Last night....

Last night, I went over to my friend Kim's house for a Tastefully Simple party (one of us is always having a party of some kind - anything to get together with the girls...) - funny stuff always happens at these things:

For example, Kim will now be known as Kimmie - thanks to Auntie Janie who revealed that tidbit of information.
Dana, my inchie-fied friend was a TS virgin until last night - it's just too good to keep it sacred, D.

Josh held up the chocolate pound cake - I won't pick on him, too much, he's a good sport to be coming to one of these things with his family, but when the chocolate pound cake was getting passed around, he was holding on to it...not to worry, he got the last crumb too.

Barbara, who is also my Tastefully Simple rep will also become your rep if you call her "root beer" - ask her about it when you book a party (and don't tell her I told you).

Bev, owner of my favorite LSS - Scrapbook Cupboard - bought more stuff to add to her pantry full of TS stuff and would be happy to have you make some of it for her (hehehehe)

After the demo, Susan and I hit the kitchen to check out the leftovers and nearly completely 86'ed the beer bread - DEEP SIGH - so good to eat, so bad for your carb count...oh well - my philosophy in life is "eat and be happy then die" rather than "starve and be miserable then die".
Thus the necessity of the "skinny button" on any camera pointed in my direction.

Halloween pictures:
This is my 1 1/2 year old niece, EvaMarie - who was madly in love with this costume - we got back from trick-or-treating and she never took it off - this was taken before we went out - she was so good; we went out for 1 1/2 hours and she didn't cry or complain or want to be carried even once - she just kept telling my sister-in-law, Laura "more candy" when we walked up to a house. My nephew Andrew was a rapper - nice goatee, Andrew...



Dylan was Indiana Jones. Yes, it was just a onepiece top and a hat and no, he did not have a whip - that would have been just one more thing for mom and dad to carry 1 1/2 blocks after starting to TOT...yeah, no thanks.
Angelica was a friendly witch - she did pretty good too - she had had it after 90 minutes of TOT. I had a lighting nightmare at my sister-in-law, Kristin's house and this was the best I could do with Angel - she looks a tinge orange in it - but sometimes, a bad picture is better than no picture. Sorry, baby.

Melody was a bunch of grapes - that costume cost me about $8.00 to make - we got a white hat and painted it brown for the stem, bought 2 dozen 5" purple balloons and some safety pins - pinned the blown up balloons all over her. She got the most comments - even from bigger kids: we ran into some junior highschoolers (both boys) and one of them said, "wow, what is she supposed to be?" And the other one said, " A bunch of grapes, stupid." Again - the picture above was a lighting nightmare - the latex on the balloons was bouncing light everywhere - that was my flash - I had to force myself to use it because my available light was just not available enough. But I love this picture of Melody because she is actually looking at me with a smile - as opposed to the usual grimace with her eyes pointing somewhere else.

Very busy week ahead - school on Monday and Wednesday nights with a test on Wednesday night. Dylan has hockey practice 3 times this week and team pictures on Wednesday night. Can't wait 'til next weekend - going out with Susan and Kristin to take a Christmas card class - yes, I make my own because I love to have no time for anything else and it just makes the holiday season all the more pressing...good times!

Them's a lot o' kids!!!

Before I post pictures of anyone outside my own family, I always ask for permission - just in case someone has a thing about putting themselves (or their kids) on the internet. Some of my friends and family were willing subjects while some weren't - and then there was my own brother who emailed me: "Derf? Are you turning into a pedophile?"
I'm not sure if that meant yes or no, I can post his family pictures or not...what I am sure of is that he was trying to be funny (because he's like that....thanks Jon, that was hilarious! NOT!!!)

Anyway, thank you to those who did give me permission...including my sister-in-law, Kristin. She and my brother-in-law, Sam have 6 beautiful kids. Every year, we vacation up in Maine together. This year I got to take these - in the order of eldest to youngest:

This is Michael - he's 16. He had gotten his license the day before we went to Maine. This was also one of 2 good shots I got of him because he didn't want his picture taken - I guess I can relate - I don't like my picture taken too unless someone can find the skinny button on the camera...this is Michael's GQ cover shot (yeah, I used the GQ cover shot button on my camera). Thanks for letting me take this shot, Mike. (It also helped that I was about 15 feet away with my Canon 75-300mm out at 290mm.)












This is 11 year old Dennis - star football player of the family. We took pictures of whatever catch the boys brought back to the camp...Dennis is a great quick photo taker. If you ask him to turn around and take a picture, he's ready with a smile and can do it at a moment's notice....so wasn't the fishy. I edited this picture (and the one of Michael above) with Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0. I used an action called EZ Vignette that I got from photoblast.com. Actions are a series of steps that you happen to get a certain result. In this case, I took the original picture and hit the EZ Vignette button which resulted in a slight vignetting around Dennis and the fish (hard to see but the edges - especially the corners are darkened to frame Dennis and the fishy). - I did the same thing to Michael's picture but not as much....Surely, you can vignette a photo without the action but I don't know how to and because I don't have enough room in my head to memorize those steps - the button approach is for me.


This is 9 year old Andrew...superstar ice hockey player of the family - he plays for his city's team and the Boston College team. (Dylan plays ice hockey too but he's just a beginner - I hope he takes after Andrew someday) Of all my nieces and nephews, this one is the biggest button pusher of them all...I hope he lightens up on the button pushing before his brothers have all but enough of him and just squash him...I don't think that would make a pretty picture. Although, I will say, when he's with me, he's an angel...never disrespectful, very helpful...maybe he likes me - he probably just wants to make sure that his uncle won't handcuff him when he's with us.







This is 7 year old Meghan. By far, she is the most photogenic and one of the most willing to have their picture taken. Thank goodness!!! I took this photo in color but it was slightly OOF. So I vignetted her after I converted the photo to mocha (another action available at EZactions.com) and I think it made the OOF not as noticeable. Meghan is so pretty!














Then there is 5 year old, Samantha...who we call Sammy. She is 3 days older than my Angelica. She too was a willing subject. I edited this picture too because originally Sammy was underexposed relative to the background. I isolated her with the magnetic lasso tool and adjusted the shadows by 25%. Then I vignetted her. You probably noiced that vignetting works well with darker backgrounds than with lighter backgrounds (for example, it's plainly obvious that this picture has been vignetted at where Sammy's arms are resting, but not necessarily at the top where the background is the pond, sky and mountains)...











Finally, this is 1 year old EvaMarie. I vignetted her alot - 5 times...but I love how it makes you focus on her and not how her mom is holding her or how she is holding her mom like baby monkeys hold on...she was pretty little last year when we went to Maine...this year, even little Eva got more freedom...more pictures of her adventures to come. I love this picture of her though there are no lights in her eyes - that's because I took the picture with not too much light behind me to reflect in those peepers. I tried to put them in while I was editing this photo but then it made Eva look like an Alien. Yeah, not that look that I was going for....this little one is super cute - but she's a screamer....I guess you need to be one if you are the smallest of 6.

This week is just as crazy as the last - I've gotta work 6 days this week. We have a work event on Monday after work. Tuesday, I'm off to Frannie's house to celebrate Mimi's birthday with a CTMH demo. Wednesday, Adam is helping his brother move into a new apartment. Thursday, I'm working an 11 hour day and Friday, my in-laws are taking all their granddaughters (except for Eva) camping at Jellystone Park - so Dylan will have to hang out with me at work for a couple of hours. Welcome to the zoo - please don't feed the animals!