Photo magic

I love my new camera but I was disappointed to realize when I first got it that pictures don't automatically come out of it looking amazing and professional and all that. They come out looking like regular pictures. So I read about lighting and aperture and shutter speeds. All very good stuff but not really keeping me awake the 10 minutes I have to read to myself before I go to sleep. But then I discovered the real secret. People use computers to make their pictures look better! And then they use these same computers to tell you how to do it too! Well, I know how to use a computer.

I'm only writing this because I was amazed out how well this picture turned out after a little tweaking. I was sad when I first saw how this picture came out because Elise is actually looking at the camera with her big beautiful eyes, but she was also advancing on me dangerously fast on her little purple tricycle so I just snapped away and the picture turned out weird and washed out. And of course the next picture turned out beautifully but her mouth is all twisted up. But that is the story of Elise. Anyway, here are the two pictures, before and after. Much better right?

Bonus picture!

If I had a Picture of the Week post like my brother, I would nominate this one. We found a little frog in the backyard yesterday and when it was little Chloe's turn to hold it, it sensed her weakness and decided to make its escape. I wish you could see it better but the wood pile's kind of in the way. I'm not that good at Photoshop yet. Before and after editing pictures included at no extra charge.

Elise makes her daddy proud

Elise has been busy developing into her own little person. I know she's growing up and everything, but it comes on so gradually that you don't really notice it all the time and you go about feeding them and cleaning up after them and breaking up fights. And then, bam, all of the sudden one day she says to you:

Elise: "Mommy, what did the ear say to the other ear?"
Me (a little confused): "I don't know."
Elise: "I want a hot dog!!!" (hysterical laughter)

So, I guess now she has a sense of humor. She repeated this over and over with other body parts. And it was still funny. That's a sign of a good joke right there. Pretty soon she'll be writing her own blog. And it'll probably be funnier than mine.

Family picture fail

My brother Josh was here last week visiting and while he was here he introduced us to http://failblog.org, a blog dedicated to documenting people falling short of success in various activities (click the g-rated version if you must, trust me.) And since he has a nicer camera than us still, we also tried to have him take some pictures of the four of us. When that turned out to be a complete disaster I realized that we are our own little family picture failblog. We have never been coordinated enough to hold our children down while making them smile and act like they love us and are enjoying the time we spend together. We like to keep trying, but we know it all amounts to nothing. Here are a few choice ones. (And yes, I just spent 10 minutes typing "fail" on all these. It makes it funnier.)

I like Ben's face here. Granted, Elise is yanking is his hair, but we're trying to take a picture here!

Trying to bring Elise into the fold

Take out Chloe and this might have actually be a decent picture. She kind of puts a damper on the whole picture though.
Sometimes parents make mistakes too.
I like the lady staring at us struggle with Elise.Chloe decides to take a little snooze during the picture taking.

Elise's pants have become unbuttoned while struggling to take this picture. That pretty much sums it all up.

A big thank you to family and friends for attempting to take pictures of us. We know it's not easy!

Karaoke time!

This video is just too good not to post. My mom gave Elise a book of Japanese children's songs last summer. It was an instant hit, annoying my entire family while they were here visiting and the object of much fighting. Elise has always been happy just to listen to the songs, but I should have known this day would come someday. Can anyone translate this? I don't think she's speaking Japanese anymore, though I know she thinks she is.



With any luck, the batteries will die soon. Though it is powered by Japanese technology so we might be in for the long haul.

Glamour Shots

Ben called me a jerk for putting up those bad pictures of the girls so I am attempting to redeem myself here. We have had some crazy sunny weather the past few days and for us that means taking walks, bird watching, riding bikes and most importantly, crazy good light for pictures.

Proof that even the most adorable children and a new camera cannot make a good picture: 

Linguistics 101

It's been a little loud throughout the house lately. Chloe's really trying to show Elise up and have the talking thing down before her 2nd birthday. She's doing pretty well. I can understand about 67% of what comes out of her mouth. But this is only after an intense period of sequestration where I spend all day observing and interacting with her. We call this "welcome to my life."
It helps that almost every sentence starts with "I want ..." and that approximately 88% of what comes out of mouth is "no," especially since it doubles as both yes and no.

Elise got a book of fairy tales from my parents for Christmas and it's just about her favorite book ever. We've read them all a million times already and she talks about them all day long. She's insisted on "porridge" for dinner two days in a row, courtesy of Goldilocks and the three bears, and has started chanting this gem around the house. Watch out all you Englishmen. Elise is on the prowl.

A confession

Dear blog,

It's been a while since I've last posted. I'm sure you've probably been suspicious for a while, but it was the holidays and we were gone for a few weeks so you let it slide. But now it's gone on too long and I feel it's time to come clean. I've been using Facebook. It started out innocently enough and then suddenly I was posting pictures, family pictures, pictures I should have been posting on you. And I saw how easily I had been seduced by the ease and instant gratification of its flashy interactive features, the status updates, the picture tagging, the wall writing, catching up with old friends. It was thrilling, and a little addictive.

I don't want to make excuses, but I am a busy mom and I only have so much time during the day. Still, I think all 3 of us can coexist together. I miss writing more than one line about my life at a time. So with your forgiveness, I'll start blogging again.

And to anyone reading this, want to be Facebook friends? :)

Ben (after church): Elise, what did you learn about in Sunbeams today?

Elise: I learned about snacks!