Why do we bother?

As parents, why do we bother to buy our little ones toys when they are this age? :) My little guy had an hours worth of fun bouncing off the walls, tables, chairs, couch..etc, with this garbage can over his head. He was giggling the entire time, and of course, the girls and I were giggling too.
Have you ever seen the movie 'Parenthood', when the little blonde kid puts a jack-o-lantern over his head and walks into the wall, knocking himself down? That's what I was reminded of watching him.
Yes, this photo will go in my 'blackmail pile'. ;)

Bye Ariel...

My eldest daughter and I took my niece, Ariel to the airport today. She came to stay with us for 10 days. It's been fun. It was hard to say goodbye. It will probably be another year until we see her again.
It's hard to be away from my family. Some days are harder than others.

I am so glad that she got to visit. It was her first time to Oklahoma, and her first time on an airplane. She was thrilled to fly for the first time. Ariel was more than ready to go home to be with her Mom, Dad, and brother. It's the first time that she has been away for so long.

My kids start school next week! Can you believe that summer is almost over? It is so hot here, it seems like it will never cool down. August is miserable in Southern Oklahoma. Much to hot and humid for my tastes.

When Life Hands you Lemons...

That's what I thought today, when I was taking these photos. :) "when life hands you lemons, make lemonade". I had this idea. I would get the kiddos some stuff to make a lemonade stand, then I would take some pictures. Well...the table that I wanted to use was too short for the big girls. Alexa, my 4 year old, didn't want anything to do with pictures today, and everything was falling everywhere. The kids had lots of fun. My little guy was covered in lemonade after the first couple of minutes. He was entertaining for all of us.

Ariel, the cute redhead on the left, is my niece. She's been visiting from Utah. We've had her here for 9 days now. Tomorrow we have to take her to the airport so she can go home. I'll miss her, and I know that my kids will miss her too. She's been lots of fun.

I bought these cute templates from Dale Ann Cubbage. She has several different colors and a couple different sizes. If you are interested in getting some, her blog address is http://daleanncubbage.blogspot.com/. She is a sweetheart so show her your love. :)

For Petra

It's been a while since I have posted. I was out of town for a couple of days, and I've had my niece visiting from Utah. She is 9. I have 4 kids in this house. They are wearing me out. :) Lots of fun though. I will be posting some pictures soon.

Petra asked me to help her edit her high key images. For the background I selected my dodge tool, used a large brush size and went over the entire background to lighten it up quite a bit. I can see a few spots that I missed across the bottom. It's a lot easier to see where the darker areas are when the image is against a white canvas. I am trying to get into the habit of extending my canvas, with white, while I am working on a high key image. Then I have white that I can compare it to.
I also lightened the entire image just a bit. Lightened the eye area to make them 'pop', cloned out some of the 'owies' and blood veins on his face, then sharpened them just a touch. Not much editing was done. The pictures are so cute Petra. I love this little guys hair and face. You really did capture some adorable expressions on the little guy. :)

On the second photo, I can see quite a few parts of the background that I didn't quite get white enough. This wouldn't have happened if I would have edited it against a white canvas, then cropped it back down when the editing was finished. It's hard trying to start a new habit though, isn't it? :)

A couple more...

Okay...one of these days I'll figure out how to get these photos in order...until then, you'll just have to guess which one I am talking about. ;) I have two 'critiques' that I have been asked to do. The first is a photo by Trula, which is the image of the baby. She asked about cropping, so...that's what I did. In the original photo, the subject is almost dead center so I cropped in closer. Yes, I cropped out the beautiful chair, but I felt that since the very bottom of the chair legs were cut off, and keeping the chair in the photo made the crop a bit static it didn't bother me too much. I think it adds more impact to the photo. What do you think? Oh, I also sharpened the photo just a bit.

Okay, next photo is by Heather. She wanted some help with her photo. To me, the photo looks quite dark, so I lightened it quite a bit. I also dodged the eyes, just a bit, to lighten them up. The background is a bit distracting, with the sunlight glaring through the branches of trees. Changing the photo to mono helps slightly with the distraction, but not completely. The last thing that I did was add a diffusion filter. I like the feeling that it gave this photo, adding to the sunlight coming from behind.
The two photos on the bottom are the originals.
Thanks ladies. :)