Looky, looky! See the cool photo edge? I did that! This took me 30 minutes to do, no lie, but I figured it out without my husband sitting right next to me. Yes, I'm sure it is fundamental to all you Photoshop people out there, but for me, even with an online tutorial, it is a big deal to do this on my own. Now I know how to group layers and make an elemask. I'm way too excited about this. Ok, I'm off to make more edges. woo hoo!

edited to add: The term elemask was apparently named by the person who created the tutorial and is not a "real" PS term.

I'm starting to get frustrated with my weight loss, I gained .4 pounds at my last weigh in and I have just not been sticking to the program like I should. I'm not even going overboard but it seems like if I don't stick to the points precisely then I won't have a loss for the week. I'm beginning to think I won't reach my 10% goal by my birthday in July and I'm really annoyed with myself about that. It's just food, dammit! Why am I so caught up in what I'm going to eat? It should not matter that much. UGH!

Our weekend was fun, we almost ended up not going because my dad was having some health issues but he turned out to be fine and we went up on Saturday morning. The Man put the dock in the water and made a fire pit, but he didn't have time to put his Hobie in this time. Not sure when we'll be going back. We met up with our friends for some fishing at the river. I was dismayed by the huge of amount of mosquitos. If they are this bad already then I can only imagine how hideous they will be in the middle of the summer. Poor little boy got attacked all over his face and ears.

Middle girl and her daddy are going on a class field trip to Higgins Lake and Mackinac Island next week, she is so excited about it. I went on this same trip with oldest girl two years ago and it was really fun. I liked being able to hang out with her friends and teachers in a setting outside of school. This turned out to be quite a dull blog, I mostly wanted to vent about my lack of weight loss and frustration at being a slave to food.

Big Haircut


Here he is last week at the park, the picture is not that great but you can really see his huge amount of unruly hair.


I cut off a ton of his hair because it was getting so tangly and matted and the brushing sessions were getting out of hand. Anyway, here he is yesterday in the backyard. He likes his new look, he says his hair is "poofy" now. Not sure if that's good or bad in his mind.

I have been doing some digital scrapbooking the past few weeks, I really like it as I can put a page together here and there without having to clear off the work table, get out my photos, supplies and tools. Usually by the time I get all that set up, my window of opportunity is long gone. I came across these two pictures and wanted to go down memory lane.


I think he is about 2 and 1/2 here, he was so funny at that age. All bluster and craziness around us but very quiet and almost shy around people he didn't know well.



This one is from Christmas of 2002, the girls are are 8 and 4 here. These outfits crack me up, not the usual clothes I would dress them in but they could rarely wear similar outfits due to their age and size difference so I'll cut myself some slack for the sparkles. Oh the good 'ol days, back when the oldest would actually put her arm around her little sister. She'd rather chew glass now than be affectionate with her. They still play together and all but there is no hugging or anything anymore.

Oh yay! I managed to start and finish a Photoshop Elements tutorial and I think I understand what I did. This is a most important fact because most of the time I just do what it says and don't retain anything. This is mostly thanks to the help and knowledge of my wonderful husband who sat next to me and explained what was happening and why. He stuck with me through one
(ok, maybe two) outbursts of extreme frustration and was just an all around great help. The fact that he works on Photoshop for a
living and is a super genius at it doesn't hurt either.

We are getting set to go up north to my parent's cottage for the holiday weekend, I can't wait. We're supposed to meet some friends and their 3 kids at the dam, where the kids will hunt for crayfish and maybe fish and play in the river if it's above 45 degrees. You never know with northern Michigan. My friend and I recently connected again after a long time apart. We weren't out of touch for any particular reason, we're both just busy and she lives in Ann Arbor which is about a 45 minute drive. That's not very conducive to dropping in whenever and hanging out, it always has to be planned in advance to fit with our schedules.
Anyway, we had dinner at their house a couple of weeks ago and it was like we were never apart. I can talk about anything with her, she understands me and my weird sense of humor and annoying tendencies. The added bonuses are that our husbands are friends too and the kids all get along great. In fact, our two oldest have been friends since they were about 2 months old, that's over 13 years ago. Yikes!

I discovered this application on the Mac called Comic Life and made this real quick just to get the hang of it. Click to see it bigger. I can't wait to show the kids how to use it, I know they will have a blast with it. Oldest girl already says she wants to make one about her bunny, the cute and adorable Speckles. I am so proud of how well my girl takes care of her pet, she pays her tons of attention, is always feeding her when she's supposed to and cleans the litter box on a regular basis. I can tell she just adores Speckles, she is so gentle and sweet with her. That's a side we don't see too often these days. To us, she can be kind of stand offish and sarcastic, not in a mean way but in a teenager way, if you know what I mean. It does make me kinda sad that I have to remind her to give me a hug when she goes to bed and she doesn't say anything back when I tell her I love her. Ok, that breaks my heart a little, but I try to remember that this is part of her growing up and she is supposed to be pulling away from us. I am thankful that she still seems to want to hang out with me and tell me what's going on at school and with her friends, I'll take any crumbs at this point, I guess.

Well, this turned into a different post entirely. I was going to complain about my total lack of ability at Photoshop Elements and my cute new BambooFun tablet that would be even more enjoyable if I could figure out that damn Photoshop, but I'll save that for another day.

Just a quickie today since I have not posted in awhile. Were you worried?
I am still plugging away at Weight Watchers, have lost 13 pounds so far. This is good, yeah, but it is not enough yet for people to notice that I'm losing. But really, I don't think I want to hear how "great" I look because I lost weight. Because I was so hideous before? Thanks....

The little man has started T-Ball and seems to like it so far. He is very tentative right now and doesn't run very fast to first base so he has been out a few times. Luckily, he is fine with that. I was worried he'd get all offended as he takes things very personally sometimes. Yesterday we went to see a play with some friends. As we were getting ready to go, he decided he wanted to wear different shoes on each foot. Both pairs are similar in style and he thought it was funny. Well, when we got to the theater and her saw all the school groups going in, he got all nervous and said that the kids were going to make fun of his shoes. Poor little guy, 5 is too young to care about what people think of you. I wonder if that's just his personality or if he picked something up from kids at school or us or did I do something? Why do I start blaming myself? That's a whole other issue I don't feel like getting into right now.

Middle girl had her piano recital on Sunday, we are so happy that she is still playing the piano and that she still enjoys it and doesn't think of practicing as a chore. The other day I was comparing (in my head) how my two girls handled the big transition from 3rd to 4th grade. It is a huge change, they get a new teacher after having the same one since 1st grade. The workload changes and they are expected to be more organized and responsible for their work. Both of them struggled with organization and getting overwhelmed, we helped them and things turned around by the middle of the school year. The one difference I can see between them is when it comes to projects, like book reports. Oldest girl was very dependent on us for help with choosing what to, how to do it and I admit, we probably helped her way more than we should have. Younger girl is the complete opposite, she asks for no help, in fact, she doesn't want it and gets offended if you offer too much assistance. She gets right down to business. For instance, she did a report from a silly book she has about Ugly Dolls and wanted to make a diorama of Ugly Doll city. She found the shoebox, made a background and sculpted mini Ugly Dolls out of polymer clay. She allowed me to cover the outside of the box with butcher paper because she was having a lot of trouble but aside from that, it was a solo project. Her projects don't come out as polished as her older sisters but they are definitely hers. I kind of wish we hadn't helped older girl so much when I see how proud her sister is of herself when she completes a project.
Ah well, I don't think we screwed up our oldest too much.

Speaking of our oldest (like that segue), we found out this week that she got into our second choice charter school. We are all so happy! I was ready and totally willing to home school her but I was terrified of actually doing it, I just don't have the confidence in myself nor the discipline. I'm sure I could have pushed myself and it would have worked, but I'm still relieved.
You know what is the dumbest? My biggest worry was what my parents would say/think if we ended up home schooling her. Will I ever grow up? Good grief!