I’ve been playing around in GIMP again and getting ideas from some tutorials on this website: http://gimpguru.org/. Here’s the original photo:

And here’s what I came up with:

The final one is a bit too bright up top still, but I really like the depth it brings having the foreground really pop. There’s so much to learn! It makes me happy to see what’s possible

Have a beautiful day!!

From Gramee to Lex, all the girls out this way. We ate food, did some window shopping and had so much fun!

It’s so fun to live close to these beautiful ladies. Let’s do this more often

And he loves M&Ms

This is another set of pictures from early September. I’m a wee bit behind…

We have this great set of play tents and tunnels that the kids looove, but are too big to leave up all the time so I tend to hide them. We’re trying to finish our basement now, though, so everything got moved up into the garage and guess what was in plain view To say they were excited is a gross understatement.

My kids like each other. It makes me happy.

Stottie got to ride in a baby swing all by himself for the first time in September…

He really liked it!

Pene was not to be outdone:

She was trying to imitate Stott’s creative swing maneuvers:

I’m not sure what had his attention back there. Hmmm.

And then when he got down, he made sure I was still paying attention:

With the weather cooling off just a titch in September and kids being back in school, the zoo is a much friendlier place. Mardson and his 2 five year old cousins all have early kindergarten, so they are done relatively early. We decided to take advantage of this and head up to the zoo while most older kids were still at school. Darron didn’t get to come because he and his whole family had been really sick the day before But Marli was still able to join us, so off we went. We started off at the marble globe, hopped on the train and went from there.

Off to see some primates!

Now the elephants, starting with the largest, of course:

Pene wasn’t too sure about this one; it made noises and sprayed water…right next to her! Marli felt right at home and Mardson felt like a real explorer (:

The real elephants were pretty cool, too. They were eating hay suspended in the air, and there was a cute little baby!

It was way too fun to stop for many pictures while we were at the different animals, but we did stop for close-ups with some of the other attractions:

We rounded off the entire trip with a stint at the park. Stottie loved bonks with the ball, and the other 3 had a grand time hatching!

I’m so glad we were able to get to the zoo before the weather turned cold. We had it mostly to ourselves, and it was so fun (: The zoo is such a magical place! There’s something amazing about seeing all of those exotic animals up close and personal.

Lovin’ bath time:

We did some strategic toy placement (:

In other news, the mess:

The culprit (never mind the runny nose, he was teething and getting over a cold):

Oh yes, he is proud of his work!

The fugitive’s mugshot:

So, about an hour before his class was done, Mardson showed up at home. Yes, that’s right. He ran home. Apparently he escaped during the bathroom break. Sigh…

So I finished feeding Stottie:

Then got the kids together:

And we dropped him back off at his classroom:

Doesn’t he look excited…

Oh well. What’s life without a little adventure? When we picked him up after school really ended, he told me excitedly about a treasure hunt they did for words and we went through his prizes. He really did enjoy his first day of school. He just takes his time easing into new environments and situations.  We’ll keep trying.

You can do it, Handsome Boy!

Our kids are growing up. I can’t decide if it’s more or  It’s so fun to see them learn and grow, but so sad to say goodbye to the cute little-person things they don’t do anymore. At any rate:

He’s at his first day of kindergarten!!

He was so excited to go and wanted me to help him be sure to get to class on time.

I’m so excited for my Mardson!

This was officially given to her for her birthday 2 months ago, but I took some in-the-process-pictures, too. I was trying to see what look suited the cut of the dress best and how Pene was most comfortable.

My first attempt with just the two pom poms and the belt didn’t quite seem finished, so I nixed the belt and added more red fluffs across the top.

Much better (: And she prefers it without the belt; I just put it in her hair now.

I used 3 fat quarters of material for the whole thing and that was pretty much perfect (here’s a quilt made with this same fabric line; so cute!). I didn’t follow a pattern at all for this, so it was a big guessing game with lots of trial and error. I enjoyed it though, so I guess that’s my kind of fun!