Youth

Monday

Has anyone else realized that there is just one more month left of school?  Where has the time gone?  What are we going to do this summer?  I really wish Natalya was up for the idea of some kind of day camp.  There are so many great ones around.   Anyway, I'll have to work on that because the thought of having them home all summer...eek.  Now I know how my mom felt. 

We had a very fun weekend as always.  On Friday night, we went to our local library because they had an Indian dance presentation.  I thought the girls could use some culture and Vienne loves dancing.  V was immediately smitten because the girls were SO fancy and sparkly.  She also loved that they were bare foot.  She stood on a chair and danced with the girls.  I couldn't help but smile behind her. 

 

You can see the fancy girls in the background. 

On Saturday, the HipChicks Christened the pool with the first swim.  It was about 80 degrees outside and about 78 degrees in the water.  No way was I going in.  The water needs to get about 10 degrees warmer.

 

 Daddy is always such a sport.  He braves the cold water.  It was his idea anyway.  He didn't have a choice.  Yesterday we went to Fiesta Texas (Six Flags) for the first time this season.  It was cool and windy but we made our rounds and the girls had fun.

And here is a picture of the cutiepie I took pictures of last week.

I don't think she could ever do wrong with a face like this.  I may post more after Mom sees them all.  This will be My Best Shot because it's the prettiest.  Have a Happy Monday!

Before and After

The Theme at Stacy's today is Before and After.  So I took it literally today and will show a picture before it was edited and after is was edited.  I posted this picture a few days ago of Natalya finally learning how to ride her bike with no training wheels.  Go, girl!

This is the before.  Still a cute face but she was a little far away and we have the looney dog in the way.  Rockey just has to be a part of everything.   Oh, she barks at bicycles.  So when Natalya rides down the driveway, Rockey chases her and barks.  Looney.

And this would be the after.  Cropped of course, to bring her closer.  Then I took out the looney dog.  You would never know, huh?  When I cropped it it took most of Rockey out but there was still her back and tail in the picture.  I did that with the patch tool (nice tutorial, the dude is trying way to hard to be funny so I apologize in advance), clone stamp tool, and spot healer.  Just a little bit of each.  I added, viewed, if I didn't like it, I backed up and tried again.  Then I do my usual, curves, contrast, hue/saturation, sharpen.  Not necessarily in that order.  If you try the patch too or clone tool, let me know.  I'd love to see what you've done.  The best way to learn is to play.  It won't hurt the picture to mess around as long as you don't save it. 

Ok, Happy Love Thursday.  Thursdays are always a busy and long day here.  Oh, I get to take some pictures today.  Of someone other than my own children.  Yay.  Wish me luck.

Happy Earth Day

Natalya is studying rocks in school.  So yesterday when she got home she wanted to go out and search for rocks.  

Did you know:

• the US consumes 200 billion plastic bottle each year
• some of these bottles of water are transported from across the globe and require up to 7 bottles of clean water in the production of each bottle container
  
• eight out of 10 plastic water bottles used in the United States become garbage or end up in a landfill
• the amount of oil needed to make those bottles equals about 15 million barrels a year, or enough to fuel 100,000 cars for a year
• manufacturing the 30+ billion plastic water bottles we bought in 2006 produced more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide and used three times the amount of water in the bottle.

What can you do?

Municipal water systems have higher standards for cleaning water than bottled water companies do.  Buy a reusable water bottle and fill it up from the tap.   Almost seems too easy, doesn't it?  Then you don't have an excuse.  Happy Earth Day!

The Ride of Her Life

 Daddy took the training wheels of off Natalya's bike on tonight.  She is officially a bike rider now.

 

Is this a proud face or what? 

Isn't it hard to watch your children struggle through milestones like this?  We were actually surprised that she got it so quickly, literally within one hour of having the training wheels off.   But she got frustrated in the beginning.  I kept wanting to say, "It's OK, you can quit and try again tomorrow."  But I just kept watching and hoping that she wouldn't hurt herself trying.  And then I watched those moments when she was getting it and I could see on her face that she knew she got it.  And then she flew.  "Come back, don't go too far!"  I could hear my heart saying.  Won't be the last time, I know.