This week with the P3/4 Sonlight Program has been a blast. The Boy has come up with some brand new “favorite ever” stories, like “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” and “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie“. Loves them so much, in fact, that upon printing some “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” he hugged the print-out and said, “Oh my goo-ness! I WOVE YOU!”

Yeah. I know. The kid needs friends. You should have seen the look on his face when I suggested we make cookies after reading “the mouse eating a cookie book”.

It was similar to this, only less cheeky.

It was nothing like this. This is his, “Put away the camera” face.

So is this.

The pouring of sugar is a very serious job. Clearly, by the look on his face, he took it as such.

I know. Sharp inhale. He’s attempting to pick that up with one hand. That heavy, full of hard to clean-up, sticky, powdery brown sugar. WITH ONE HAND! Every mom of a toddler is every so slightly terrified and wondering why I didn’t put down the camera.

I did. That’s why there’s no picture of him pouring in the brown sugar. Although, he did end up using both hands by himself. He hates messes much more than I do. I find myself regularly telling him, “It’s okay to get messy. Really, it’s fine!”

To which he regularly responds, “No. No, it’s not, mommy. I need to wash my hands.”

And that’s how I’m regularly chided by a 2 year old.

Back to the one-handed cookies.

Which he handled exceptionally well.

There was a minor hiccup, however, when he (using two hands) spilled a little flour on the kitchen island.

Feel free to sharply inhale again. He certainly did.

I said, “It’s okay.”

He said, “THE TABLE IS DIRTY OF FLOUR! MY SHIRT IS DIRTY OF FLOUR! MY HANDS ARE DIRTY OF FLOUR! OH NOOOO, MOMMYYYYYYYYYY!”

We had to take a hand wash, table wipe and shirt cleaning break.

I spent the time between the 2 year old OCD break cleaning up break and this picture trying to stave off the boy eating the dough straight out of the bowl. We had to have a talk about raw eggs and salmonella.

He didn’t want to touch dough. Ever. Again. But he did want to “wook at dee cookies in dee oven!”

And he did. A lot.

Can I ask a favor? Could we all pretend like that cookie isn’t clearly burnt? Could we pretend like I didn’t get sidetracked trying to convince that sleepy faced child up there to take a nap while he screamed no because he wanted to see the cookies again and again and again?

Thanks.

While it’s clear the rousing “BOOM! BOOM!” is what is the cause of his love for “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom“, I’m convinced that Sonlight’s suggestion to make cookies after reading “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” is the main reason he fell in love with this book. We are positively loving Sonlight right now.

Pier 39, while an absolute tourist trap, was a whole load of fun. We started with the aquarium and saw lots of jellyfish.

Lots and lots of jellyfish.

Then there was the Jaws III (it’s a film, people, it deserves roman numerals)-esque tunnel-o-death where we got to see, “SHARKS, MOMMY, SHARKS!”

“THAT’S A BIIIIIG ONE SHARK, MOMMY! THAT’S A BIIIIIG ONE!”

And an octopus. At least, they said it was an octopus and I saw those funky tentacle things moving but…can anyone tell me where the octopus is in this picture because I really can’t see it.

Ohhh! Now…I…see…it? Maybe? (Oddly, this is what happened when I leveled the above picture.)

After that, we headed down for an extremely expensive frozen coffee on our way to the Red and White fleet boat trip.

The boy was not impressed with the hour long line or the people who ruthlessly cut in front of us after we waited in said hour long line. I have a picture I could post of the cutters who should clearly be shunned and pelted with rotten fish, but I’m thinking maybe I have too much class to do such a thing.

Nor with the Golden Gate Bridge (he slept through it).

And was only later impressed by the seals when we watched them while having lunch. (Let’s pretend like this and the previous picture are not wonky from taking it through a water drop covered boat window while becoming ridiculously sea sick.)

After damn near puking for about an hour, I got a picture of the most beautiful chicks and hens I’ve ever seen. Yes, I really am that much of a dork.

Since the last thing I want to leave everyone with is an impression of me as a major horticulture dork, here are the people who cut in front of us. Shun them. Smite them. Pelt them with rotten fish.

I bow easily to self-imposed peer pressure to be cool.

The Original:

I really enjoyed working on this one and, thanks to the Boy’s current obsession with WordWorld
, I am able to explain my process this time.

Here is the original photo:

The Process (in Photoshop CS3 – No actions used):

I began by cropping and leveling the picture. I manually level because, most of the time, auto level gives me entirely too harsh of a photo.

I decided to bring out the eyes, just a tad. Using the burn tool (set to Shadows, 9% with a small round brush), I lightly darkened around the edge of the iris. Then, using the dodge tool (set to Highlights, 12% with a small round brush), I lightened up the area around the pupil. Back to the burn tool (Shadows, 5%), I lightly darkened the eyelashes and top eyelids.

I applied a Gaussian Blur (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, 4.2). I created a layer mask and filled with black to hide the layer. Using a medium sized, soft round brush at 25%, I painted with white (on the layer mask) over the face. It softens the skin just enough so that the next step doesn’t cause it to become too harshly sharpened. I, then, merged down and named the layer “Girl”.

With Unsharp Mask (Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask, 154%, 2.6 pixels, 13 levels), I sharpened up the image, just a bit.

Duplicating the “Girl” layer and renaming it “BG Blur”, I desaturated (cntrl/option U) the image by -84 and Gaussian Blurred the image by 10. After creating a layer mask, I painted (large, soft round brush, 100%) around the girl with black (on the layer mask) so that only the was blurred and desaturated.

I duplicated “Girl” layer again, renamed it “Blue”, and changed the hue (cntrl/option U) to a nice turquoise-y blue color (Hue: +140, Saturation: +66, Lightness: +23). With the “Blue” layer selected, ntrl+click the “BG Blur” layer mask and create a new layer mask for “Blue”. This will clear out the same area as is clear in the “BG Blur” layer, leaving just the blurred/desaturated layer blue. Using a large, soft round brush, paint black (on the “Blue” layer mask) over the brown object to the left, lower the layer opacity to 42%.

I created a Curves adjustment layer to bring up the lights and down the darks, just a tad.

With a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, I brought up the Saturation by +9.

Again, duplicated the “Girl” layer and this time renamed it “Color”. Using Hue/Saturation (Cntrl+U), I turned the saturation up to +50, turned they layer opacity down to 36% and created a layer mask. After filling the layer mask with black, I cntrl+clicked the layer mask on the “BG Blur layer”. With the “Color” layer mask selected, I filled the selection with white. This should leave only the girl with higher saturation.Then, using a medium, soft round brush at 25%, I painted (on the layer mask) her face and shirt with black, to reduce their saturation. I went back in with white (on the layer mask) over the lips and eyes.

With a second Curves adjustment layer, I brought up the eyes just a touch more. Then added a black, white and pink border, and, voila!

The Finished Product

The Original