Crazy Hair and Crazy Pics

One day Preston woke up with his hair looking exactly like this. He MUST be related to me and my super hair.

I got some really cut pictures of him, but the lighting wasn't all they great and he had really red eyes so I decided to try out my brand new photoshop elements to see what I could come up with. I cropped this one and did it in black and white to accentuate the sticky-upiness of his hair.

I love his mischevious grin in this one! Too bad the red eyes make him a little too mischevious.

I decided to get rid of those and brighten up the color a little bit. I also softened his skin and darkened the edges too to help focus the attention on him. It kind of looks like something that could have come out of the 80's actually. Too bad his hair is spike instead of a mullet.

This one is my absolute favorite! Pictures of Preston smiling at all, let alone so naturally are hard to come by, but I didn't like the red fire truck in the back.

I didn't get rid of the truck completely because obviously I have no idea what I'm really doing in photoshop so I just unsaturated the color in that area to make it much less noticeable and darkened the edges again. The only bad part is that it's harder to see his crazy hair.

I also tried to do this picture in sepia but I'm not sure if there is an actual setting for that in photoshop elements since I don't read manuals and just play around with it. I just manually changed the hue and saturation until I got this. Does is look anywhere close to the way it should? Does anybody know if there is a setting for this? It sure would make things a lot easier. Do you like this picture better in color or sepia? I just like how his eyes pop out in the color version.

He looks so serene and calm here in his too small baby pajamas, I just love it.

I tried to soften the look of the picture to go with the expression (a little extreme I know) but I'm not sure if it quite works with such a dark background. I still think his eyes and lips look super pretty.

Here is another one of those sweet calm expressions that we don't get to see all the time, he just looks so peaceful. I thought the bright toys distracted from his mood though.

So once again I tried to lighten up the color saturation and create more of a mellow mood. At first it made his face look too sallow so I bumped up the color in his eyes and lips a little bit. Does he look like he's wearing lipstick now though? Oh well, I still think it's cute.

One last sweet look.

I decided not to go all extreme on this one and just fixed his red eyes and bumped up the color a little.

Now for the opposite extreme. Here is a pouty lipped grumpy face.

I bumped up the contrast on this one, once again going along with his mood.

On this last one I think he was getting tired of me taking pictures of him if you couldn't tell.

I bumped up the contrast again to make it darker as well.

These definately aren't the best pictures in the world because it was totally unplanned but I loved that I got to capture some of Preston's emotion. Maybe I'll have to start dressing him cute every day in case I need to do anymore improv photo shoots. So what do you think? Should I have just left them alone? I think I went a little crazy trying new things. Maybe I'll calm down eventually. Personally I think I liked the subtle edits the most.

Not really sure if I should be saying any of this...

at all, let alone on the internet. First off I must say that I'm pretty mad at blogger right now for deleting my entire rant I just wrote, grrr... I guess I'll have to do it all over again, maybe THAT will help me feel better. First of all I have to apologize in advance for this post, and if you decide to skip it, that's even better.

I've decided in the last few days that I'm going to start posting more of the random things that happen to me throughout the day, whether funny or tragic so I can remember those moments someday, and maybe even help my small audience be a little bit more interested in what I have to post about (the exception would be today of course).

I've been thinking a lot lately about how I perceive myself vs. how others perceive me. When I think I'm acting perfectly normal and being myself (which could be scary at times) and am perfectly comfortable could I be making others nervous, or annoyed? Would it make a difference if I changed who I am. No. I won't change who I am in order to have people like me. They're going to have to deal with me and all my quirkiness and laziness. ;) Yes, I did just say laziness. Sometimes I feel like the laziest person in the world. Sometimes quite the opposite. The whole problem is I have no idea what to think of myself. I mean, I know I'm a daughter of God and that my family loves me (and I love them of course), and I love being a mother, but what else? What am I good at? What are my hobbies? This is where I'm kind of stuck. I know there are a lot of things I"m good at. But what am I great at? Nothing. I start doing a lot of the things that I enjoy doing and think I'm pretty good at, then I start to feel like I'm just a step or two below everyone else that's doing that same thing. You know there are people when you think of them, "Oh, she's the great organizer and multi-tasker, she's the great piano player, she's the scrapbooker, she's the singer..." and if any one else dares to try doing what the other person is did first and is known for they are thought of as a wannabe or a copycat. "Oh, she's pretty good at walking dog's, but she's not THE walking dog lady."

Maybe I'm being selfish, or childish about this... probably both actually, but I feel like I need my THING just like everybody else. But is it so wrong for more than one person to have the same THING even though somebody else discovered it later? Wow, I'm making less and less sense as I keep continuing, remember I am on a rant. Where was I, oh yea, so my problem is finding that thing. My problem is I get embarrassed easily I think, maybe I don't have the confidence to find one thing and claim it as my own. Could that be possible. It just seems like every time I find something I enjoy doing it happens to be every one's thing at the time. For example, I started going to a dance aerobic class called Zumba that a couple of women in our ward go to and they told me I would enjoy it and I really do, but I still don't think it's MY thing. A zillion other people go though and apparently all of them, okay maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit, a great deal of them have decided to become instructors themselves because what else can you do when you're good at something like that. It's not like you can go on tour performing Zumba in every city in the U.S. and nine different countries. My instructor from a different aerobic class I go to approached me and told me about the training saying I should try it. My question is, how can there be over 100 Zumba instructors in one small town? Nope not happening. Of course at the time I was approached I was flattered but at the same time embarrassed, mostly because I know a lot of people are doing it and I don't want to feel like I'm doing it just because everybody else is and it's cool, I'm doing it because I like it.

Maybe I have a complex about this because at one point in my short life (namely middle school and my early years of high school) I wanted to do everything "cool" so I could hang out with the cool people and be popular and I hated it! But now I think that maybe I'm trying to be too much on the opposite end and that's making me miserable too (okay not really miserable, I'm actually very happy, but I'm trying to make a point here) I just need to find a good middle ground. Maybe I will start my own photography business even though other people have done it first, who knows maybe I'll actually end up being really good at it. Maybe I'll end up being really horrible. You never know until you try right? To tell you the truth I think I lack the confidence and zing to do something like that. Oh well, I guess I'll just keep trying new things until I find my niche even if it does drive my husband crazy sometimes... and I'll keep finishing my school along the way, that way I'll have at least someTHING solid in my life in addition to my supportive family and friends. Or maybe I'm just meant to be a mother/wife and nothing else. It could be possible right?

Okay, the rant is officially over. I apologize and promise it won't happen again... for now... probably... at least not for a while. Oh, and sorry if it made no sense whatsoever. It made me feel better at least. :)

Fun in and around the Bounce House

 In June we went down the street to our friend Liz's house for her suprise birthday party! (Gabe and I filled up all those balloons by the way)

There were a lot of fun activities there for us to do.  Preston and I started out by reading a book, he was getting a little overwhelmed by all the people.  I had never seen him do that before.

After we calmed down we decided to go outside and try the bounce house.

 After he was in there by himself for a minute or two he wanted me to join him.

 He absolutely loved the bouncing (please ignore my crazy legs)

 I left again and Tessa took care of him for me.

 until he started eating her hair.  I had to step in on that one.

He was having soooo much fun!

 

Then he realized that he was in there and I wasn't anymore

 but his friend Sawyer still was and they decided to try to escape together 

 But Sawyer was a LOT faster at getting out than Preston

 So he decided to give me puppy dog eyes

 and plead with me until I helped him out.  A cage kind of sounds like a good idea some days.  Maybe I should invest in one of those.  Just Kidding of course. :)

 When he was finally rescued we decided to try out a swing but he wasn't too excited about those if you can't tell.

 So daddy swept him away

 and took him on the playground where he still wasn't enthusiastic

 Until daddy took him down the slide

 Yay!  Once was enough. :)  Then we moved back inside where

 Preston started cooking for us

 and doing dishes

 What a manly man!?!

 He loves being all grown up... or at least thinking he is.

Thanks for the fun fun day Shawn and Liz!

Come Fly With Me

When we were on our way home from visiting Gabe's parents in Cincinnati Preston was able to enjoy running around in the airport a little bit. He also thought it was pretty cool to look at the planes through the big window that he could see his reflection in. He really liked being on the plane because he could look out the little window too and rest with daddy until he realized that he was going to be stuck there for a really long time. Oh well, at least he had fun some of the time. Hopefully he'll still like the plane on our next trip!

Row Row Row Your Boat?

A few months ago Preston was being quiter than usual and then all of a sudden started crying. I went in the other room and found this. He had somehow gotten stuck inside the stuffed animal basket. That's pretty impressive for him because he's never been much of a climber. Which became apparant when he started crying because he couldn't climb back out. I don't know it looks pretty scary down there mister bear.Maybe you should join me up here...
in my boat. I'm glad he's constantly finding new ways to entertain himself.

Disclaimer: The pink stuffed animals pictured in this post, including the care bear, do not belong to my son. They are mine from when I was little... or in college, or something... Anyway, the point is they are not his. :)

A What?

Here's some background information about me. I was born in northern Utah and lived there until I was three when we moved to northern Idaho and we lived there until I was ten. Then we moved on to northern California for two years. The next place we moved was somewhere I had to look on a map to find (sad I know) Indiana. A small town in the southeast portion called Connersville. I lived through the the remainder of my middle and high school years. I learned to appreciate the town but at first it was a LOT different than anything I was used to growing up in the west. People would call a "vacuum" a "sweeper" and some people still can't pronounce my name right. :) One of the things that I don't think I've ever gotten used to is the term "pitch-in".

One of our first Sundays at church there in Connersville there was announcement about the congregation having a pitch-in later on that week. Every one in my family was trying to figure out what that meant. Were we supposed to bring pitch forks or something? Finally we had to ask someone and they said "You know, a pitch-in, everyone's going to the park to play games and eat." We were so confused. It turns out this word is interchangeable with what we in the west call a potluck. I guess it actually makes more sense than a potluck if you think about it. Everyone comes and pitches in a little bit by bringing a dish to add to the meal. Where did the name potluck come from anyway? Oh well, it's all confusing and silly.

If you're wondering why I'm telling you this long pointless story don't worry I'm about ready to get to the point. While we were visiting Sedona, Arizona this spring we found this beauty! I thought my family would appreciate it. It just made me laugh! I hope people don't get confused and bring only garbage to the pitch-in. :)

My Favorite!

Gabe's been on a business trip the past couple of days so out of boredom I started watching America's Got Talent. There are a few really talented people on there so it was kind of fun for me to watch. This guy was absolutely amazing and I loved the song he sang. This one's for you Mom. :)