I ♥ Faces ~ Birthday Theme ~ Kids

I may have over-rusticized this picture, but I lost the original and my patience. ☺

My oldest child is a HUGE fan of trains. We were able to take him and his cousins on a real train ride and celebrate his birthday at a town we stopped at along the way. He blew out the candles on his birthday cupcakes at the train station in that town. Check out the hat…Nathan got it at preschool and took it off only to sleep for several days. Our boy didn’t want his moment in the spotlight to end!

So, c’mon…let’s see your favorite birthday (or pet) picture at I ♥ Faces!

My little tree hugger

So today, I looked outside to check up on Nathan who was playing in the backyard.  What I saw was a despondent little boy sitting in the swing bawling his eyes out.  I immediately ran out thinking he must have hurt himself or gotten stung by a bee.  Instead I got this:

 

“Daddy is chopping down the bushes!”

“That’s what you’re crying about?”

“Yesssss!”

“Nathan, he’s not chopping them down.  He’s just trimming them.”

“He’s KILLING them!

“No, honey.  They are starting to look bad.  He’s just taking away the parts that don’t look good.”

“I want him to stop!”

“Do you think it hurts the bushes when daddy cuts them?”

“YES!”

“How about when daddy cuts the lawn?  Does the grass die?  Is he hurting it?”

“Mommy, that’s different.  That’s JUST grass.  Daddy’s cutting the BUSHES!”

After much convincing Nathan calmed down.  It never occurred to me that a child would think of a plant like he would a human or an animal.  Looking at it through his eyes, I guess it does seem a bit barbaric.  Glad to see my kid has a heart.  Now if he’d only apply that concern to his brother and sister! 

Wedding shoot

I went along with Angie last Saturday to “help” her take pictures at a wedding.  I put help in quotes because most my pictures were blurry and bluck. (Is that a word?)  All goes to show, I’m not ready to be pro anytime soon.  ☺ As I was going through the pictures, I soon discovered that the ones I liked best tended to be the candid shots.  I’m not a huge fan of staged pictures unless if it is done really well.    It seem like the ones that really show a people’s personality are usually captured when they are unaware of the camera.  I thought I’d share some of my favorites (some staged, some candid)  that I took before Angie blows mine away with the incredible photos that she took.

 

     

(I’d love to know what was being discussed here!)

 

 

 

 

Tooth Fairy

 

The tooth fairy should have visited our house by now.  After all, Nathan did lose his first tooth on Wednesday (at preschool of all places).  My unconventional boy, though, decided that he wanted to keep this tooth.  He considered setting up a loan plan with the tooth fairy by having mom write a detailed letter stating the conditions.  Even with that offer on the table, Nathan backed out and decided he could live without money showing up under his pillow.

 

As Nathan stated, “Maybe I will with the next tooth.  I’ll have two then, so I might give her one of them.”

 

Geesh! ☺

(Nathan is safe-keeping his tooth in a micro video tape holder.)

Fix-it #15 ~ Little Precious

Things have been busy, so I’ll admit to doing a very quick, pretty unoriginal fix-it.  Really, this photo didn’t need much.  Look at that adorable cutie below! 

 

I decided to lighten the picture up a bit (using levels), fix some slight blemishes on the face (healing brush) and crop out the chair.  I really loved that she is holding her doll baby and didn’t want to cut it out of the photo.  Unfortunately, the white wall along the right side is a bit distracting.  I ended up cropping close to the doll, changing the color of the white (hue adjustment) and dodging and burning it until (I hope) it looks like a blanket. 

I then focused on those beautiful eyes.  I selected the eyes, copied them into a new layer and then went to filter – other – high pass – 20.  I then changed that layer to soft light.  (A little trick I learned from Julie Rivera)  I also opened the photo up in Powder Room 2 from Coffeeshop free actions.  (Go check out her site!  I just noticed that she has added a few actions since I last visited.)  I used the soft skin layer to give a real light covering to her skin.  I brightened and defined her eyes some more.  On every layer, I reduced the opacity quite a bit.  After that, I ran a few other actions, just for the fun of it.  ☺

 

(Original)

 

(Photo after adjustments)

 

(With Coffeeshop Golden Vintage action)

 

(Cobalt Action)

 

(Black & White)

 

Hope you will join in on the fun too at I ♥ Faces!

I ♥ Faces ~ Silhouette

In Ohio, it's pretty darn hard to come up with good silhouettes.  The ocean beach scene is obviously a no-go.  A sunset picture is pretty challenging too because woods often block the setting sun.  I was starting to get a bit desperate until the perfect situation popped up Friday night.  Mark had a bonfire going at his parent's house setting the scene for a silhouette, Ohio-style!

 

Hope you’ll join in on the fun at I ♥ Faces!

I ♥ Faces ~ Blurb Contest ~ Amateur

All righty…I’m Angie’s sister, so I’m not in this to win it…only to have fun.  Because of that, instead of picking my favorite photo ever, I decided to post a silly (and slightly weird) photo of my son that I took yesterday.  He thought himself pretty clever letting only his face peek out of the bath water.  This photo is fun for me because of the look of pure joy on Nathan’s face.

Now, for those of you who don’t have a family connection to Angie, head on over to I ♥ Faces and share your favorite photo!  (And, Janine, honestly, even though you’re family, you need to post photos already!)  ☺

“I am submitting this photo into the www.iheartfaces.com contest because I am hopelessly addicted to the site. I am granting I ♥ Faces the privilege to use my photo …blah…blah…blah…and possibly advertising of a photo book on both  Blurb, People magazine, Access Hollywood and I ♥ Faces web sites. (because…who could resist this face?)"

My first-born can’t possibly be this old!

Let me confess my sins right away.  Nathan got two cavities at a very young age and has a child crown on the one and a filling on the other.  Of course, I blame those on myself because I know I could have monitored his teeth brushing much more than I did.  I’m a bit paranoid now about teeth and also worry that the crown will come off.  The dentist warned me that it needs to be on as long as possible so that Nathan’s teeth will grow in correctly.  Apparently, child crowns don’t stick on the teeth as strongly as adult ones.

I share all of this because Nathan came into the bathroom the other day to brush his teeth and informed me that he had a loose tooth.  I immediately freaked out thinking that it was the crown.

 

“No, mom, it’s these two in the front.”

 

“Oh, thank goodness!  I’m sure they’re not loose.”

 

“Yes, they are.  Feel them.”

 

Sure enough, the two front bottom teeth wiggled at my touch.  What I didn’t realize was that kids can have loose teeth so early.  I started back into panic mode.

 

“Nathan, try not to wiggle them at all.  I think we need to get you to the dentist.  I hope there’s nothing wrong.”

 

Now, as a worried mom, I immediately snuck downstairs to consult the great and powerful Google to find out if my son could possibly have loose teeth already, but the Internet was down!  Angie got a late-night call soon after.  She assured me that it was normal, and then read what a website had to say.  It went something like, “Losing teeth can be a scary event for some children.  Reassure them that it is perfectly normal…blah…blah…blah.”  Hmmm….I think I failed at that. 

 

Feeling really bad for making Nathan think his teeth were rotting out of his head, I went back upstairs to have a talk with him.

 

“Nathan, mommy was wrong.  You are going to lose your teeth, and it’s perfectly normal.  You’ll get brand new ones.”

“I know…Craig lost a tooth and a fairy brought him money!  There are lots of fairies in the world, you know.”

“Um…yes.”  (a little shocked at Nathan’s wealth of knowledge about the tooth fairy)

 

 

Today, we started talking about teeth again. 

 

“My teeth are more looser than they were yesterday.”

“So when you lose your teeth, do you want the tooth fairy to leave you money or candy?”

“Neither!”

“Really?  Then what do you want?”

“I want to keep my teeth!  I’ll miss them if the tooth fairy takes them away!”

“Well, what if you leave a note to the fairy asking if she could borrow your teeth and then give them back to mommy?”

“No…how about we leave a note asking if she can borrow them and then give them back to ME!”

 

Nathan then went on to talk about his plan to capture the tooth fairy with a fishing net to make sure she would give his teeth back.

All I can say is that I’m not ready for Nathan to have missing teeth already.  Wasn’t he just a baby yesterday?

Fix-it Friday #13

 

(BEFORE PICTURE)

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

(AFTER PICTURE)

Since I’m not a contributor this week, instead of writing down every step I took in Elements, I just played.  It was  fun!  :) 

 

I hope you’ll give this week’s fix-it a try too!

I ♥ Faces ~ Laughter

 

What I love about the laughter theme is that I suspect there will be very few posed pictures.  Laughter is one of those things that come out not only in a smile but also through the eyes.  It is a pure expression that is really hard to “fake” or draw from people.  It’s just being lucky enough to catch that candid shot.

 

My kids entry is of my two boys who you can probably guess had a silly daddy in the background getting them going.  Nathan, on the right, is deathly afraid of heights so being a couple feet above the ground had him combining laughter with a nagging feeling of terror.  Ben, on the other hand, is thoroughly entertained.

 

I’ve actually submitted a photo similar to this one before.  I just love the interaction between my aunt and her granddaughter.

 

Since I’m a contributor on I ♥ Faces, my entries are just for fun.  I’m looking forward to enjoying some great laughter pictures this week!

Happy Mud-der’s Day!

I got home from spending time with my family today to find my husband  out in the backyard playing with the kids and enjoying our newly fenced yard.  We had a relaxing hour together just appreciating the good weather before things went south.  

 

I bought Ben a self-filling watering can for his birthday and decided to let the boys try it out for the first time.  It didn’t take them long before they had their own little mud hole in the backyard.  Nathan, who always approaches mud, worms, and all things gross with gusto, was quickly covered head to toe in mud.  Not content to keep it to himself, Nathan came over and kept trying to touch me. 

 

Tap…tap…  “Look, mom, I’m muddy!”

 

“Nathan, it’s Mother’s Day so you need to be nice and get your muddy self away from me.”

 

“Well, I don’t think it’s Mother’s Day.  I think it’s Muddy Day!” 

 

I finally shooed the wisecracker away. 

 

Or at least I thought I did until a big old blob of mud covered my back and hair.  My dear, darling boy had decided it would be a really good idea to throw mud at his mom. 

 

Summoning all my self-control, I stripped him down of all his muddy clothes and made him put his nose against the house until I could get the bath water started.  I was fuming!

 

That is until I saw this…

 

Ben had joined his brother in the punishment!

 

Oh my!  Brotherly love.  It makes a mom’s heart melt.  (slightly)  :)

 

 

Happy Mud-der’s Day!

I ♥ Faces ~ HATS ~ Kids

 

 

 

I tried to recreate a silly joke with all my kids that Nathan used to play .  Nathan used to think it was HILARIOUS to put his underwear on his head instead of his tuckus, then ask, “Is this where my underwear goes?”  He used to giggle and snort over his “incredibly funny joke”. 

 

Turns out, Nathan is no longer cooperative, nor does he think that wearing underwear on his head is funny in any shape or form.  After all, he is a “mature” 5 year old now.

 

but…

 

Ben found it incredibly funny! That’s one of the many reasons I love 2 year olds!

 

The disadvantage of my 2 year old model is that he takes off within 2 minutes of a photo shoot.  (Thus the reason for the funky border.)  Everything surrounding Ben was a mess, so this is my attempt to hide it. 

 

I have an idea for the adult picture, but haven’t had a chance to try it yet.  I’m thinking it’s something no one else will do, but you never know! 

 

Head over to I ♥ Faces for some great hat pictures!  Since I’m a contributor, my photo is just for fun.  :)