Foto Friday: Symmetry

I really hope everyone had a great Easter.  Most people spend this beautiful time of celebration with their family.  That is why last week I had the theme as “family”.  My absolute favorite last week was this photo from L to the Third.  It is of her son and his great-grandpa.

Isn’t that just the most precious thing you have ever seen?

If you missed this photo, you really should be checking out the participants in Foto Friday.  Especially if you have an interest in photography.

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This week’s theme is symmetry.  I have to admit I had hoped for some beautiful architectural shots or something, but this past week’s weather has been horrific.  So I opted for the beautiful ivy my neighbor has.

I have always admired these gorgeous leaves.  They hang so beautifully.  Nature has made them naturally symmetrical. 

If you have any questions about this link up, please visit Foto Friday FAQ.  Link up below and share your fantastic shots with everyone. 

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Next week’s theme is “blue”.

Now I can’t wait to see your symmetry shots!

Mega Bloks Dora Bath Time Playset Review

I have not done a review in a while.  I just haven’t been that interested in them.  Until I was contacted by Team Mom to review the Mega Blok Dora’s Bath Time buildable playset.  Needless to say I was very interested.  Charley is extremely into Dora.

I was sent this playset.  Here are all of the items that came in it.

Charley had a blast playing with it.  She spent quite a while acting out things and even making Dora kiss herself in the mirror. 

Mega Bloks has a new line of these Dora playsets.  You can check them all out at Mega Bloks Family Club site.  If you want to see them in real life the playsets are available at Toys R Us, Wal-Mart, select Targets, and at Amazon.com.

This set was neat and Charley really enjoyed it (she even gave Dora a sun bath).  The one thing I would change is that the set included a sticker of Boots to put on a block.  A sticker!  Really?  Charley might like Boots even more than Dora.  At $14.99 the set is a good value.  But honestly I think they could have taken out a few of the tiny accessories (like the flower) and put in a Boots figurine.  That is just my opinion and unfortunately for them, they asked for my opinion. 

Honestly, the set is nice and I think it is worth the money.  I love the fact that you can add to it and use it along with Mega Bloks or by itself. 

You might want to join the Mega Bloks Family Club (if you haven’t already).  Members get things like $5 off coupons, exclusive offers and contest information, newsletters, and much more.

Disclosure: As stated above I was provided with this set to review.  All of the opinions are my own and honest.  I was not compensated for this post.

Foto Friday: Family

Friday is definitely becoming my favorite day of the week.  There are some amazing photos being shared.  I am truly inspired by what people are linking up. 

Last week was “looking up” and holy moly were there some great shots!  Here are just a couple of my favorites.

Shutterscapes linked up this great capture of the moon.  It is getting me itchy to try some nightscape shooting.

 

 

The Road Goes Ever On shared this fantastic photo of a palm tree.  Okay, I am officially ready for the summer after looking at this picture.

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So let’s get this week kicked off.  I will start by saying this is not the best picture, but I wanted to get one of the kids together.  Do you know how hard it is to get four children to sit still at the same time?!

And since two of them are our foster children, I have no authority to publish their faces.  So I did what any good mom would do.  I turned on the television and sat the baby next to them.

As far as blood relation, they are not family.  You could never tell them that, though.  Come to think of it you can’t tell me that, either.

Now it is your turn to share your photos.  I can’t wait to see them.

If you have any questions about this link up please read Foto Friday FAQ.

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Next week’s theme is "symmetry”.

Please be sure to visit some of the awesome people below and give them some love.  Since Sunday is Easter, I will have the link open through Tuesday night.  So please join in on the fun.

Bird Nest Cupcakes

Today Cole and Buddy are having a Spring party at preschool.  They can’t call it an Easter party.  Don’t get me started.

So I volunteered to bring the cupcakes.  For the record, I let the sign up sheet stay out for 2 days before I signed up.  I want to make sure to give other people a chance to sign up.  But let’s face it, I love to do it.

This is an oldie, but with so many fancy new ways this one might have been forgotten. 

I frosted mini cupcakes with a thin layer of store bought chocolate frosting.  I took a frosting tip (it says #5 on it) and made a circle around the top.  I made another layer inside the outer layer.  Does that make sense?

Then I put some jelly beans in the middle.  It is supposed to look like a bird nest.  You can use mini robin eggs, egg-shaped bubble gum, or whatever you can find that looks like eggs. 

Are you making a fun treat for Easter weekend?

Fun Kite Flying

The weather here has been crazy.  One day it is 70 degrees, then it is 45 degrees.  Arg!  The winds have been really bad one day and non-existent the next. 

We had a day with decent wind and fairly good temperature.  What is a mom to do?  Well take the kids in the front and fly kites!

Here is Cole watching his kite weave and meander in the sky. 

I just love that look on his face.  Isn’t it just precious?

 

I am sharing this one on Sweet Shot Tuesday.  It is my first time joining in. 

Foto Friday: Looking Up

I want to thank everyone that has been joining in with Foto Friday.  Last week was full of fantastic shots.  My favorites were:

Artistic Abstraction  from Pens and Cameras is just stunning.  I can’t take my eyes away form the colors and depths.  Fantastic!

The texture added to this photo by Heidi has a Hobby made all of the difference.  It completely changed the look and the story of the image.  This is what I hope to learn how to do successfully with textures. 
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This week’s theme is “looking up”.  Honestly, I took pictures form the base of trees, from under an exersaucer, and looking up a light pole.  None seemed right to me. 
I had taken this shot over the weekend at my in-laws house.  We were playing around in the barn and Cole was staring at Baby (the name of the horse).  I just clicked a few of these shots to play around with my aperture. 

I love how this one turned out.  Cole is looking up at Baby and has a big smile on his face and has the awe of a child.  Love it.  Just wanted to share. 
Now it is your turn to share your photos.  If you have any questions about Foto Friday, you can read more here at Foto Friday FAQ.

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Next week’s theme is “family”. 

Take it exactly how you want to.  I am looking forward to seeing your shots. 

I would really like to learn more and hopefully get better at photography.  I can practice and practice all I want, but I am still looking at every image with the same set of eyes.  I was recently inspired by My 3 Boybarians to ask for constructive criticism.  Tell me what I am missing, doing wrong, a different approach I might want to try, anything.  This is a learning process I am just beginning, so your help would be great!  Thank you.

Say What?: Lego Prosthetic

 

“That is not a wienie.  You cannot build yourself a wienie.”

 

We were playing with Legos and Charley made a small tower out of the four dot Legos.  She held it out and showed it to me.  I just kind of looked at it because she has built really neat stuff, so a plain stick wasn’t much.

Then she told me it was her wienie.  I didn’t know whether to be mortified or pee my pants. 

She plays with two boys all day.  She plays exactly like them.  She swears she is four years old, just like Cole. 

If Cole tells her she can’t do something because she is too little, her reply is yelling, “I betcha I can” in his face.  For the record she usually does do it, too. 

So this little girl was bound and determined that she was going to have a wienie just like the boys.  She will be the first to tell you she is a girl and her favorite color is pink.  It is just hard to see the pink under the dirt.  I honestly think she probably just wants to pee standing up. 

For the record, the “prosthetic” never left the table. 

Man, she is going to be so mad at me when she is older.  This blog will be long forgotten by then, though.

 

What crazy things have you found yourself saying lately?

Matching Upper and Lower Case Letters

I have seen a lot of ways to make a game out of matching upper and lower case letters. Some match up with clothespins, others use paper, and some use lids. I took an idea from Teach Mama about alphabet letter lids and made it more visual for my son. I am sure there are versions of this out there, but I haven’t found an actual post of it. It is very easy! Here is what you will need: piece of poster board (cardboard or craft foam will work just fine), circle stickers, lids, and a marker.

Write upper and lower case letters on stickers. Put all of the upper case stickers on the board and all of the lower case stickers on the lids (or vice versa).

I would highly recommend using the same color lids, if you can. Their brains are already thinking and sorting letters, adding a bunch of colors to the equation may be a bit much to process. Grandma is a Diet Coke junkie (so am I) and it was easy for us to collect 26 silver lids.

Set the letters out on a flat surface next to the board and let your child match them up. When they match up the letters they place the lid over the sticker.

 

You may need to help your child out a little by handing them a lid one at a time. We learned that a few lids got confusing when playing. Lower case "d" and "p" got confused. Lower case "m" and "w" did as well.

My son had a lot of fun playing this game and requests it often. It has even been implemented in his preschool class, due to his rave review of it.

Foto Friday: Texture

The laughter shots from last week were fantastic.  I got a kick out of going through the link up and seeing them.  As always photos that aren’t within the theme are extremely welcome.  I loved all of them.  While they were all fabulous, one stood out dramatically to people.

L to the third linked up this fantastic shot of Sammy being a bubble boy.  Can you say precious?  I commented that it looked straight out of a magazine ad for Johnson & Johnson.  What a marvelous job!

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This week’s prompt was “texture”.  You can interpret that any way you want.  My initial idea was to try to take a picture of something with awesome texture that made the image pop.  I took almost 100 pictures and nothing seemed to be what I wanted. 

So I got the brilliant idea that I would ad a texture to my image.  I have seen that add such an element of depth to an image.  Did you know that I just got Photoshop a few months ago and haven’t really learned that much on it at all?  Did you know that I have never, ever added a texture to an image?

I googled how to do it.  It looked easy enough.  I guess it does, technically. 

I didn’t even begin to fathom all of the millions of texture images out there.  Now try to match one up with the right shot.  Yikes!  I was completely out of my element.

So this is the shot I finally decided on.  It is a saddle from my in-laws barn.  I did some clean editing, btw I stink at clean editing and I need to stalk read Ashley Sisk’s blog religiously for some major help.  I also ran some actions and tweaked the levels to get this:

Now I added a texture to it and decided to go with a 39% opacity.  I think it gives the saddle some history and a story.  My husband said I just took a decent picture and made it look like crap.  He also made the comment that if I wanted something to look all old and fuzzy I should just get a 1 megapixel camera and stop using expensive cameras and software.  He did say it nicely and jokingly.  He just doesn’t get this stuff, and I get that.

So what do you think?  Should I have turned down the opacity?    Do you like the first one or the second one better?  Obviously I need a lot more practice.  Good thing I have you all for motivation and inspiration.  Your fantastic shots keep me going and striving to learn more and do better!

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If you want more info about Foto Friday or have question, please read Foto Friday FAQ.

 

Next week ‘s theme is “looking up”

Now show me what you have this week.  I can’t wait!.  Don’t forget to come back and vote.  It is always nice to get some recognition for a job well done.

Quarterly Top 5

One of the great blogs I found through joining in Foto Friday when Household 6 Diva hosted it was Naptime Mom Tog.  There is a photo challenge going on right now that I thought would be fun to join in.  I planned on joining sooner, but I haven’t gotten my butt in blogging mode.  I am sure you can understand that. 

So you share your 5 favorite photos taken in January, February, and March of your kids/pets and blog about them.  It’s that easy.  Here are the ones I liked the most.  You have seen them before, so I am sorry. 

I had to chose this one because it is one of my all time favorites and I actually got a picture of the two of them being sweet to each other.  It was officially captured as evidence!

Cole was trying to run to the barn to see the horses after I took the shot of him and Charley above.  I had my camera still in my hands and he suddenly stopped and just said, “Mommy I love you to the moon and back.  You know that right?”  We hugged really big and I asked if I could take a picture of just him.  He told me just one and then he had to go do some big boy stuff.

 

For the record, this one with the Oreos has not been blogged about or published online.  Woo hoo!  We were eating (can you tell by the gunk all over his face?) and being silly.  I got some pictures of Charley, but they all involved her sticking out her cookie covered tongue and pieces falling on the floor.

This is a special shot for me.  With 4 small kids in the house one on one time can be hard to acquire.  The boys were at preschool and the baby was taking a nap.  We were having big girl time.  She chose what we did and she was being so silly.  Just me and my Charley.

I couldn’t do this without including a picture of my late Roxi.  I miss her so much.  This picture was taken just a few days before she died.

 

So there are my 5 favorite pictures including my kids or pets.  Next quarter I will try to have some more original one sin the mix.  :-/

Physics Concepts for Preschoolers with a Wrecking Ball

This is an activity that I documented and contributed over at No Time for Flash Cards quite a few months ago.  I thought it would be perfect to share with you, even if you read it over on Allie’s site.  Chances are you are having rain, or will sometime in the next few weeks.  This is a great indoor activity to keep kids occupied and learning.  You know learning without knowing they are really learning (the best kind).

 

I don't think it is a secret how much I love science. I love teaching my kids about science. Preschoolers are so much fun to watch when they experiment and learn. We did this fun activity on a recent rainy day that taught my kids about spatial relations and physics, but it was disguised as a wrecking ball. Here is what you will need: some yarn, an empty key ring, a ball, masking tape, and some blocks.

 

First, tape the key ring to a door frame using the masking tape. You want to only use masking tape because any other tape may damage paint or stained wood.

 

Next wrap the ball with the yarn. Any ball will do. This ball is very lightweight and filled with air and kind of squishy.

Have your child build a structure with the blocks. You do not have to use blocks. Empty yogurt or butter containers work great, so do food storage containers.

 

Thread the yarn through the key ring.

 

Have your child hold the end of the yarn in one hand and the ball in the other. Show them how they can adjust the height by pulling or letting go of the yarn. For the younger two kids I held the non-ball end for them.

Now your child can let loose and do some demolition!

We had a neat time talking about how we needed to pull it to make it higher and standing further back to make the ball hit the building harder. It was so exciting to hear my son point these things out. I would ask how we could hit the blocks at the very bottom and he would tell me how he thought it could be done. So I told him to test it out.

It was a good time for everyone. Nothing says fun like demolition. :-)