Tutu Artsy

I may be a tad crafty (more on that at the end of the post), but I am by no means an artist. I'll be the first to admit that there are a lot of things I just don't have "the eye" for. One of those things is photography. I have a little point and shoot camera that I use fairly regularly, but since I got my schmancy new schmart phone, I find myself doing a lot of pointing and shooting with that.

I've come to realize recently that even though I might not have a natural talent for photography, if I don't want my kids' lives to be documented by twice yearly professional shoots and a couple of blurry phone pics a week, I'd better get with it!

I feel like the overall quality of my photos has improved a bit in the past year or so. I've managed to pick up a few tips online, but the advice that I hear over and over again from every photographer I admire is, "Practice, practice, practice!"

With that in mind, I decided to take some photos of Penny in her tutu. The ones I like best are actually the ones I shot into the sun. I never would have thought to try shooting into the sun if I hadn't read a blog post about it somewhere last month (if I could remember where, I would totally give the writer credit!). Our master bedroom faces east and in the mid-morning the whole room is just bathed in light, so I decided to try it out and see if I got a few good ones.

The following photos have not been changed in any way. I did no photoshopping or balancing or color correction. There was even a little dust on my lense, which I would have been upset about except that 1) I think it caught the light just right and 2) it's a perfect representation of my house - with a baby and a pre-schooler, there's just a little bit of dust on things these days. :-)

I hope you like them as much as I do!









I personally think my little model made all the difference. Then again, I could be biased.



PS - You got a sneak peek of Penny's tutu photo shoot when she hacked my blog on Monday. I did, in fact, make the tutu. It's not quite as easy as she made it out to be (I didn't take a nap and wake to find it finished), but it is super simple. If you buy the tulle from a bolt of fabric (rather than in bulk as a strip wound around a spool like ribbon) then the hardest part is measuring and cutting the tulle into strips. I think there's even less cutting involved if you shell out the big bucks and buy it on the spool. If you want a tutorial, comment here and I will post one the next time I make one. That shouldn't be too long since pretty much every friend I have who has a baby girl gets a tutu from me (sorry to spoil the big surprise ladies).

Six Months!

Guess who's six months old today!

Hacked by Penny - Tutu Fashionable

Well hello again! I wanted to share some fashion advice with all you fine people out in blog land. As the weather has warmed up, I've seen lots of you grown-ups wearing ridiculous, uncomfortable, season-inappropriate clothing. I thought I'd throw in my two cents about some of the summer's most useless items of clothing.

Like pants. Take it from me, there's just no reason to wear pants this time of year. A nice short sleeved body suit is just so much cooler. Besides, that way everyone will be able to see your cute chubby legs. I can't tell you how many compliments I've gotten on my adorable leg rolls since I eliminated pants from my wardrobe.

If you feel that you must accessorize your bodysuit, just have your mom make you a tutu like I did. It's super easy. All you have to do is giggle while she measures the waistband around your tummy, eat, take a nap and then when you wake up, it's finished! Piece of cake!


As you can see, I'm pretty excited about how my tutu turned out.


Another tip, going barefoot further accentuates the cuteness of your chubby legs.


Here's my best ballet toe-point. You can see that I'm concentrating really hard to make sure I achieve maximum cuteness.


Add in a smile, with just a little bit of tongue sticking out: Maximum Cuteness Achieved!

If I get a good response from this post, I may make a regular habit of hacking Mom's blog account to dispense fashion advice. Goodness knows you pants-wearing grown-ups need it!

Big Girl Room!

I started working on Norah's big girl room today. I took her in there to show her the progress I'd made (it's not done yet), and she was so excited! In fact, she helped me - like really helped, not distracted toddler "helped" - move a bunch of her toys in there. Pretty much all that I have left to move now are her clothes. She asked to go to bed a half hour early. I obliged, with the requisite photo shoot to document the occasion.

She had a little trouble actually falling asleep. I think part of it was the excitement and part of it was that there's still no curtain on her window and it stays light here till after 9. I told you I wasn't quite done with the room yet; the curtain is definitely at the top of my list. You'll have to wait until it's completely finished to see shots of the room, but here are a couple of shots of the room's brand new occupant.

Art!

According to Norah, this says, "Janet Ferguson" which just happens to be my mom's name...

The Pen-Cess and the Peas

So far Penny has had experience with a couple of solid foods besides the standard baby cereal. The first bite of each was met with surprise, then interest and finally excitement. That is, until we got to peas.

I was a little surprised since peas were Norah's absolute favorite food from about 6 to 18 months. In fact, you can kind of hear Norah in the background asking if Penny likes them.

I was really glad I had my phone on hand to catch her reaction. This video is about her fifth or sixth bite.



**NOTE** I couldn't get Blogger to upload my video from my iPhone so I had to post it to my facebook and then embed it here. Sorry if you've already seen it. :-)

Happy Father's Day

Just swinging in to say, "Happy Father's Day!"

Crafty on Father's Day

I got Mark's present(s) for Father's Day all wrapped yesterday. I decided to play on the cliche that everyone gets their dad a tie.

I'm really excited about what's IN the packages too, but of course, I can't show you that yet. I don't think Mark really reads the blog (the poor man hears me talk enough as it is) but just in case, I can't do "the big reveal" until Sunday.

Feel free to steal the idea if you haven't wrapped your Daddy's (or your Baby Daddy's) present.

Family Photos

Did you notice my new title picture at the top? We finally got a photo of all four of us! Here's the story:

Mark's parents came for a visit a couple of weeks ago. While they were here, we did a photo shoot with the whole family (including grandparents) as part of our Mother's Day present to our moms (and me too, kinda). Mark's good friend took the photos for us. You can read his wife's blog here.

We just got the very first proofs. I won't share any sneak previews of the grandparent photos, since they haven't seen them yet, but we got some cute ones! Check back soon, I can't wait to show you!!

The Bar D

I wrote a post about the Bar D Wranglers the first time we took Norah to see them - so I won't totally repeat myself, but they're AWESOME! If you're ever in this area between Memorial Day and Labor Day, I highly recommend that you catch a show. You can read more about them here, too.

Last Monday was Penny's first visit. She got to see them again at lunch yesterday at Uncle Bob's work. She'll also get to see them again with us tonight. This girl just has no idea how luck she is!


I say that because this is how she spent the whole concert on Monday:



I suppose the fact that the dinner bell rings at 7:30 - a half hour past her bed time - might have had something to do with it. The actual concert doesn't usually start until 8:30 or so.

Free Lunch!

The bank my little brother works at was having their annual customer appreciation lunch today. The day includes hamburgers and hot dogs, chips, drinks, a cookie and music by the Bar D Wranglers.

Hmmm, free food, free music and a trip to Uncle Bob's work? Norah was IN! I walked over from work just in time to meet Mark, my mom and the girls. Of course Norah was so excited that I couldn't get a good photo. This is about all I managed.

*In other news: We went with Mark's family to see the Bar D Wranglers on Monday, we got to see them at lunch today, and we just found out that we'll be seeing them again tomorrow when my aunt and uncle are in town. Three times in a week!?! At the rate we're going, those guys are gonna know us all by name.*

Why I Was Almost Late for Work

I just couldn't say no when she asked me so sweetly to braid her hair for the very first time. She did such a good job holding still! Hopefully this is the first of many braid attempts - I seriously need to practice!

Sweet and Beautiful

We went to visit Uncle Frank's house on Saturday. Norah's favorite part of the visit is always seeing the horse, Dolce ("Sweet" in Spanish). Recently Dloce had a filly. Her name is Nizhona ("Beautiful" in Navajo). Katelyn managed to scrounge up two carrots. Norah couldn't wait to feed them to the horses. We managed to (barely) keep up and get some pictures.

C'mon guys! Hurry up!!

There's Nizhona in the distance.

"I'm gonna show her how fast I run!"

Feeding Nizhona. She doesn't really like carrots yet - too hard.

Dolce sidled over to take a look.

Annnnnddd...... the carrots are gone!

Hacked - Penny's First Post

Oh hello. I didn't see you there.


Just kidding! Gotcha didn't I?


I just decided to take over Mom's blog for a minute to tell you all about the coolest thing I just discovered.

They're called apples. I'm not really sure of the pronunciation, to be honest. I usually just call them, "Narlllmmmmm mrralllmmmmm!"


At first, I wasn't so sure about them.


But the more I tried them, the more excited I was about them.


Anyway, I don't know if you've tried them yet, but I highly recommend that you check them out!

Exactly the Same, Only Totally Different

Considering the sometimes clone-like appearance of my children, there's usually no doubt that they're sisters. However, before you give in to the urge to assume that Penny is simply "Norah Part Two" consider the following photos:

This is Penny today, June 4, 2011. She is five months and one week old.

This photo is Norah. Pretty dang similar, right? The only difference? This photo is dated April 22, 2009. Norah was eight months, two weeks and three days old.

Same outfit. Roughly three months different in size.

So yeah. They're exactly the same, only totally different. Just the way sisters should be.