A Hair Raising Experience

Today I did something new and different. I gathered some courage and dyed my hair for the very first time. It's a momentous occasion, one that has the possibility to change my life in so many exciting ways. Or at least I imagine that ladies without mouse brown hair have exciting lives, but then again maybe they too have days they want to tear their hair out despite the color. I bought the hair color on a shopping trip to Walmart with my Mom a week and a half ago and didn't have a good time to attempt the process until this afternoon. I waited until Ethan was napping so at least one child wasn't underfoot during the delicate process. Grace was mesmerized and watched me the entire time asking if I could put soap in her hair too.

The lucky stuff is L'oreal Excellence Creme in Medium Golden Brown. The picture on the box looked relatively like my haircolor only more interesting. My current color of mouse brown needed some help and Medium Golden Brown looked like as good a color as any to try.

Here's the before photo I took as comparison. See, Mouse Brown.

Here's the photo I took during the 30 minute wait. I was a *little* nervous!

And here's the result:


So stylish, yet not as golden as reddish but I'll take what I can get. At least there's a change! My new updated look will continue to evolve as I ordered a new pair of glasses last week and can't wait to get them. Stay tuned.

Three Cheers for Three Day Weekends

David was lucky enough to have today (MLK Day) off from work and so we celebrated all weekend long. We started Friday night when our friends Pat and Katie came over and we tried out a few of Pat's new games he got for Christmas. Saturday we went into Salem and picked up Brian for lunch at the Pita Pit and to hit up the carousal. David and Brian took two whirls with the kids and then I took a turn with Grace.


After Grace had her fill of lights, horses, and twirling we headed outside to enjoy the January sunshine and let the kids play on the playground. Grace had a grand time running around and climbing while Ethan conquored the steps up the play structure in order to go down the slide. He was so proud.

Sunday morning we played hookie from church and drove out to the Otis Cafe for some of their super tasty German Potatoes and then visited with David's Uncle Ed and Aunt Diane at the RV in Lincoln City. Aunt Diane showed us a nice public beach access that isn't as crowded as some of the others but also has parking and bathrooms. A good find to be sure!

The weather was perfect, sunny and so warm I took off my coat because I got too hot. January is actually a pretty good time to visit the beach in our experience. Grace ran through the sand and loved the feel of the water and sand on her toes. Ethan stood in one spot until he started sinking, would freak out, and then once he started walking wouldn't stop going. I love hearing little feet pad along wet sand!

There were a ton of jelly fish washed up on the beach, thousands of them. It was pretty interesting to see whole jelly fish in such mass quantities!

That evening we were surprised by a visit from Peter and his girlfriend Ingrid while they were visiting the area from Washington. We had a Papa Murphy's dinner since I had nothing but leftovers planned for dinner (Monday is grocery day!) and after the kids went to bed we played a board game.

This morning I brought Grace to Indoor Park and Safeway while Ethan stayed home with Daddy. I never realized how easy it was to go grocery shopping with one child until I had two. Bringing just one child sure makes for an easier trip with no "quit touching Ethan" or "please share your crackers with your brother" and nobody screamed. So peaceful! So easy!

We got home in time to make lunch and put Ethan down for his nap before our friends Pat & Katie and James & Jessi arrived to play board games in the afternoon. We were able to play one game while Ethan slept and two more after he woke up. Grace watched Tinkerbell and part of Mamma Mia! but preferred to sit and watch the board game action. She mostly wanted to "help" Katie out with her cards. Ethan was happy to sit in his high chair pulled up to the table so he could feel a part of the action and see everything.

After our games I made a super deluxe dinner of Pizza Macaroni Casserole. Such a meal to impress our guests, but it is one of David's favorite dinners ever and is sure to please such discriminating 3 1/2 year old diners as Miss Grace.

Mommy's Little Bear Cub

These are a few pictures I took of Ethan yesterday afternoon during a brief outside excursion. The kids needed somewhere to let off some steam and energy and so we headed outside despite the cold. We weren't outside very long, just long enough for me to take a few cute pictures of Ethan in his most adorable bear cub coat that he is quickly trying to outgrow (how dare he?!?) and get Grace's shoes completely mudcaked. I'm still having lots of fun using my new lens as you can tell!

How to Post a Comment Tutorial

This is for you, my loyal blog followers who are clueless to how one is supposed to comment on a blog, or who has attempted to comment in the past but had no idea how to do so. Well that won't be a problem anymore! Not with this handy dandy How to Post a Comment Tutorial. So no more excuses, I want to see some comments! I know you are out there, reading along without making your presence known, so here's your chance to show yourself. Make a comment to this post, just don't forget to tell us who you are!

I'm assuming you can find your way to this blog since you're here reading this. If you haven't noticed before there is a space to post comment at the end of each blog post. In tiny print it says who posted, the time, and how many comments there are. Usually you'll see a big fat zero but we're going to change that now aren't we?

First thing you'll want to do is click on the comments. If you scroll over it you'll notice it changes color and highlights.

That should bring you to the Comment Screen. There's a text box for you to write your comment in under "Leave your comment" on the right. I love comments, just remember I am the mother of small children and keep it appropriate (that's what my high school art teacher used to say...). If you don't have a Google/blogger sign in or have no idea what that means then please remember to identify yourself at the end of your comment so I know who you are. Unless you just like to be sneaky like that! If you have a Google/blogger sign in then you click that box and either sign in or make sure you're signed in as the correct person. Sometimes I forget to check and make comments as David. Whoops. If you don't have a Google/blogger sign in or think that what I posted above could have been written in Swahili then click on Anonymous at the bottom. Then you can either preview your comment by clicking on the blue Preview button or submit your comment by clicking on the orange Publish your Comment button.

So now you know how to do it so give it a shot. Post a comment to this post and introduce yourself. Think of it as a get to know you or a Who's Who in David and Kellie's world. I'll be waiting in eager anticipation!

Grace At Indoor Park

Awhile back I posted pictures of Ethan playing at Indoor Park and promised some decent ones of Grace in the near future. Since I open the Indoor Park on Wednesdays and things are usually slow for the first 30 minutes or so I brought my camera and was able to get a few of Grace playing without having to dodge 15 kids in the process. She's still a lot harder to get photos of then Ethan since she has this natural instinct to run from me when I have a camera in my hands, but I put the zoom lens on and fooled her a bit. I couldn't resist getting a few of Ethan as well since he's just so darn cute and easy to photograph, so there's a bonus Ethan pic at the end.

Riding a tricycle

Peeking out of the Play House

A quiet moment while playing with the Play Kitchen

Teeter Totter!

Ethan "vacuuming"

New Blog Look

If anyone was looking at our blog this afternoon you probably saw a couple different attempts to get a better layout. I was tired of the sidebar stuff overlapping the photos so I finally worked on it. David reinstalled Gimp so I had some sort of photo editing program to make a header and we'll go from here. What do you guys think? Is this layout any better?

My new lens is here!!!

Even more exciting then our Matilda Jane box is what came in the mail yesterday afternoon...my new camera lens!!! Thanks to David's Grandpa and Grandma for the Christmas money that bought it, I hope you enjoy the photos I take with it! I ordered the 50mm f/1.8 lens online last week. It's my first prime lens which means it doesn't zoom, I have to move myself back and forth instead. The main reason I wanted this particular lens is that it's relatively cheap and is supposed to be great for portraiture photography and faster in low light situations. I really enjoy portraiture photography and pretty much all of my indoor photos are taken in low light situations so it seemed like a no-brainer to me.

I played with it immediately, having fun experimenting with the bokeh (background blur) and appreciating how it magically makes all those piles of toys seem to disappear. If only there was a device to do that in real life. Notice in the photo above of Grace that the background just seems to melt away.

After the kids were bathed and Ethan tucked in asleep I picked my camera up again and started playing with my new lens with the Auto focus turned off. Talk about scary! I did get some fairly blurry pictures but some turned out pretty cool. I like that I can choose what part of the photo is in focus, like in photos of Grace's little feet. On Auto Focus the camera chooses to focus her face and blur her feet but I like the feet in focus better.
Auto Focus:

Manual Focus:

And of course as excited as I was to get my new lens Grace was just as excited about the box it came in. All hail the amazing cardboard box.