Day Sixty-Eight

Pampering starts early...

Ava loves pampering; whether she is pampering herself or we are pampering her.  She loves to have chapstick put on and loves to brush her hair.  It's funny to watch such a small little girl do "girly" things.  Like put scarves around herself and prance around.  I never could have imagined that she would take to those things so young.  She will see us doing things and want to be able to do it too.  Tonight she saw my Mom painting her nails and decided hers needed to be painted too.  Her Aunt Katie obliged her and she sat still for the entire process.  So cute!!!

O and her nails are a very light shimmery pink, not blue like Aunt Katie's.  Hopefully we can hold off the blue for a while :)

Day Sixty-Seven

The Monday Blues...

I woke up this morning feeling awful.  I was not as strict as I should have been this weekend and allowed myself to eat some dairy Sunday.  I knew better and I knew I would pay but I didn't know I would feel this awful.  I guess my system was starting to adjust to dairy free and I threw it back off.  Ughhh.....why does dairy have to be everywhere.  O well...back on track for me.  Hopefully by tomorrow I will start to feel ok again.

We tried to go back to the park today and let Ava feed the ducks but the people, o the people.  It was packed and packed is not our scene.  Ava got a nice little nap out of it all so it was worth the trip even if we didn't see the ducks.  We came home and I fixed some dinner and while I was cooking I managed to catch a shot of the tress turning red from the sunset.  Oh, and the blue sky...I love that color blue.  Ok, I love every shade of blue but this is one of my favorites :)

 

 

 I also added a song today.  It's a special song for me and the fellow Mom's in my Mom group.  This song was played for TLC promos during my maternity leave.  It was the song that we listened to during those first few special weeks.  This is for all of the wonderful MMT Mom's that follow me.

Day Sixty-Six

Busy Weekend Day Two...

We got to take Ava to the park today and it was so much fun.  She hasn't been since last fall and so much has changed since then.  She had a ball running around and we even got to eat lunch at a picnic table together.  Here is picture overload of the fun.

 

  

  

  

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Day Sixty-Five

Busy Weekend Day One...

On Saturday Ava and Mommy went to a bridal shower for my cousins to be bride.  The shower happened to be near the movie theater Aaron and I use to frequent (pre-Ava) so I thought it would be a good opportunity for our first trip back since having Ava.  Yes Aaron and I have only been out once alone and that was to dinner when Ava was about two months old.  What is there to say, we LOVE being with Ava and it's hard to go out without her.  It's just weird!

Anyways here are a few pictures of Ava at the shower.

The coveted ba'oon (cousin Amy is giving her a boost :) )

Grandma being a makeshift gate...Ava tried the whole party to get up the stairs.

Score...at the end of the shower we went up to get our jackets.

I didn't take many pictures because sometimes it's hard to enjoy parties from behind the lens.  After the shower Ava rode home with Grandma and Aaron picked me up to go see shutter island.  It was good and a nice treat for us both.  However we were happy to get back home to the little miss and go to sleep.

Day Sixty-Four

Meet Zoey...

Here are some shots of Zoey, our pot bellied pig, enjoying whats left of the snow.

 

 

Fix it Friday with I ♥ Faces

On Fridays the folks over at I heart Faces will post a photo that needs some fixin and then people like me (many much better) will make a post on their blog with the photo and their fixes.  It's fun to see what everyone comes up with.  Click on the button below to see what the other contributors came up with.

 

 Here is the original version of the photo for today's challenge.

 

Here are some of my fix it versions.

 

For this one I played with the curves and did some high pass sharpening.  Then I warmed and boosted the color a bit to help the photo pop.  I also did some high pass sharpening and lightening on the eyes to bring them out as well.

 

For this version I took the edited version from above but softened the colors and added a few layer hazes to gain a vintagy look.

 For this one I cropped the photo and just muted the colors just a bit more.

 

For my last "fix" I used the cropped version and did a B&W conversion on it.

Day Sixty-Three

Family Time...

We went out to blockbuster last night and got a few more movies.  Of course blockbuster changed their rates so we will need to look back into netflix to see if it would make since to do that now.  When we had showtime and HBO we never really rented movies because eventually they came out on one of those networks.

Anyways I did not get a good shot last night but it's not always about the shot but sometimes the story.  There were two contributing factors in the less then sub par shots.  The first factor was my lack of enthusiasm  for taking photos yesterday.  I was enjoying family time and did not want to focus my attention elsewhere.  Second was this certain little blue eyed, blond hair, giggly toddler who decided if she wasn't the subject then there would be no pictures.  Here is what happened when those factors collided into my anti-photag perfect storm.

then I attempted to bribe her with M&M's but nope she still pushed me away from the movies.

I decided to take a stab at another I ♥ Faces fix it Friday photo so I'll be back later with a post with my fixes.  Then I'll find something to concentrate my energy on today and share some more views of my world from behind the lens.