Photo editing. . .

Here is the picture of my daughter's delight with just a basic fix of sharpening and black and white. I edited it quickly so I could get it up on the blog. In retrospect I thought it needed more work. . .

I am still fairly new at the photo editing game. Farm Boy has a natural ability to make the adjustments on the camera and then with the editing software. I am slowly (ever so slowly) learning . . .

I have gotten to a point recently where I can get the camera to do what I want it do do without much hassle, and am now trying to focus more on fine tuning on the editing side. We are currently using Picasa for this task. It is free and it is simple. Someday I wouldn't mind trying my hand at the PhotoShop Elements, but that is not in the budget right now seeing as how Farm Boy just bought a tractor. . .

Anyway, here is my second attempt at this picture of my girl. If any of my photo savvy friends has any advice, please, feel free to comment! I am always up for some constructive ideas!!!

My son's favorite color. . .

Orange. Orange. Orange. Everything orange. Orange shirts, orange sippy cups, orange crayons, orange paper, orange juice, oranges. My son loves anything orange.

You may wonder why this fact is important?

I'll give you one little clue. . .




Farm Boy bought a tractor this week.

Andrew insists that his daddy bought HIM a tractor. . .

And why not? It is orange after all. . .

The following photo series is my boy living his dream.

It is quite possibly the best photo series EVER!!!!

 Oh, the joy!!!! 

Wouldn't you want to be Andrew right then?

So glad I was able to capture that moment!

While the boys were mowing MJ and I amused ourselves.
Me with my camera walking around the barn.

Morgan with her net intent on capturing a frog.

Still mowing. . .

Still searching. . .

My boy has ninja moves.

Has anyone ever known a cat that allows you to bury it in sand?

Dipstick is just plain weird!

MJ finally taking her ride. She had a much more subdued reaction.

But I think she liked it!

The evening ended with me and the kids sitting down to dinner and Farm Boy still mowing. He had a lot of catching up to do since spring had come so early this year and we lacked any way to mow the grass. 

Mow on Farm Boy. . .Mow on. . .

My Baby Girl is 8. . .

This is my baby girl. She turned 8 on Saturday. 8! Seriously!!!! She has since reminded me that 8 is almost 10 and 10 is almost a teenager. . . .whaaaaa!!!!

Alright, I feel a little better getting that off my chest.

On Saturday I had a portion of my family out to the farm for the first time. I had cooked for 5 hours the day before, gone to work for 10 hours that night and then slept for 4.5 hours. I was not quite sane, but now that I think about it, when have I ever been quite sane? Hmmm. . .

Morgan decide that she wanted a crumb top apple pie and I decided that one pie would not be enough, so I made my favorite mandarin orange cake.

One thing that I discovered is that I should not bake when I am not well rested. I pride myself in my ability to make delectable and attractive deserts. . . these desserts were just so-so. The pie looks a little raggedy because my mom and I kept sneaking apples off the edges, "just to see if they were done." Riiiiight!

This is Morgan practicing her candle skills.

I experimented with the icing on the cake this year. The original recipe calls for cool whip, and I have banned my family from eating sweetened plastic. I decided to try and used whipped cream instead and it worked just fine. Yeah! I think, however, that I put too large of a can of oranges in the cake mix, so it turned out pretty dense. . .oh well, at least this one looked pretty. . .

Regardless of how injured my pride was, my baby was happy and that is what counts!

No party is complete without the party favors, and I accidentally got the ones that don't make noise. . .

Ooops, I am soooooo sorry, honey.  *snicker-snicker*

They enjoyed them anyway.

Mikah enjoyed abusing Grandma a bit.

And the tiger (aka Lukas) enjoyed them as well.

Happy Birthday to you! 

Make a wish!

The self-satisfied look on her face is because she anticipated the tiger's advance and blew the candle out before he could make his move. Watching this scene play out gave me a sense of deja vu. . .

Not sure if it is the costume or what, but I seemed to remember a female tiger at the table on her 6th birthday, so I went through my pictures and it is just as I thought!!!

There is a tiger helping her blow out the candles!!!

We miss that little tiger. . .birthdays just haven't been quite the same without her!

I never could have known when I sat and sewed that costume for her when she was 2 1/2 that it would still be stalking me around the house 5 years later! Love it!

Well, another birthday under the belt. It was a wonderful day. 

Farm chores and a walk. . .

One of the down sides to working night shift is that I seem to miss all of the exciting stuff that happens around here. Turns out there was a country car crash this weekend that I slept through. You can read all about it on Farm Boy's blog post here. At least I was awake for the photo op! Seeing as how Farm Boy was a professional landscaper in his previous life he has been spending most of his time in our great outdoors cleaning up after the winter, collecting debris, trimming bushes and giving some TLC to our trees in the yard.  Our first farm purchases have been focused on these chores. . .shovels, rakes, wheel barrow, weed eater and chain saw.

Farm Boy came home from work and set out to work on the tree that had fallen behind the cattle barn and asked if I wanted to grab the camera and follow along.

I jumped at the chance and was rewarded with some views of the farm that I had not seen before.

After watching him for a bit I set off to capture some of the beauty of this place

 that we now call home.

This is the pond up by the cattle barn. You can't take a step near it without sending frogs plopping indignantly into the water.

As I headed down the hill I was passed by Farm Boy off to get some fuel for his new toy.

Then I was passed by the kitties who follow us around like puppies. 

By the time I wandered down to the driveway the peacefulness was broken by a rumble. . .

Our off-roading vehicle is getting a new life as a farm hand!

While Farm Boy headed back to his chores, I found myself in the front yard again. . .

This tree  is absolutely breathtaking! It is visible from my kitchen windows and I sometimes get distracted and find myself just standing there staring at it.

I have loved seeing what little surprises are going to come up each day. This farm is new to us, but there have been families living on this site for many years, each planting a bulb or two

 here and there.

The daffodils were the first to raise their heads.

And then there were theses lovely little hyacinths. . .

I can't wait to see what shows up next!

Thanks for joining me on my walk.

Love, 

Buttercup

My Son The Traitor. . .

There is a certain little boy who stole my heart. . .

This morning he also stole my bed.

He wiggled and squirmed and wiggled and squirmed. . .

Until he stole my sleep as well.

He then started saying he hurt. . .his tummy hurt. . .

We got up with visions of stomach virus floating through my head.

He wanted "wakey" clothes on. I got his shirt on and then he insisted he keep his pj pants on.

Then he wanted milk.

I wanted coffee.

All of this was happening during the ungodly hours between 530 & 7 am.

We sat for a while in the chair and then I got up to make some breakfast.

This is what went down while my back was turned.

Traitor!