I heart Faces Dramatic BW Challenge

My entry for this weeks I heart Faces challenge. Bringing back an oldie from our vacation to St Thomas. Sigh.....

A little bit of fun....I heart Faces Fix it Friday

I heart Faces has a fix it friday every friday and I thought today I'd participate to take a break from the craziness that is my life. Here's the original photo.





Using Photoshop CS3, I did these fixes.

A home in progress....

Notice in the title of my post, I did not say "house", I said "home". I am so excited for this house we bought to become our home. We're in the home stretch now. And despite a few unexpected delays (ahem, termites), I think our April 15th goal of being completely moved in is attainable. I hope this house will be our home for years to come. It suits our personalities and provides the kind of environment we want to live in and raise the kids. And I can just hear some groans, and people saying, here she goes again gushing about the house. But I just luuurrvvves it so much. So anyway, if you want to see the beginning pics, you can check out this post here, or the flickr set here.
So these are some of the in between pics. Kind of. We've put down the hardwoods in the basement, taken care of our moisture/termite problem at the front door, in the process of repainting the kitchen cabinets and the rest of the house, working on the landscaping around the house, some deck work, and lots of other little fixes. The next post will probably be pics of us all moved in. :) I hope.

Engineered hardwoods in the basement


New backdoor, because the old one Nick struck with lightning

New front door because the moisture/termites made it seem like a good idea

A kitchen in progress

Making the deck safe for the dogs and the kids


Backyard firepit/play area

path up to the patio/deck and the grassy play area

And a bonus pic of the path along the lake

Annual Flower Walk

Every year when the flowers start to make their appearance in time for spring, Katie and I walk around the neighborhood and I allow her to take one flower of each kind we see. I know, I know, leave the poor flowers alone, right? But Katie LOVES to pick flowers and put them in a vase at home. So as soon as I started to see daffodils opening their blooms, I knew that Kate's request for a "flower walk" was not far away. So Monday, I think it was, we made our way around the neighborhood examining the flowers, learning what type they were and collecting one for the vase at home. I also have to take pictures for my own enjoyment, and yours of course. :)

Elephants

Wednesday night, Katie has her spring recital at school. Totally cute, and totally preschool. They sang like 5 songs, but out of the 5, this one was my favorite. Oh and she's an elephant because the k-4 song was about elephants. I have video of that too, but this one is by far the cutest.

I thought I'd post a pic of Katie and Corbin, (her "boyfriend"). She told me afterward that she had, "a terrible case of stage fright". She didn't expect there to be so many people at the concert. :) There's also a pic of my almost two year old terror. Don't get me started on the fit that he threw during, "Jesus loves the little children". Yeah....it was awesome. And the best surprise, (well ok, besides Katie just doing a spectacular job), of the night was that the school supplied dinner. We love it when people cook for us.
Do excuse the quality of these pics, they were taken with my point and shoot and it just does not handle low light well. And I didn't want to be blinding the poor kids by setting my flash of every 2 1/2 seconds.





k. P.S. I added one more. This one is cute too.

He's all boy....

I know my poor little blog has been ignored lately, but with the purchase of our house and the excruciating pace of life, it doesn't seem that I have as much time as I used to. But I thought I would post a few pics of Sam. Lately, he has definitely declared himself on his way to boyhood and out of babyhood. He's adorable, so check him out for yourself.



Lemon Eating



Bathtub Growls


Faster! Faster! Faster!


Oooooo Trucks......

Ooooooo.....Trains.....