A Picnic: by Joshua and Elora

Joshua: "Hey guys, guess what? Last week we went on a picnic up the canyon! What did you do on a fun picnic you ask? Let me demonstrate. This here, is a chip:"



"Hocus pocus, alakazam, let'r rip...and it's disappeared! Thank you very much."



Elora: "Um, Josh, Jonah thinks your trick was dumb, it put him right to sleep!"
Josh: "Nuh uh, he always sleeps, even at our exciting picnic."
Elora: That's true. I know, lets tell everyone what else we did!"




Josh: "Yeah, like the big tree we got to sit in! I smiled so pretty, but you kept making silly faces and ruining the pictures...."



"..so mommy will probably have to print this dumb one where you guys are making the same boring face. Sheesh, Elora!"



Elora: "No, tell them about how we spent an hour throwing pretty rocks in the cold creek. That was pretty cool."



Josh: "Oh yes, I threw some of the biggest rocks ever! "



"I almost hit you in the head a few times because I forgot about watching for people in front of me. It was awesome!"



Elora: "Don't forget about my rocks. I found some pretty good ones, because I was brave enough to walk in the freezing water to look for them."



Elora: "and mine made the biggest splashes of all!"




Josh: "I guess we could mention that mom and dad were there too. Their rocks skipped across the water sometimes, but that wasn't as neat as our big splashes."




Elora: "And Jonah was there. He didn't splash any rocks. He doesn't know anything 'bout what you do on picnics!"



Josh: "I guess we'll have to teach him so he'll be ready for next time!"

Do These Babies Look The Same?

We've noticed recently that our new little fellow Jonah bears a striking resemblance to one of his siblings. Here's Jonah..



And here is Elora at four weeks old. Do you see it?



I wish we had some more pics on the computer of Elora at this age (we didn't have a digital camera yet) but trust me, they totally look the same. Here again...Jonah:



Elora! Hmm. maybe those two aren't the best match. His eyes are too squinty.



But check out this profile. We have some remarkably identical pictures of Joseph asleep with Elora (this is Jonah) but again they're not on the computer.




Still, the only way you know this one isn't Jonah is the frilly dress, right?




Okay, they're not perfectly alike. But the two of them definitely share more of a common look than their poor, bald brother with the orange eyebrows:




Oh, another thing all three had in common.. mommy gained pretty much the same amount of weight with each, though you may not guess it from the pictures:

weekend before Elora's birth

weekend before Joshua's birth

two weeks? before Jonah's birth.

Shiny Happy Baby Pics

Many of you have probably already seen Jonah's birth announcement on facebook...this is the "fake" version of it, as this isn't our real last name:


I was really excited to be able to make this for Jonah, as we didn't have photoshop when the other two were born, so we just did announcements with words and included the photo the hospital took. I was impatient for the baby to be born just so I could work on it!

The photo with Joseph was taken at the hospital before the baby was a day old; I loved the silhouette in this and knew I just had to use it. Too bad I didn't quite catch the sun flare I was going for, but I still like it!



My mom was very generous when she was here, and one of the best things she got me was five yards of black fabric so I could take some of these other photos.
I found it more trouble to get good shots than I thought I would. Partly its because I waited till the window light was too dim for my camera, so many of the pictures I got had a little too much blur, or were a bit grainy. (No studio lights here!)
Also, I was trying to hurry before the baby got grumpy and the other kids kept coming in and out of the room. It didn't help that I had this set up on my bed, which was not the most stable of environments- the baby tipped over more than once!
Plus, my babies never were the scrunchy floppy kind of babies. I was trying to get him to scrunch up or lay so still and cute, but my kids like to raise their heads, look around and wave their arms....even at four days old! Guess they take after me.

This is about as scrunchy as he got... definitely not the best of pictures, but I think I'll keep them.




This following picture is the one I used in the announcement; I love that raised eyebrow. He looks a lot like Elora at that age. At first I didn't like that his feet were in the way, but I've decided it makes it unique:





Hey, whats that up there?




Technically speaking, this picture is awful in the way the baby is positioned, but I still like it:



As for this foot shot, I really do love this one! I love that his head is in the shot too. This was also used in the announcement:




Then we had to do the obligatory baby-in-daddy's-hands shot; most of them weren't that great as he was getting fussy (the baby not daddy),



But I did like this one a lot:



And before he got too mad, we got in a few head shots:



Then we realized it was time to be done!

There are a few more variations on all these shots, and I have everything in both color and black and white. Now comes the hard part deciding which ones I'll print to hang on my wall.

I was going to try more the next day, but that was when we had to take him back to the hospital to stay under the bilirubin lights overnight so it didn't happen. I had contemplated doing some with the siblings too, but by the end of that week I was exhausted. Maybe when he's older, or when we do family pictures in the fall?

Oh, finally, I did end up fixing that pretty window picture I posted earlier from the hospital. Here is the before and after:

Haircut: The Belated Story

As you may have noticed in the birth story post, I recently got my hair cut! It was the weekend before the baby was born. I was going to do a post about it last week but...well, things got busy. Anyway, this is it.


No, this first picture isn't me, its the picture I took to the salon so they could see what cut I wanted. My hair never turns out like I pictured it, but I thought maybe a reference of some sort might help.

As expected, my new haircut looks nothing like this! Part of the problem, is my hair is not straight by any means, and stylists always seem to have a problem with that issue. I also asked her to do it a little shorter than this pic, which may have affected the outcome as well.



So I've had my hair this short before, but never with layers of any kind.. I was afraid the curl in it would make them "not work". Also, when my hair curls or frizzes (as it did while the girl sprayed it with water) it seems much thicker than it is. Therefor I think her layers thinned my hair out way more than she realized, resulting in a very thin scarecrow look.
It was annoying because it was all frizzed out while she cut it, and then she didn't straighten it at all to see if the cut looked right! I don't know how she could tell, the way it was when I left.
I wasn't too excited when I got home and straightened it, and this was the best I could do:



Her layers didn't seem right at all. But after a few days of experimenting and using bobby-pins etc, I decided I did like the cut after all. Even though its still not like the picture I brought.
The day we had the baby was actually the first day I was trying it curly- my natural curl always comes out better when its short!
I took this picture that morning:



So, what do you think?