Posted by melissa on Apr 28, 2006 in
Kid Bytes,
family —————
Advanced exams like comptia a+ and itil certification are not possible until basics like ccna and mcdst are covered. Only after an mcsa certification is an mcp worth something.
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Vivi is quite the precocious little thing. She speaks almost as well as her 6 year old brother. She is irrisistable, you just want to grab her and squeeze her. But boy does she have a mouth on her!
Kick Your Butt!
Poop Head (just playing)
You’re a Monkey! (When she’s really mad at you)
You’re a Chipmunk! (The newest derogatory name)
You hurt me!
I didn’t do it
I want chocolate egg
fruit snack, juice box, meat stick, milk, something to drink
knock knock, (who’s there?) poop!
Quinn, you funny
I’m a baby hippo
Bye monkey (when saying good bye to anyone)
watch dinasour movie (she loves the Land Before Time movies)
Green frog shoes (her favorite green crocs)
I do it!
No clean up!
No Monica’s House, go home and watch movie or take a nap (on the way to daycare, which she loves but must give me a hard time about)
No have poop (when she does), have poop, need new diaper (when she doesn’t)
Ride Back (piggy back upstairs to bed)
Read book (any book, all the time)
I read book to you (and it’s very scary, because she can read to me)
Quinnman, Quinn Henry, time out! come here, now!
Chop chop, mom, come on, mom
I show you (as she grabs your finger and drags you to show you)
Mommy Melissa, Daddy Chuck, brother Quinn, I Viviana
Daddy go to work, Quinn go to school
She was telling me about all of Quinn’s friends, Ryan go to school, Marc go to school, Bobbi go to school… I told her Bobbi is Marc’s mommy, she doesn’t go to school, she scrunched up her face and said - “What are you talking about?”.
There are so many more, I’ll keep adding them as I remember and as she comes up with them.
Posted by melissa on Apr 28, 2006 in
Photoshop,
freebies Photoshop brushes are versatile tools. They can be used to paint, sponge, splatter, ink and stamp. I made some baby feet to use in baby pages. I wanted them to look like stamped feet. I started with the feet shapes that come with photoshop. I added some black and reshped them a little to look more like real feet. Then I used some brushes to remove the black and make it look more like a stamp. A little dodge and burn, more erasing, selecting and deleting, etc. When I was finished, I had a pair of feet that were essentially grayscale. The white parts were white, but I need them to be transparent, the grays were gray, not transparent. So, to make it actually work like a stamp, I simply selected my artwork and made it into a brush. Under edit, define brush preset, name it and save it. Remember to save it in the brush pallette. Use the little arrow at the top right of the brush pallette and save brushes. Now I have a “stamp” for my baby feet. Here is a png file you can use for you’re own baby feet. Sorry the preview didn’t show up. Just click on, the png will open in a new window.
Posted by melissa on Apr 28, 2006 in
food We all use food that comes in a box sometimes. Rice a Roni, Mac and Cheese, Cous - Cous, etc. This food is not very healthy, but it tastes good! And, better yet, the kids actually eat it. To make it a little more nutritious, I like to add stuff. Sliced or slivered almonds, pine nuts, frozen peas and carrots or frozen corn. Fresh or frozen broccoli goes great in rice or mac and cheese.
Posted by melissa on Apr 14, 2006 in
freebies I’m working on a book for a little boy from birth to age 7. I have made some custom elements for him and wanted to share them. The were done in Illustrator and I have larger versions if you need them. These are for personal use, if you would like to use them commercially, please contact me. Please leave me a comment if you download. I would love to see them in a layout, post a link. Have fun!
Posted by melissa on Apr 4, 2006 in
Kid Bytes Quinn is off track and we wanted to go to something fun. Dinasour museum or zoo… coin toss, Vivi won. We went to the Zoo!
We watched the hippos for a while and went out to see the elephants. Vivi screamed for the hippos, so we went back inside to watch them some more. There was a mommy, daddy and baby. It’s been well over a week and she tells everyone about our visit.
“Go animals, ZOO! Mommy jump water, Daddy jump water, baby jump water. Elephants, Zebras, seals, no whales.”
Posted by melissa on Apr 3, 2006 in
Kid Bytes as his baby sister calls him! Today he was working in a math workbook. He was upset that it only had addition and subtraction and was really looking for a challenge. I promised to buy him more with multiplication and division. He completed a page full of problems, with every single 9 written backwards.
There was room for him to create his own equations, so he did. His favorite, that he was most proud of was 3-4=-1. Ok, he’s a freak. I asked him if he knew he was a freak and he said yeah. He’s only 6 and in Kindegarten! What am I going to do with this child to keep him interested? I don’t even understand negative numbers…
Posted by melissa on Apr 3, 2006 in
everything else I’m on my second name for this silly blog and still very unhappy with it! I think I’ll try a 3rd name…
I’m going through themes for a look I like even faster! I’m liking the tulip, maybe I’ll keep it for a while.
Posted by melissa on Apr 2, 2006 in
Photoshop I needed wedding pages to be able to quickly put wedding books together. I made all of the parts, papers, embellishments, etc. Then I put the pages together with photos sent to me from a customer for a wedding book. The first book took a bit to put together. Once the pages were finished, it was a snap to make templates for future wedding books. I made png files so I can quickly add photos to my layouts by placing them in layers below the png image.
This technique eats up tons of processing power. I often have to quit out of Photoshop and start it up again while using this technique when working on large files with lots of layers. I highly recommend that you flatten your layers as much as possible for your own sanity! Don’t save the flattened version, it’s just to make the templates. In this case I merged the papers and the photo mattes into a single layer. I then merged the photos into a single layer. If my photos had layer styles drop shadows, I would have left them in their own layers. I left the heart brads in their own layer.
To make transparent “holes” for the png file, select the layer you want to cut out. I selected the photo layer and clicked on the layer styles button at the bottom of the layers palette. It’s one with the lower case f in a black circle. Choose the first choice, blending options…
In the center, under Advanced Blending, slide the fill opacity slider to 0%. You’ll see your images disappear. Choose deep for knock out and you’ll see your holes appear. This is the fastest, most effective way to do this. There are other ways, but they aren’t as fast or as elegant.
If you are using this technique on layers with layer style drop shadows, don’t merge or flatten them. Simply open the layer styles dialog and add the blending options. This will knock out your photo, but leave your drop shadows perfectly intact.
Posted by melissa on Apr 2, 2006 in
family We went to Vail for a little Spring Break get away. Vivi was too little to really enjoy herself. Just an inch too short for tubing! She wanted to go “sliding” like the Teletubbies do. She managed to slide on her butt a few times. Quinn had a blast riding mini snowmobiles. They hold up to 100lbs. He thought they were bumber snowmobiles and insisted on trying to run into everyone. Then he and I went tubing while Dad and Viviana watched.
We stayed down the road in Edwards at the Lodge & Spa at Cordillera. It was a fancy place, nice towels! You can always tell the quality of a hotel by the towels. This one had huge, fluffy, soft bath sheets.
The kids wanted to swim, so we swam inside and outside. This is the outside pool. Vivi kept jumping out to grab some snow and toss it in the pool. The water was very warm. The hot tubs were a little too hot for me. It was in the low 40ºs.I had a “Rocky Mountain Rescue” body wrap. I always though a wrap meant they wrapped you up in something. She basically covered me in a oil, massaged my feet and head, covered me with a warm blanket, then poured hot coconut oil on me. It was nice getting away from the kids and husband for an hour.
