Tyler is off to Kindergarten

There is just something so significant about starting kindergarten.  At our preschool they teach the moms that it's so important to invest as much as you can in the first 5 years of your child's life because after that, you only get them for their most busy or tired times (rushing off to school, tired after school, homework and sports in the evening, repeat).

So, I've been reflecting a ton this week on the past 5.5 years of Tyler's life.  All I can think of is how much of an absolute joy they have been and what an amazing privilege it is to be his mommy.  I love experiencing every milestone with him.

In honor of this big day for not just Tyler but his best gal pal Ella, Kelly and I took them to "college."  We went to Reed and took pictures of them.  I purposefully tried to pose a few to look like senior pictures so that when he graduates from high school we can pair them.  I can't even bear to think of that by the way and am SO glad I have 13 more years before facing that milestone.  Check out her adorable shots too over on her blog.

Tyler, you are my happiest, sweetest, funniest little guy.  You have brought more joy to daddy and I than we ever knew was capable for a human heart.  I love you to itty bitty pieces.  Tyler of course INSISTS that he wins the "I love you more" game, but since he can't type yet … I'm gonna win this round: Tyler, I love you more than Portland, more than Oregon, more than the earth, more than all of heaven, more than everything God made, times infinity, plus infinity, ... back."

 

 

 

Off you go my sweet boy!!!!!!!!!!  

Watermark

For quite a long while now I have been considering adding a watermark to some of my photos that I post.  I do this as a hobby, yet as I improve a little in my skill it is just smart in this digital age to protect your work.  I love to share my photos and composition ideas.  I have learned SO much from others who have shared their work online (helloooooooo  Pinterest).  In fact, it has been fun to pin a few of my own shots and see them actually get repinned by strangers who like them.

One of my photos has a few dozen repins, and it just made me decide to take the plunge and watermark some photos.  Below is sort of what I had in mind (although I might make it just the tiniest bit larger) … just a really simple signature so that if anyone stumbles across my stuff, they can know that it belongs to someone.

Just to be clear … this is NOT to glorify by own ability.  What I love about photography is that it takes God's beautiful creations and helps our eyes capture even more of the surrounding light (which is the essence of God himself) over a period of time into a condensed form which creates something even more beautiful than what our own naked eye can perceive.

"For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servant's for Jesus' sake.  For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness' has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."  2 Corinthians 4:5-6.

Garden Bugs

Two years ago I had my first ever little garden.  This year my goal was to plant as large a variety in my two boxes (2' x 8') to see what would grow the best in my sun/shade spots.  We have a few winners and losers for sure.

Winners:
1.  Kale (still going strong after several rounds of picking … I hope to plant some more just to see if we can get a fall crop)
2.  Celery!  TONS.  My mom and I have a date to make celery soup this Monday.

3.  Strawberries (although they are annoyingly taking over)
4.  Green onions
5.  Cabbiage
6.  Lettuce (although I pulled it after two crops worth at the end of July and haven't replanted because we were traveling so much)

Losers:
1.  Beets (they just didn't grow much)
2.  Brussel sprouts (they grew super leafy, almost like cabbages … not what I had expected)
3.  Broccoli (for the amount of space it took up, it barely gave any actual trees solid enough to eat.  The stems were edible, but they are sort of boring to eat)

I haven't sprung it on Matt yet, but next year I sort of want a third box.  I think I want to do some squashes and do carrots and pea pods again (did them last year but not this year).

I also have raspberries and blueberries in the ground so that hopefully next year we will get some fruit from those.

Tonight, the boys munched on celery and helped me do some much needed weeding.  We pulled the broccoli out because it was taking over and not really producing much.  We found some runaway tomato plants that have actually produces a few cherry tomatoes.  They are green but hopefully they will ripen up, so that was a fun surprise.

Some celery was eaten and some became swords.  Naturally.

Overflowing garden box!  This was before we attacked it with some pruning and weeding.  Check out those strawberry plants on the right.  Crazy.

I bet you didn't know spider man liked to weed.  I guess it helps him feel close to his insect friends.

A little wrestling … of course.

Love my garden super hero.

Granted it's a touch over-exposed, but I didn't edit the color on this image.  Those are his eyes.  This is why I call him Mr. Blue Eyes ;-)

And speaking of garden bugs, I found these pics of this cutest little bug.  These were from last January, so Ms. Anna has grown like a weed herself since then, but I just had to toss these up on the blog for fun.  

So just to nerd out a moment for the photo people (since Kelly will be reading this, haha) … I almost didn't even bother publishing these because they were not in crisp focus (or at least not her face … her shoes look good, doink!).  They were also really noisy images because the light was really low so my ISO was between 2,000 and 4,000.  A couple of them were pretty wide open and slow (like f/2.0 and 1/60) which is tough with a wiggly little worm subject (hence the shoe focus), but with a touch of exaggerated sharpening and noise reduction I decided she was cute enough that the quality didn't matter ;).  Just to add to the nerding, the white balance was TRICKY in post-processing because we were under pretty yellow indoor light with no flash.  I ended up using lightroom's auto tungsten setting which took away the orange hue in the full photo and then just adding the smallest amount of warmth back on just her face in a couple.  They still are not amazing so I didn't spend more than a few minutes on them, but they are a world from the raw files ;-).  Ok, done nerding.  

Here's the last cute-as-a-bug-in-a-garden-rug, little miss Anna.

Isn't she the cutest little dancing thing ever? 

Too funny because all you can see in this shot is that something has her a little concerned.  To find out what, have a look next.  

Poor Anna, such a trooper when scary boys in costumes accost her.

I couldn't get her to smile up at me, but the minute she saw Kelly she just LIT up. It was so cute, even captured from above.  Little momma's girl.