I was craving oatmeal chocolate chip cookies but refused to pay the $6+ dollars Costco charges, so Samuel and I made our own. The recipe is on the back of the Safeway Old Fashioned Oats container and I added coconut, chocolate chips and raisins. I like to consider them energy bars of sorts and just graze on them all day. Terrible, I know. But so good.

I have found perhaps one way to save on groceries - it turns out Albertson's does take everyone's coupons (except for Walgreens and the like), so you can bring all your Safeway and FM coupons in there and they will honor them. I tried it yesterday and while the store is not that pretty, you can't be mad about a good deal.

I've been Ebaying (hence the slight lag in blog posting) for the past week just so I can have money that doesn't have a few dollars that don't have a name to them (as Dave Ramsey would say). I'm either saving for new dishes (it's amazing how my tastes have changed since my wedding) or an external flash for my camera. I shouldn't ever be using my flash, but the reality of it is that I do.

My mom bought the boys Easter clothes and I chose identical outfits for the boys. Is that breaking some sort of rule? Colin thought it was - but they are trendy little polos and jeans - cute, right? Like twins or something. By the way, the picture I posted of Jude is his latest favorite activity - playing with magnets on the side of the fridge. Also, if you blow up the picture, you will notice he has a constant rat nest on the back of his head from sleeping and having long hair. No matter what I do, it's always there. Time to cut his hair? Maybe, but we grew Samuel a mullet at this age, and Jude must have his fair share as well.

Jude's Growing Up!!

It seems that babies, in the first year at least, have reach developmental milestones almost daily. Yesterday seemed like a big one for Jude. I have been trying sign language with him since he was about 8 months old - nothing major, usually just a few like "eat" "all done" "milk" and then of course the usual waving and clapping. Yesterday, he picked up a sign in one day! He signed "hot" after I put a warm item of food on his high chair. He has been signing "all done" at the high chair for a few weeks and its wonderful. Baby's that learn to sign are supposed to be less frustrated because they can communicate before they can talk - we'll see. I'll keep working with him because he seems very interested.

I chose to post this picture because it includes the most coveted toy in our house - the boys fight over this toy every day, which is absurd because it was a Christmas present for Jude and Samuel claimed it as his own, being too big for it and all. If I want Samuel to get anything done, I ask him to ride the toy airplane and pick up his toys, etc.,.

Which Is the Best Way To Vote?

I've felt bombarded lately with the news about the presidential candidates. I felt I avoided the research for each candidate as long as I possibly could, so while feeling under the weather this weekend, I took the opportunity to go on each one's website and see what their platforms are. And after several conversations with Colin, close friends and other family members, I have had one lingering question: does one vote for (1) the "lesser of two evils", meaning voting for the candidate that has the best chance of winning, but not necessarily exactly in line with your views, or (2) the candidate that is closest to your views/morals, but has really no chance of winning whatsoever. I find myself stuck between just that rock and hard place - I could vote for the person who has a better chance of winning, or I could vote for the person I truly believe in, but literally throw my vote away. Does anyone find themselves in the same quandary? Does anyone care about this election yet?

Grandma "B" Comes to Visit!!

Alas!! Grandma "B" (Colin's mom) came to visit from California. It's been way too long (since October, to be precise) and the boys missed her so much. It was amazing to the see the last picture she took of Jude on her phone - he looked like such a baby! We all hung out at our house all day, reading books, catching up, pruning bushes (well, Colin did while we watched) and generally enjoying eachother's company. This is always the face Jude gives when someone kisses him. Samuel got the privilege of borrowing Grandma's camera and using it for the afternoon. He photo documented everything - and some of the pictures actually turned out!!
Samuel insisted on having a freckle above his lip just like Grandma.

Book time with their new books she brought!