A good day trip

We went to Ruidoso, NM yesterday (Sunday). It was nice. I can't wait to go back in the winter when there's snow. It's a nice little ski resort town, which happens to also be very beautiful when it's not snowing. It's green there! There were a lot of nice shops, but it being Sunday, lots of things were closed pretty early, and we spent most of our time playing in the river anyhow. It was really great. We are planning to go back to either Ruidoso or Cloudcroft in a couple weeks, for a little weekend getaway for Thak's 35th birthday! Just one day away from the ugly, dead, dry, brown city we live in was very refreshing.

On our way there, this picture was taken from Apache Peak, which is almost 8000 feet above sea level. There's still a little snow up on the mountain! I believe that mountain is actually where the resort, Ski Apache is. That is a good place to ski. They give a great military discount, and Army Times rated them as one of the top 10 ski resorts in the nation.


Then right after that, it started raining!! Yes, that is real rain on our windshield!! We hadn't seen rain, REAL rain, in about a year.


Then we arrived in Ruidoso! We were walking through downtown, and saw the river down one of the side streets, so we decided to go check it out.

Orren was scared of the water at first. It was LOUD rushing over the rocks!


He wasn't so scared when daddy took him in.



Erin and Orren playing in green grass!!


This field was really pretty.


Erin took this one of me and Thak.


Then we walked around a little more. This is downtown Ruidoso. I'll bet it's so pretty covered in snow!


Then we went back to a different part of the river, which had less steep banks so the kids could get in easier.

Orren had to do it on his own terms. It was still too cold for him, and he needed daddy to warm him up after a short time.


Sissy taught him how to throw rocks!


Looking for more rocks to throw into the river, and enjoying the mud! The mud was fun!


Me and my little boy on the bank of the Rio Ruidoso.



Shortly after this, Orren fell into the river, and Thak had to fish him out. We had to go home after that because I forgot to bring an extra outfit for him. He had to ride through downtown Ruidoso in his stroller wearing nothing but a diaper, but he had a blankie in the car, so he was able to stay nice and warm on the way home. Despite a somewhat rough end to the day, we'll definitely be going back to Ruidoso as often as we can! It was really nice, not to mention 79 degrees compared to the 110 it was in El Paso that day.

My kids behaving badly

OK, so my kids are usually good. I generally show pictures of them being adorable and sweet, and they do have that side to them. They also have another side... a side that's decidedly crazy, messy, and even a little nasty. Here are my kids behaving badly. All these photos are less than 24 hours old.

John Deere

Daddy insisted on it. He had two requests on behalf of his boy when mommy started making diapers at home. Daddy insisted that there must be Vikings ones for football season (107 days till the first preseason game!! SKOL VIKINGS!!) and there must be some John Deere ones. The John Deere one was easier because I had some of this fabric on hand already. It matches my kitchen curtains. I think it's rather nice. It fits him extremely well (I reworked the pattern a bit. That was a success.), but he's not in a good mood today, so he's not exactly photogenic at the moment (unless you LIKE to see screaming babies flailing their cups, while covered in Crayola marker).

Next week, we order our Vikings fabric, and start on that. The search is still on for Gators and Georgia Tech fabric that will look good on a dipe or a cover, but we'll find it somehow! I know Thak will also want Mossy Oak sooner rather than later, but definitely in time for hunting season (which begins long after football season). Making dipes at home is great! It doesn't take long, and they fit him great. It's pretty easy, and the sizing is unlimited. Plus, we can have them any way we want them, and nobody else has the exact same ones as we do!

New playroom!

We converted our breakfast nook to a playroom. With more than one kid, it just doesn't work to have all the toys all over the living room and all that. It was just getting entirely ridiculous. We keep their books in their bedrooms, and some of their toys go in their rooms, too, but there are so many that just don't work out for there. Some are toys that they both use (like the blocks, the legos, and stuff like that), others are just messy and I don't want them in their bedrooms (like art supplies), so we really needed a playroom. The nook wasn't working out as a homeschool room, because we always end up doing any formal lessons we do on the couch, and mostly informal lessons anyhow. (I believe the name is "unschooling".)

I can't remember who came up with the idea to make the nook into a playroom. I think it was me, but it could as easily have been Thak. Whoever it was, though, it's worked out very well. The nook is not terribly big, but also not tiny. It's about the size of either of the kids' bedrooms (thus making it roughly 1/3-1/4 the size of our entire on-post place at Ft. Stewart!) so it's not a boundless playroom like some people have, but it's got enough room for many toys (we'll still keep the books in their bedrooms. We wouldn't have room for them in there with all the toys.) and an art table, with floor space to spare for playing with push toys, ride toys, and of course, building with blocks and legos.

View from the door. A baby gate keeps it separate from the kitchen, keeping Orren out of the hazards. I have a separate kitchen door from the formal dining room.

Yes, it's messy now. This is after a whole afternoon of use! This is the view of it from the kitchen.



And here's my messy back yard (when it's this windy, it's hard to keep it clean!) through the big windows. I like that about the playroom most. There are lots of windows. The light bulb is actually blown in there, and you can't tell because the windows let in so much light.

Homemade diaper!

I found a great tutorial for converting prefolds to fitteds, and for once, it didn't require a serger. Seriously, if I'm going to try to save us money by making diapers at home, buying a serger doesn't make much sense since we'd be out more than we would if we just bought more diapers. I needed to see how to do this WITHOUT a serger.

I also wanted to use fitteds because they're excellent for older babies and toddlers since they stay on so well, and while they do require a cover while out, you can use them without a cover at home, and allow the skin to get more air. Fitteds are great. They're also not exactly cheap to buy, and at Orren's size, it's getting to the point where our commercially available options are becoming slim pickings. He's in the biggest size of pocket diapers commonly available at this time, and will probably outgrow that before he potty trains. Fitteds come in the same sizes, roughly, as pockets and all-in-ones, so pretty much our only options are to go just prefolds until he potty trains, or make some diapers at home. I choose Option C, all of the above. I like our prefolds just fine, but I like to have other things, too, because frankly, there are days when I just don't want to mess with hunting down a snappi, and fighting an active toddler to let me snap his cover after fighting him to get his diaper snappi'd on.

Today, I made our first ever homemade diaper! It's a fitted, made out of a prefold and some cute blue flannel I have tons of on hand. (The cool thing is that I already made some burp cloths out of this flannel and some repurposed terry cloth from a towel that had gotten stained, so this dipe makes those into kind of a coordinated set!) It closes with a single row of size 20 KAM snaps. So here's Orren in his brand new sheep diaper! I have to tweak my pattern a little bit, but all in all, this diaper is pretty good!


More of a close-up of the dipe itself.

The kids, as themselves

Here's Erin, being crazy, dancing to the music at the beginning of Maya and Miguel. She was going nuts! These pics are blurry, but you've got to see how cute she is when she does this. It's the silliest, most adorable thing ever. Best of all, she has no idea I took these pictures, so she couldn't do her overly posed, big fake smile, trying to look natural but failing miserably, bit.



Here's Orren wearing daddy's motorcycle helmet! He did not want to take it off!



Last, but not least, we have Thak saying goodbye to Orren before leaving for school yesterday. Did you know my husband is a total hottie? Yeah, he is, especially in his motorcycle jacket!

Look at Orren!

Orren is the Robeez "Little Starz" photo of the week! My studmuffin is the best!!

What makes a good picture?

I was looking through the entries for one of the photo contests I've recently entered, and just got to thinking. What makes a good photo? Now, I'm not one who edits my photos half to death, and makes my family look any more like supermodels than they already do. I do edit my photos, though. I crop out junk in the background, adjust lighting and contrast, make sure the focus is where I want it, take out red-eye, and just do basic stuff like that. I've posted plenty of unedited photos on this blog, and I've also posted plenty of edited ones. I'm sure you can tell the difference in most cases. I believe in editing. I think it makes an ok photo good, and a good photo great, and it's definitely NOT cheating.

In that photo contest, there are roughly 400 photos, three of which are mine. They allow multiple entries. They have in previous contests, too, although the spammy wheel has never gotten the grease, so to speak. In other words, in last month's contest (same contest as this month, but for girls, while this month is for boys) the people who won had anywhere from one to three photos entered, and the photos were good pictures, but not professional (except one, which I believe may have been professional, that or mommy's one hell of a photographer). I looked through the photo entries for the girls' contest, and specifically sought out the winning photos, just so I could see what kind of thing they were looking for, and sort of take my entry in that direction.

I chose the photo of Orren at Minnesota Children's Museum, did some minor edits (just a crop and red-eye removal), then submitted it. It's a good picture, and I have confidence in my entry. I believe that with that picture, I have as good a shot as anyone else. I was one of the first people to enter the contest when it opened a couple weeks ago. Since then, the entry album has been practically spammed by dozens and dozens of pictures of the same exact kids, and not even good pictures either! It's as if some people have just emptied their "My Pictures" file into the submission box, crap and all. I am shocked at the things people think are contest-worthy photos. There are pictures that are so busy you can hardly pick the baby out of it. There are pictures that don't make a single bit of sense. There are some which serve as more of a showcase of a messy house than of a kid (have you not heard of cropping the photo? My house is a wreck, too, but I try to edit out the mess in pictures!). Still others are absolutely disgusting (think "see food").

With this influx of new photos, Thak thought our entry might get buried, so we decided to enter one to two more photos (it ended up being two), just so we have entries at the beginning and the end of the submission album. They had to be good photos, though. I don't see the point of just uploading random crap for the sake of uploading it.

This all brings me to the question of what makes a good photo. Obviously it's in the eye of the beholder. For me, I like pictures that are not terribly busy, or if they are, the focal point of the photo is sharp, while the remainder of the activity is a bit out of focus. I like there to be somewhat of a color scheme, but not too matchy-matchy, like if it's a dark photo (a nighttime street scene, for example), then bright colors could have a place, but pastels would not. I like photos that don't look staged, and this is the primary beef with my children. The minute I get out the camera, Erin plasters a big fake smile on her face and freezes in place, and Orren has picked up the habit. I like photos that have somewhat of a theme, but not overkill. Basically, things have to make sense. For example, if the kid is dressed a bit West Texas Punk, I don't want to see that next to a flower garden. I want to see it sitting on an amp, or in front of something kind of rundown, or in a car.

Here are my rejected photos of Orren from yesterday. These are the ones I did not submit to the photo contest for various reasons. I do like them, though. I think our rundown back door area goes with Orren's ripped jeans. His 80's-inspired shirt and shoes sort of go along with that also. The color scheme is a lot of gray and black, but I like how the bright colors in his shirt sort of punch it up just enough.


To me, these are good photos. Of course, they won't be to everybody. To a professional, they may be garbage (and no, I don't trust my professional photographer friends to tell me the truth on that! They say my photos are good, but I know they're just being nice.) To someone who just picked up a camera for the first time in their life, they may be outstanding. To someone with different taste than me, they may not like my choice of background, or think I don't edit enough, or they may like them just fine. Personally, I think that I am getting good results from simple equipment (Nikon L20, 10 megapixels, point-and-shoot camera, and Picassa 3 and Irfanview, both free editing programs), and that with continued effort, can probably improve substantially.

I'm finicky about pictures, maybe more so than a lot of people. Thak gets onto me about it sometimes. I only hope that my pickiness, and effort to take decent pictures of my kids whenever I can, will pay off for us in at least one of the photo contests I have entered. Even if it doesn't, though, I'm going to have a lot of scrapbooking to do once I get these pictures printed!

New pics of the kids.

This is a little late for Earth Day, but it's better late than never. It was about time for a new cloth diapering photo. Look how big our studmuffin is getting!! 16 months of exclusively cloth diapering, and 16 months of not contributing to the environmental crisis that disposable diapers create. (They comprise one of the biggest components of the trash in our landfills.) Thak said that he's never had a moment's hesitation about cloth diapering, because when it comes to the planet, this decision is just so obvious. I second that, and might I just say how awesome it is that Thak is such a dedicated cloth diapering dad!


Orren also got some new Robeez. He got some brown sandals, which he hasn't had occasion to wear yet, and he got some canvas ones (with leather bottoms) which are called "Weekend Surfer". They show a van with a surf board on top. So cute! The only way to show you these shoes was to have him pose on mommy's surf board! Yeah, it would be better with water... tell it to Uncle Sam. He's the one who plunked us down in the desert.


And here's Lema! We were watching the NFL Draft on TV yesterday, and she put on this Georgia Tech hat. I think it looks good on her! Maybe she knows that's where the Vikings will be drafting her brother from in about 20 years. Hmmmm..... thinking.... ("With the 32nd pick of the 2030 NFL Draft, the Minnesota Vikings choose Orren M, Fullback, Georgia Tech.") One way or another, this just proves once again that we raise our children right in this family! Haha!

Editing photos

I got bored yesterday, and decided to edit some photos. I use Picasa, which is a free editing program. It doesn't have as many actions as Photoshop, but like I said, it's free. Plus, it's really easy to use, whereas Photoshop takes more to learn, and I no longer live near anyone who can teach me.

Anyhow, here are a few photos I've edited.

Minneapolis Skyline (before)




Minneapolis Skyline (after)


Ceiling of Minnesota Children's Museum (before):




Ceiling of Minnesota Children's Museum (after):


Thak and Orren (before) ((They are so studly!!)):




Thak and Orren (after):


Erin at Tybee Island, GA (before)


Erin at Tybee Island, GA (after)


Another of Erin at Tybee. I don't have the before of this handy, although I'm sure I can find it somewhere. All I did was change the color:



Orren at Minnesota Children's Museum. I don't have the "before" of this one either. It's just cropped and red-eye removed. I edited this one for a photo contest given by my favorite car seat company (Sunshine Kids, who makes Radian and Monterey). They're giving away three Radians to the three cutest little boys, so I had to give my studmuffin the best chance to win one!

Coloring and Jeep Riding

Here is Orren, coloring with the markers the Easter Bunny brought him. He loves coloring, and I love that there are so many art supplies for babies his age now.

OK, OK, I suppose he's actually a toddler now. I mean, he is almost 16 months old. He wears a size 3T in clothing, and stands nearly 3' tall. He runs around the house all day, and pushes furniture around the living room like he's a lineman pushing through to sack the other team's quarterback. I guess he's officially a toddler.

Anyhow, here is my big toddler boy, coloring.


It won't be long before we'll have to buy him his own Powerwheels vehicle, because once he realizes that the pink Barbie Jeep is kind of girly, he won't want anything to do with it. For now, though, he's rather fascinated with the Jeep.

One day, he climbed right in behind the wheel. He couldn't reach the pedals, though!


Another day, he climbed in and let Erin take him for a ride around the yard. He loved it, and Erin loved being able to drive him around!!