a swing fiend

a's first time on the big swings!

A loves to go on the swings at the park.  LOVES.  as soon as we arrive, i try to distract her by taking her to the slides or a ladder that she can try but no.  she makes a toddler-waddle, arms outstretched beeline for the swings.  and no matter how long we are at the park for, when we begin to pull her out of that swing, she starts to cry.

the post-swing face

A doesn't have too many words yet and she's morphed our sign for "thank you" (tapping her chin) into meaning "more please".  whatever works, right?  well, lately, she gets on the swing and starts tapping her chin.  at first, i thought she might want to get out so i started to take her out but that set off some major crying.  i put her back in and started pushing her again and off she goes, tap tap tapping her chin.  i pushed her higher and higher but it didn't seem to be good enough so she's screaming crying while swinging.  i looked like a crazy parent pushing a kid who looks like she doesn't want to swing.  as it turns out, i think she just wanted to swing as high as possible.  once i had her almost flipping the swing over the bars, she was happy.  what a girl!  (keep in mind, she was in the baby swing - not these big swings in the photos!)  so i guess we'll keep her swinging until she gets interested in something else at the park.  

superheros are good guys...right?

i'd like to think that i haven't been overly protective of B but the concept of guns has not yet entered our house.  he usually watches shows like Mighty Machines and Sesame Street and his encounters with other kids is mostly parent-involved playdates (with the exception of Sunday School and kids at the park).

somehow, B got interested in knights.  it must have been an episode of Curious George or something but he asked to be a knight this past halloween.  while i tried to talk him into being a lion, i couldn't pass up the cute knight costume that i found at superstore.  he was convinced that he was a bad knight and i tried to tell him that knights were good guys.  we've taken a couple knight related books out of the library since and, as it turns out, knights are a complicated story.  "why are they burning down the walls of this castle, mommy?"  so now the story that i'm sticking with is that some knights are good and some are bad.  but we know that they all use swords.

we recently had dinner at mcdonalds (a new and incredible discovery that the play place is the perfect destination after a very long day) and in ben's happy meal was a scary looking Transformer.  this Transformer shoots some blue thing out of his arm.  "is this a superhero?" asks B.  hmm...i have no idea.  what makes a superhero?  it's really a deep and thought-provoking question that i choose not to worry about at the moment.  ;)  "how does he fight the bad guys?  does he have a sword?"  well, transformers are complicated.

as we walk through the toy aisle at Winners or Walmart (we always make a detour to check out the toys), B gawks at the superhero packaging and scary looking dudes behind the thin plastic window.  "are these good guys, mommy?"  "umm...yep." the one that he's mostly drawn to is The Incredible Hulk.  "why isn't he wearing any clothes?"  "is that his underwear?"  "why is he green?"  "is this a good guy?"  "why does he look so mad?"  "where is his sword?" and while i do my best to answer these questions, ("well, he is usually wearing clothes and then he gets angry at the bad guys so he turns green and muscley and all his clothes rip off...?") the Hulk is complicated.

are you picking up on a theme here?  why are all these guys so hard to understand?  i think it's possibly because i'm trying to describe them to a three year old.  and i know nothing about superheros.  so while i'd like to keep him watching Mighty Machines for the rest of his life, he might be an odd 18 year old.  i guess i should start figuring out my stance on all things violent before i actually need to send B to a time out for pretending to rip all his clothes off in anger, hit avery with a sword, and then burn down the walls of a castle.

week 8

i started doing family visits on Thursday so my photos are lacking as i spent Monday - Wednesday prepping for my student assessments.  i need to remember this next term and ask my babysitters to take some photos for me!  

page 1

page 2
i tried the all 3x4 pocket page this week...

week 7

we had a full week with BC's first Family Day on Monday and then a fun Valentine's Day playdate on Thursday!  i added an extra insert of pics to be able to fit everything in!

two page spread

page one with front of insert

Flipping the insert over...

and page 2 with the back of the insert

tutorial: using .png overlays in ipiccy.com

my PL-ing cousin, rachel, sent me a link to a tutorial on how to use .png overlays on my photos using a free software called, fotoflexer.com.  i've been wanting to start using more digital in my Project Life layouts forever but thought i needed fancier software.

i spent some time trying out this website and while i found the tutorial great, i didn't love fotoflexer.com as i'm used to using ipiccy.com.  i figured ipiccy must have the same overlaying abilities so i checked it out.  they do!  and it's more user-friendly in my opinion.

if you want to start adding .png overlays to your photos - i thought i'd try my first tutorial post! (please click on the photos to see them larger!)

first, head over to ipiccy.com and click the yellow button at the bottom to Start Editing!

here's what my ipiccy looks like - it has kept all my photos that i've uploaded to it!  very handy.  yours will be empty.  click "Upload photo".

this is what your page will look like with your newly uploaded photo:

to add your overlay, click on the fourth tab above your photo (see below in orange) - the Layers tab.  once in the Layers tab, the four buttons will be in the toolbar: Photos, Sticker, Text, and Shape.  choose "Photo".

a new sidebar will appear full of all your photos previously uploaded to ipiccy.  mine is full but yours will be empty.  choose "Add Photo" to upload your overlay.

 when you downloaded your .png file, it may have been in a .zip drive.  your .png files need to be OUT of the zip drive and into the file folder before you can use them here.  i'm going to choose the Ali Edwards "growing" overlay from my file here and press "open".

here is the GROWING overlay in my sidebar! (next to my cute freebie overlay from A Vegas Girl At Heart)

simply DRAG it over to your photo!  easy! a new sidebar will pop up with that new layer.

to make it see through, select the overlay on the photo (as you see it selected above) then go to the sidebar and at the top in "Blend Mode",  it says Normal.  Click the down arrow and choose "Overlay". 

 Your overlay will be see through and you can use the "Fade" to change this.  There are also many other features within this sidebar to play with!

When you're finished in the Layers Tab, click the orange "Done" button in the top right corner and this will take you back to the main photo tab.  Now, if you're finished, click the Disk tab (down the row from the Layers tab) to Save.

That little disk will take you to this page where you can rename your photo whatever you like and save it into the correct file.  And you're finished!  

PL catch up

week of jan 6 - 12

week of jan 20 - 26

week of jan 27 - feb 2

i cut a page in half and added an insert because i had lots of photos to add this week. 

Back of the insert and page 2

week of feb 3 - 9

yes, this is as far as i've caught up to!  i'm almost finished feb 10 - 16.  i'm hoping to power through this week and get caught up to date over the spring break while work will ease off (though I still have lots of planning to do!).  at least the emails will subside a little.  :)