Six Months

Princess Riley Cuteness turns six months old today. I'm convinced we're in some sort of time warp. No possible way she can be six months old already.

Zoo Trip

Trevor took Casey too the zoo on Monday and captured at least 200 great pictures to feed my growing addiction to Photoshop. Here's my personal favorite of Casey and her friend Maggie.

Set the background to black and white (except for the girls), dull the color on the girls, blur the background only and wa-lah!


Amplified cuteness!

Professional? Nope, just me

I have fully geeked out and am teaching myself to use Photoshop. All this time, I've been curious about the little tips and tricks that photographers use to make their photos look so cool while I'm staring at my ho-hum digital pictures. I bought "Photoshop for Dummies" and am beginning a new adventure in photo editing. Even if it's just for my eyes, I already can't believe the difference!

It started with a picture of Riley in our backyard:


A little Photoshop enhancing, and here's the after:


So then I took the girls to the park by our house, right when the sun set behind the mountains. I hear that's the optimal time to take outdoor pictures. Before:


After:


The coolest thing I've found so far in Photoshop is this little magical button called the "Healing Tool." It looks like a small Band Aid, but you click it anywhere in your picture...


and presto! Cars, lightposts and sticks in the grass magically disappear!

I'm sure I'll have more pictures to share later. I've just started learning, so for now, I'm taking massive amounts of pictures and selecting the best ones that I can edit. I'd better start buying some more picture frames too.

Clearly, my kids can't read yet.

Insightful Thoughts

Casey: "Mom, we're a family."

Me: "Yes Sweetie, we are."

Casey (after thinking for a minute): "Idiots aren't part of families."

Me (trying not to laugh too hard): "Actually, yes they are. Our family has quite a few of them."

And your name is...?

We had a pretty big milestone in our house last night. I was in our bedroom talking to Trevor after he got home from the gym and Casey came in to hand me her latest piece of artwork. I looked at it and my mouth dropped. Here’s why:

She wrote her name! Granted, she forgot the E, but we’ve only been reviewing how to spell her name for maybe a week. My mouth dropped!

I had an odd sense of euphoria for the rest of the night. I was absolutely beaming with pride! Sure, I’ve been proud before, but this was on a whole new level. This little girl didn’t even exist five years ago. Now, she’s somewhat literate. Even now, it brings a smile to my face.

Here are a few other updates (for myself as well, to read and remember later):

Casey has been in karate since June. She loves it! She takes classes through the City of Phoenix, so it’s super cheap and meets just once a week for 30 minutes. All they require is a t-shirt and shorts, but the first time Daddy took her to karate, she came home with a gi! I made sure to enroll her through the fall, at the very least to make sure we get our $20’s worth out of the new uniform.

Riley will be four months old next Saturday. Wasn’t she just a newborn yesterday? She smiles all day long and has found her feet recently. I ask her all the time, “Where are your toes?” and she smiles and grabs them. I doubt my question is actually answered because she’s usually grabbing her feet all the time anyway.

Trevor and a bunch of his co-workers formed a flag football team and will be playing games this fall. I’ve volunteered as a Co-Team Mom, so we’ll keep them hydrated and well-snacked throughout the games. If they do a good job, we’ve promised them Otter Pops after the game. Their eyes started dancing. Plus, you can buy like 5,000 of those things for $3.

Casey starts an intro to soccer class this fall, also through City of Phoenix. I figure she’s not in school yet, so we might as well try different things and slim it down based on her preferences once we get into an actual school year.

So gymnastics, swimming, karate, soccer, flag football practices and games. My kitchen calendar looks like a huge jumbled mess. Organized chaos at its best!

Portraits

I took Casey and Riley on a field trip to Target today to get their four-year-old and three-month-old pictures taken. I'd never tried Target's portrait studio before, so I thought I'd give them a shot. The $3.99 per sheet coupon swayed my decision just slightly.

Overall? Very impressed with Target! The photographer did a great job of making my girls smile (not a really tough job) and took almost two dozen pictures. The best part was that I was not once pressured into buying more than I needed, which has turned me off to a few other photo studios. "Oh, you only need five pictures? Well, if you spend just $300 more, you'll get four thousand pictures that you have no idea what to do with and feel way too guilty to ever throw out or shred!" Yeah, no thanks.

Here are the previews. The actual pictures take a week to arrive, like in the olden days when they were taken with actual film. I don't mind though. Not for $3.99 a sheet.