Bath time is play time

Friday night we had a wonderful relaxing night in with the kids, movies, and pizza. Ok the movie we rented wasnt all that good but it was nice. Saturday I woke up and my hubby had already been gone for sometime hunting with his brother in law so I got the kids ready dropped them off with a friend of mine and went to an estate auction. We got kinda bummed because the house went for higher than it should have because the guy owning the farm around it wanted more land (whats 1.7 more acres) its disappointing because we just want a nice house not to buy up all the property like monopoly. We stuck around and got a 2 boxes from the auction tho. One was a huge box of kitchen pots and pans, it ended up having 3 cast iron skillets in it and a small crock pot!!! The smaller box was kitchen utensils we bid $10 on and one lady wanted the old egg beaters out of it and gave the $10 just for those so she bought our box. Picked up the kids had a late lunch with them and come home. Was getting all the kids ready to go spend the night at nanny and pas and the twins got ahold of my phone and threw it in the toilet!!! ugh so run up to the cell company before they close to get an old phone hooked up while my other one sat in rice to dry out. Then we dropped the kids off and headed to date night where I got a wonderful dinner and then taken out to midnight bowling. I was soooo excited it only took 7 games but I finally beat my hubby with a huge score for me of 176!!!! YAY...

another creative challenge

I simply can't pass up the chance anymore to put my creative side to work and on photography!!?? forget about it I am solidly hooked:
this is the original picture this weeks challenge is asked to fix:

 After my editing it looks like this:

 I think I did so much to it that I don't know if I remembered all the steps in order but I use PSE 7.0
First thing I did was made a copy of the pic and use the skin color correction tool but I layered it on in overlay mode about 50% then I used the saturation tool increasing the background color like 60% but masked out the couple.  I then put a bokeh called Sound of music from Katie Lloyd Photography blog but again masked the couple.  I used a feathering technique to put a vignette along the outside of the photo and lightened the shadow from under the bill of his hat.... quite a few steps but I like the final look.

PhotoShop Challenge Liquify

 Before editing SOOTC

my b&w plus liquify  hope you like it!

a wee bit wednesdays

{one} what time do you normally wake up?

I have to get my oldest daughter moving at 5.30am once I have her on the bus at 6.10am if no other kids are awake I sleep more until they start moving which is normally about 7.30 am

{two} do you have a go-to song for karaoke?

I have never sung karaoke don't know that anyone else wants to hear it either.  I save my singing for in the car.

{three} if you could only see black and white except for one color, what color would you choose to see?

blue, it maybe would help keep me serene.

{four} what color best matches your personality?

maroon, full of punch and vibrancy

{five} if you could choose one meal to cook better than anyone else, what would it be?

Alfredo (shrimp, seafood, or chicken) then my hubby would be in heaven

{six} how many keys do you have on your key ring?

I have two sets on that i use all the time and one set that is used less often on the first is my house and my car keys on the other set I have a lock key, my house (in case I leave first set inside and lock myself out) my parents house and when I am working my work keys.

{seven} do you give your pets birthday/Christmas gifts?

no I am not really that animal friendly I have enough kids demanding affection

{eight} when your plate has different foods on it, do you mix or not?

I have started to learn the benefits of mixing but when I was little it was a definite NO!!!

{nine} if you could hire someone to do one thing for you all the time, what would it be?

Clean my house but mostly just do the dishes... I detest dishes and long for my own house so I can buy a dishwasher!

{ten} when flying, do you prefer the window or aisle seat?

Doesn't matter to me one way or the other.  I have no preference.

It's Wednesday again time for some black & whites

I am so thankful for the time I have with my kids and the fun we had this weekend at the park.  The kids played so long and hard that in the car on the way home within moments they were all asleep! Very peaceful drive for me.  I am looking forward to next week.  Not only is it Thanksgiving but my birthday as well.  My oldest will be out of school all week and I am hoping to get a family picture taken for my christmas cards.  (my hubby doesnt want one with just the kids... coulda knocked me down with a feather I thought he hated pictures! :p)  Tomorrow we go for the first of many Christmas dinners, this one being for his work.

Crazy crazy weekend!

When it comes to weekends its never really dull around my house but I truely think this one could have gone better.  It started off really good I went down for a playdate at a park with my mom and sisters:

but then Sunday I went out to go shopping with my kids.  Hubby opens one of the rear doors and I don't know how it happened but somehow in the process the back window of my van shattered.  Scared the living daylights out of everyone!  Shopping trip then cancelled and now onto calling around to get repairs done.  Thank goodness for full coverage insurance taking care of the glass.  Shew....

Season's Greetings!!!!

I know I can't believe that its that time again!!! Time to get cards ready to be sent out in time for Christmas. I love this time, it's the excuse I use every year to get a family picture taken. As you can see I have started to build my Shutterfly photo cards and am truely excited to see them delivered so I can share this awesome card with everybody. Right now they are hosting a ton of deals on picture products that are great for Christmas! These calendars are great for a snap shot all year round! You can be your most creative either with existing pictures or the chance to take more pictures just for these gift ideas!  http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars

Christmas Cookies Christmas

Shop Shutterfly.com for elegant Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

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It's super fun and easy. If you like story cards you can try your hand at one of your very own with this link: http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-story-cards  
For those blog friendly people there is a link just for you! Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly. Learn more: http://bit.ly/sfly2010

I swear there are so many good designs this year that I can't choose my favorites
just check out this good design

If I could possibly decide on just one design and get my order in I could get my pictures out first thing in December and that is so on my too do list now!

Fun in the leaves

Photo Session

Ok so I have been going on and on about needing new pictures to put thro photoshop with all the new tricks I have learned and now I think I have a new favorite photo and none of my kids are looking at the camera!! They got fascinated by a nearby squirrel of all things.  I think the color turned out amazing!  Lovin the fall....

Miscellany Monday

In the spirit of randomness.....

1) Place a timer and don't PhotoShop while boiling eggs. If forgotten (which is easy to do when photoshopping) the eggs will explode, not pretty by the way.

2) Eggs are not the only things messy unsupervised :

3) Facebook is wonderful to catch up with family that you haven't talked to in many many years but it will make you feel old! Cousins that I remember being in diapers when I was ten have kids of their own now.

4) The holidays are coming up quickly and I can admit that I am nowhere near ready but the deals on Halloween costumes are great!  I bought all 4 kiddos costumes for next year and only spent $8.  We will have a ninja, Luigi, Batgirl, and a witch.

I am having entirely too much fun playing with things in Photoshop now that I have had somethings shown to me that I didn't even realize was possible.

Photo manipulation

After starting to get new hints at using photoshop the other day this is the start to my improving photos:

Before:

and After:

Before:

After:

I think I am getting the hang of this!

YAY! I am so excited I am starting to understand configuring blogger. Between that and learning new Photoshop tricks my eyes are cross-eyed and I'm popping Tylenol but so excited! I really really really want to take the family out for a photoshoot now so that I can try out some new tricks (that and I really need new family pictures in time for christmas cards). If only I can keep them from harming themselves. Alexis has a scratch just below her right eye and middle of her forehead from tripping over her own two feet. Logan caught the coffee table with the end of his nose making it red. Maybe I will go ahead and take the pictures cause I can always photoshop out the worst of the damage. hhhmmm so many ideas in my head!!! yay

B&W wednesdays

Something fun to do....  Black and White Wednesdays!

My littlest man Logan (the only one without blue eyes like me!)

Gavin Tyler looks up to something

Alexis Marie in a pile of plastic bags she was tearing into!

too many ideas...

Starting to blog I am thinking of things constantly to talk about but then I still at the computer and stare at the screen wondering which of a 1000 ideas sounds good enough to be today's topic.  Its like my scrapbooking, so much to do I don't know where to begin.
1)     I guess I can start with a recent event.  Like any other Saturday I did some laundry, bathed the kids, got them down for naps and then took a shower myself.  While showering the water level started to rise... so I got the plunger and tried to work the drain a little bit and oddly enough the toilet started to make noise.  Come to find out the toilet, my shower, and the bath tub were all filling up with water.  Annoyed now I got dressed and went to see how the rest of the house fared.  The bathroom down the hall was flooding too!!! Oh no!  So I did text my husband at work and tell him about the plumbing then I tried working the drains again realizing that it was just transferring water to another location I decided to stop.  Then my husbands calls to tell me his mom and dad were on their way over to fix the problem.... Great! At least I had been warned so now I am trying desperately to clean.  I am by no means a plumber but when the whole houses drains are filling back up to me that is a septic tank issue that wont be solved by a plunger but now I get to sit back and watch as someone plunges water all over both bathrooms and then tracts that nice sewer water all over my house for an hour!!!! Even had to turn the water shut off valve on the toilet cause now water is coming out on the floor.  Finally got him persuaded to take a look outside so the water mess was curbed on the inside at least.  Then I get a lecture on how this entire house is plumbed wrong.  It's a rental... do I really care how its plumbed when its working?  Not really.  Besides that it is a double wide mobile so really the plumbing made sense just not when the septic tank is where it is on this piece of property making some piping seem, yes, stupid when it has to backtrack.  I have had a water leak under the kitchen somewhere that NO one would look at or fix even the landlord.  2 years it has been there and now with this event I was told finally where that leak was and that for less than $10 and 30 min. it could be fixed.  Now I am mad (thankful it FINALLY got fixed) really mad that it only took 2 years and my kitchen floor falling in!!!!!  My husband comes home and they snake the house looking for the clog in the pipe.  A clog that in my mind did not exist.  It took quite some time for them to see it my way.  So they dug up the access to the tank and low and behold its full.... imagine that.  They get a shovel and break up some of the stuff formed on the top making a crust which was to some extent clogging the intake to the tank poured in some tank treatment and buttoned everything back up.  I was under the impression that meant Monday I would be calling someone to come pump it but now that everything drained and hasn't backed up again there is no need??? Men (shaking my head) should just listen to women sometimes.  "Honey the pipes are backed up everywhere in the house could you please get the tank pumped" "yes dear"  would have saved us an entire Saturday of muddy work and me having to clean septic water out of both bathrooms, not to mention out of my carpets. 
2) I need a notebook to carry with me to catch all my ideas.
3) Alexis cracks me up.  I caught her beating her twin brother over the head with a crock pot lid.  A little bit later she is crying... she put her finger in his mouth and he bit her, DUH if you put something in a babies mouth they will bite it.  (and I think he was paying her back for the crock pot lid)
4) My oldest daughter has the amazing ability to never find anything even if its right in front of her face so when I asked her to get me my camera off the computer desk and she didn't find it I sent her back to look again and again and again until my husband said "you mean the one on the radio?" hmmmm note to self sometimes its not her ability to not find something... maybe once just once it's cause it's not where I thought I had left it.

Wary.....

My oldest daughter has had some stomach problems that could be viewed as a child attending public school and catching every known bug passed around or something unknown is wrong.  Its not fun to have a child have throwing up spells once a month.  It's not everyday but it is random.  Weird enough that the Dr ordered an upper GI.  So last night at midnight she had to start her prep.  No drinks or food.  Then had nightmares half the night keeping me up so both of us were really sleeping come 7 am this morning.  The upper GI seemed to be no big deal for her to do.  She wasn't scared and cruised right through it, guess I was the nervous one.  The nurse told me that no news is good news but the Dr should have the results wednesday.  After the procedure the radiology tech told me the Dr will know something by 2pm TODAY...... um help now I am worried.
Wednesday 11/3 update:
Dr did indeed have the results Monday by 2pm HE was too busy to review them and upon calling his office this morning he is not in yet and has a meeting so I'm getting frustrated cause I am dying to know something!!!