Monday Mugging

I really should fold the laundry.

Or vacuum.

Or get dressed.

But there is this incredibly cute distraction in front of me.

And it is so fun to watch him now that he really looks back at you.....

And smiles at you.

Yep. Who am I kidding. I'll be lucky to get lunch!

Playing With Paint (and Asking Sherwin Williams for help)

We are working on the addition to our house again.  The inside is progressing quickly but soon we need to deal with the exterior, which has had plywood but no siding for a year now.  It will be difficult to match the existing siding, so I am trying to design a total plan for the house that makes the areas with different siding look intentional and not haphazard.  I am thinking about playing with paint to both unify some areas and create accents in others. I have been googling and pinning lots of ideas related to log homes (what we currently have) and craftsman style cottages (the direction that I want to take out house). In the process, I stumbled onto Sherwin William's website.  Do you know about their color selector website?  You can upload a photo of an interior or an exterior and then select different areas to "paint".  It takes a little time to get the hang of masking off different surfaces to receive different colors all in the same image, but it is SO cool to see the options on my house with my green roof effecting every color choice! Here is where I started tonight.

And here are four different color schemes that I found sing the color selector website.  We are looking to add cedar shakes on the peaks of the roof and probably a vertical board and baton siding on the addition (currently covered in Lowes brand Tyvek).  The new siding will be painted to match the stain on the wood log siding on the front of the house, so I wanted colors that log siding comes in or weathers to become.  I think we would just stain the wood, but I am tempted to paint the white caulking on the log siding part so that the white stripes aren't distracting from making a cohesive image. Is that wrong of me to want to make my log cabin look less log like?  Id love to hear your thoughts on mismatched siding, painted log cabins, and my color ideas.  I have two favorites.  What are yours?

Decorating the Boy

When Lydia was born, someone at church referred to her as "the one they decorate!" It was easy with a girl to make a hair bow or add a ruffle. With a boy, just finding cute clothing is hard enough. Accessories are few and far between.

I have decided to keep my eyes peeled for cute socks and hats. I have found some great striped and argyle socks and I love the grey hat pictured above. (I also seem to have misplaced it during our recent trip to Iowa.... So sad!) So, I'm now in the market for more hats. While looking closely another bigger hat, I noticed that the construction wasn't terribly difficult and thought I would try to make my own.

I bought a flannel shirt at a thrift store and used a larger hat as a pattern. I think Joshua is pleased with the results! Considering how cold it is getting this weekend the new hat should prove to be more than just a decoration!

I Want a Vitamix!

My cousin has been telling us about her Vitamix and I think I am a convert! She had us over for dinner and almost everything was made in it.

We had a roasted red pepper soup first. The raw ingredients went into the machine and after a few minutes, not only was it blended velvety smooth, it was HOT! Something about the speed of the blending and science and stuff. All I know is it was nutritious and warm and delicious.

There was talk of some really delicious margaritas, but we skipped that as the night was getting long. Instead, she made us strawberry ice cream. Frozen strawberries, a little milk and some sugar blended for just a short time and we were done. It was SO good!

I don't think I've eaten so many fruits and vegetables in one meal, or seen a meal prepared so quickly. After each use, the Vitamix was cleaned by running some soapy water through a blending and it was ready to go again. It sounds like the Vitamix can handle just about anything...... But if you mix bass in it, then you get a Dan Acroyd SNL sketch and NOT a tasty dinner!

The Annual Iowa Cousins Photo

Every year when we drive to Iowa, we try to get a picture of all of the cousins together. So far everyone has made it to town for at least a short period of time so every cousin has been in every picture. This year we added two new babies!!! (Joshua and Elivia) here is my picture of the group followed by my pictures from the last three trips.

Two Favorite Photo Apps (and more Baptism Pictures)

Have you discovered the Walgreens phone app? It lets you upload pictures from your phone and have them developed at the Walgreens of your choice. I absolutely LOVE it! I am now taking ALL of my pictures on my iPhone but I am terrible about connecting it to my laptop to download and eventually print my pictures.

Apparently, the Walgreens app lets you do other cool pharmacy related things, but I have only tried the picture developing. In my world that's WAY more important than medicine! The app can also link up to Facebook to print the pictures you post there and they have this "printworthy" feature that prints your pics WITH all Facebook comments. That could be fun for something like the picture I posted letting everyone know that we were expecting, but I haven't tried it yet.

What I have done a lot of, is upload pictures as events happen. Lydia has a soccer game, I upload the best photos. Joshua is baptized, I upload the best photos. The app only lets you upload 5 pictures at a time, but you can do multiple sets if 5. You also have to print everything that you upload in the same size, so some pictures I upload twice to get them as 4x6 and as 5x6. My biggest issue right now is that I upload in such small batches, I sometimes forget to pick them up right away. So far my local Walgreens hasn't minded holding my photos for a few weeks.

This weekend, the Walgreens app came in particularly helpful as I was REALLY pressed for time but I wanted pictures of Joshua in his christening clothing on display at his party. I only had a few minutes to take pictures of him on Thursday night and then took a few more Saturday morning. I uploaded them while out of town Saturday afternoon and picked them up later that night with just enough time to get them in frames for Sunday.

My only other issue with printing directly from my phone is that some photos really NEED editing. When I was using my camera and laptop, I loved photoshop to brighten or enhance an image. I tried the actual photoshop app on my phone but was disappointed that it lacked many of the features available on the computer. Then I found the photogene app.

Photogene let's me do pretty much everything that photoshop lets me do on the computer. I can do typical stuff like crop a picture, but I can also adjust color saturation, selectively blur, and even clone areas. Above and below, you can see a few before and after pictures from the baptism this weekend.

Finally, here are a few more pictures, taken on my phone, edited with photogene, and printed at Walgreens using their app.

Christening Clothing and Baptism Blankets

On Sunday, we will celebrate baby Joshua's baptism. For both Joshua and Lydia's baptisms I have been blessed with a beautiful hand sewn outfit from my mom and a special blanket crocheted or knitted by my sister.

Above you can see Lydia's baptism portraits taken at JC Penney's. It's the only set of pictures that I had taken there where I was not terribly excited about the results. So, this time around I decided to try taking a few pictures of Joshua myself.

I set him in our yard, in a basket that was cushioned with the beautiful blanket that my sister made. I can't knit or crochet, so I am always amazed that my sister can make these intricate designs. I am also in awe that she will unravel large portions of her work if she discovers a mistake. I would ignore the problem and my knitting would never look right!

Above is a picture of the christening blanket that my sister made for Lydia. I believe it is crochet. Below is a close up of the smocking on Joshua's outfit. My mom took a class in smocking a couple of years ago. Lydia's dress was made before she knew the technique.

I feel so fortunate to have such talented and giving people do so much for my children on these special occasions!