Not pictured here...

My beloved Nikon D40x is BROKEN! :( :( :(

It was working great and then yesterday -- nuthin'! It won't turn on, won't even slightly light up, won't focus or click or anything!

I was reading online that apparently this is a problem that some Nikons have. The customer service guy was nice and I guess I just have to send it off and have it fixed. I'll get it back in about 3 weeks. Three weeks! Do you know how many photo ops will have passed by then?

A special treat

I found this set the other day at an antique store in town. Isn't it neat? I love the large thermoses with the old corks, red pop-off lids and nesting cups... the long sandwich box... the great plaid container... everything fits inside just so. Annalivia is enthralled with our new set for "parapickets" (picnics).

I'm picturing fall parapickets with soup and sandwiches and a thermos of cider...

Mothers' Day-ish gifts, belatedly

My grandmother gave me this lovely china that was owned by my late great-aunt. It wasn't really a Mothers' Day gift, but I got it on Mothers' Day, so I'm counting it. It is just gorgeous. There are a quite a few chipped pieces, but I will enjoy using it even more, I think, because of it -- less pressure! But if anyone has Noritake Chevonia for sale, let me know!

I got this lovely little easel from Dennis and the kids. I had requested it, as there is one like it at our bookstore that the kids just love to use. This one is for use on the back porch during the nice-weather months. It has the chalkboard on one side and a dry-erase board on the other. And it has a spot for a paper roll in the middle that feeds through the dry-erase board side. The kids most like using the eraser, I think. :)

And, of course, these are my best and most favorite gifts, enjoying a Saturday wagon ride with Daddy. Such happiness.

Where do you have photos printed?

I have had a terrible time getting photos printed at my local outlets. The colors are horrid and the pics are always grainy, dark and icky. Even SOOC shots are terrible and I KNOW 10 megapixels should be plenty to produce decent 4x6 prints.

SOOOO... if you take photographs and edit them in Photoshop or some other program, where do you get nice prints made? Online or brick-and-mortar, any recommendations?

Scenes from our wonderful day

We had just a wonderful day today. We went to church and then headed out to the country to the house Dennis inhabited pre-April to do a little dreaming and scheming. While there, Daniel dozed in the van and Annalivia got out and about in her Sunday outfit.

This morning when getting dressed, I asked her to get on her black shoes (very respectable Mary Janes) and instead, she came out with her red cowboy boots. "Can I wear these?" she asked. "They match my dress." They did, in fact, match her dress. She also wanted to wear a hat. So she did. The boots were great for clip-clopping around on the wood floor in the sanctuary during the Morning Prayer at church. *sigh*

And equally great for exploring Daddy's old house.
They were even going to take her straight across the field to Grandma's house when she noticed her cousins were there.

Instead, she and I walked down to Grandma's on the road, and Daddy and Daniel followed in the car. We decided to come home, get changed and the go back to the country, which we did.
Annalivia got to spend lots of time with Dennis' brother's two eldest children. They played for hours.

Our nephew demonstrated the finer points of tree-climbing in the orchard.

And our niece was happy to wear the dandelion crown I made that Annalivia would not wear.

And Daniel was content to swing with Grandma for quite a while.

We had a lovely time, going between the two farms, eating lunch outside, dreaming, scheming, working and lounging about. Late in our time there, Dennis and his mom talked about the possibility of us purchasing land from her at some point and she responded very favorably to that. We are very excited. It gives a direction to the next few years here that we just haven't had. And that is just wonderful.

In fact, the whole day was wonderful -- full of wonder -- and sunshine and wind and family. Lovely.

We have a new phone

New phone courtesy of Annalivia but she lets her brother use it.

My crazy kids

Prairie Girl and Farm Boy

Sunday evening was really quite beautiful, if a little chilly. We had an opportunity to take a dinner-time drive and went out to Dennis' mom's house in the country. The cousins were there so Annalivia ran around with them and Daddy took a moment to introduce his son to Daniel's late grandfather's tractors.

I swear this zen-tractor look must be passed down on the Y chromosome in Dennis' family.

As soon as we took him off the tractor, he fussed to get back on. It was a pretty sweet companion to Annalivia's braids whipping in the wind as she ran around.

She asked me to put the braids and bows in her hair on Sunday morning. I was surprised the bows lasted until the evening.

Especially since she was just a little more than a tad ornery all day.

Dapper Dan photo shoot (alternate title: Why it is important to keep the talent well-fed)

The other day at Target, I stumbled into an entire rack of little boys' Easter outfits for 75% off. It is just darn hard to find dress-up clothes for little boys, so I bought a bunch in sizes up to 5T. Today, Daniel was in a long-sleeved shirt, vest and plaid shorts. It was a little chilly so he wore the Easter jacket Grandma made him. He looked very dapper.

He's such an introspective lad, eh?

Apparently hungry, too...

Yikes

I do not have Photoshop for two main reasons. a.) It costs an arm and a leg and, more importantly, b.) I am infinitely capable of being obsessive and letting all else fester as I photoshop hour after hour.
Despite the fact that I don't have Photoshop and I don't have the familial energy to devote to photoshopping pics, I always read Pioneer Woman's Photoshop posts with interest.
Tonight, I went back to a post by the lovely Miz Booshay and decided to see if I could do the same thing in my JASC program I bought for $10 on eBay. Why, yes, I could. Then, for some crazy reason, I decided to read other Photoshop posts and see if I could do the same sort of things addressed in said posts in my cheapo photo editing software.
TURNS OUT -- I CAN!!!

It involves a little translation and some playing around with settings, but oh my goodness, I have an entire arsenal at my fingertips that I did not know I had!!!
Tonight, I played around with this photo.

It's of my lovely girl, but otherwise was pretty boring, I thought, underexposed and taken on an icky day. So I played -- cropped and lightened and texturized and so on and ended up with this.

Which just makes me smile.

And this is just the start. What in the world have I discovered?

My thoughts exactly

Time to go get some coffee!

Overexposed

What happened here?

The entire contents of Annalivia's room and closet dumped on the floor.

Me: Annalivia! What happened here?!?
Annalivia: I was trying to make a mountain!

Toy management

We have too many toys.
I strongly suspect that little elves sneak in here during the night and add more toys to the fracas, but that theory has yet to be proved.
Last night Dennis and I went through the toys and put a TON of them in a plastic bag to be sold at our spring garage sale (which we ARE going to have, darn it!). We got rid of all the cheap plastic toys, some stuffed animals and all of the electronic things, or anything that makes noise by itself.
A while ago, my mom had read somewhere that a family handled their plethora of toys by dividing them up into several containers and each day a new container was brought forth. At the end of the day, the toys were put away.
I personally thought this was brilliant. We have tried putting away some for a month or so, but there is still just too much choice. And while that probably means that we should just get rid of a whole lotta the toys, the kids really DO play with ALL of those that are left after our purging. And, honestly, Dennis and I are suckers because we think the remainder are cool toys!
SO -- anyway, we divided up the remainder, into some bins. We've got wooden toys, puzzles, a shape sorter and a bead game in one. The wooden kitchen range, pots and pans and teaset and food are in another. All of the Little People stuff is in one set of bins. Another has the Thomas trainsets. Another has cars and other "things that go". And the final one has some plastic animals in it. The last bin will eventually hold dress-up stuff, I think. Annalivia has her dolls and some stuffed animals in her bedroom. Daniel has a little box that can be added to at some point when he claims his own toys. And I think I'm going to develop a little box of Waldorf-esque dolls for Annalivia to take in the car and add the wood clackers, etc to it for Daniel.
I'd imagine that this system will have to be tweaked as the kids grow older. Right now, Annalivia plays with all of those things and Daniel plays with whatever Annalivia is playing with. Maybe their choices will differentiate at some point.
But I'm thinking that for now this will work better for us.

Today is Little People day. So far it's been a big hit.

UPDATE! CLEAN-UP IS A BREEZE!! TWO MINUTES. LITERALLY!! HURRAH!!

More easter pics

More easter pics can be found at Dennis' oft-defunct blog.
(eta: fixed the link!)

Easter Sunday

The fam

My girl

My guys

A proper tea...ish

Annalivia has been wanting to have another tea party for a while, so today after Daniel went down for his nap, we had a proper tea party. Sort of. We had table linen and a lovely embroidered runner, teacups and an actual teapot and creamer jug. And we had hats.

What we did NOT have was a proper appreciation for tea.

I promise -- we did have a nice time...

One last birthday photo

Ballerina birthday

My ballet-mad daughter got a complete ballet outfit including homemade tutu, some Angelina Ballerina dvd's and a ballerina puzzle for her birthday today. She wore her tutu all morning and when we got home this afternoon, immediately changed back into it.

Now she is showing Grandma how to do specific moves. I, for one, have never seen such lovely pirouettes...

She's 3 years old!