September 19th, 2011 by Busy Mommy

Nolan is almost 23 months.  Santa Rosa recently had I think the 1st Heirloom Festival of Sonoma County.  It was filled with all veggies and animals heirloom or from bygone days.  There were of course displays of heirloom tomatoes, but there are a lot more heirloom veggies and fruits than just tomatoes.  Check out this display of corn for example.  There was this GORGEOUS dried corn the color of slate grey.  When it was ripe and fresh I’m sure it was more a deep blue color.  And yes the corn on the left really was that pink- no color enhancements here.I went with a new friend in my congregation and her youngest boy Alexander who is only a month apart from Nolan.  We had our ergo baby carriers and between the hot sun, the concrete, and either carrying our sons on our backs, running after them as they ran wild, or stemming the nervousness inside as we allowed them to climb on some bleachers but always read to jump to the rescue should one of them fall, I think us two mommies got pretty worn out- but we had fun. (And yes, that is a truckbed full of soil with lettuce planted in it inside a building).

The boys are still a little young to interact too much- hence why I had trouble getting ANY clear photos of them together.  At the animal pens, as soon as Alex would walk up to one, Nolan decided he was done and walked off to the next pen.  Only after numerous tries did I manage to get this one (of the back of their heads- oh well, I can’t complain at least they’re together):We don’t have too many farm-related activities going on here in the bay area much, and since I wish I lived on a farm, I was super excited to hear about the Heirloom festival.  Here’s a few more snapshots of the day:Nolan keeps calling pumpkins “matos”- aka tomatoes- I can see what he means- they do look like tomatoes- just exceptionally large.And my favorite “new idea” that looks like it’s probably been around a long long time for seed planting- looks like a board cut to fit this  seed planting flat, with corks glued to the board to make even indentations/holes in the flat for easy seed planting at regular intervals.The ride home was peaceful…..

September 19th, 2011 by Busy Mommy

I wanted to show what I do with my photos in Photoshop so you can see what a normal picture would look like without any enhancements and then after I do a few fun “tweaks”.  The tweaks make the photos look a little more artistic in nature- on this particular photo I changed the lightness and contrast of the photo a little, enhanced the color, and then blurred the background a little to make Nolan’s frame standout more and draw the eye to him more specifically.  Anyway- just thought I’d share some of the wonders of photoshop- thank you Zac for getting a job at Adobe 10 years ago, keeping your job, and giving us photoshop so I could do this fun stuff for my surpise son 8 years later!

Before: After: Here’s another example- notice too that the original photo had the camera strap hanging in it as well part of my foot!  That I got this snapshot at all is a miracle as Nolan was literally running in circles on this lawn to the bluegrass band and when he stopped it was for a mere split second- that I got him 1.) looking at the camera, and 2.) not blurry from movement, was a very chance occasion.  Camera straps and stray feet can be removed later, just get that kid in the picture! 😉

Before:After:
Here’s one last one- this one isn’t hugely different, but still you can see how the small things can make an impact- sometimes I probably go overboard and you may like the before photo better!  But that’s fine because I’m havin’ fun with it.

Before:After: