1st Haircut

Right, so before you start going off about what a bad mom I am for buzzing my 4 month old's hair off his head, you should know that he totally looked like he had a bad toupee on, because all around the edges from the ears down he was bald, and on top of his head, he had 4 inch curls. Also, we thought the longest setting on the clippers would leave it a little longer, just long enough to keep just a bit of curl. So here is the before:Here is the 'during', where he caught the hairdresser (Steve) up to date on all the latest gossip, as is the appropriate thing to do while getting your hair cut. He jabbered the whole time. Look at all that hair on the towel!

Steve made the first cut and I immediately screamed, "Oh no it's too short! UGH just keep going it's too late now."
And the after. At this point I'm crying because such a huge part of who Carter is to me, his curls, are now gone. He doesn't look like Carter anymore. Who is this baby?
A few hours later I saw my son emerge again. He's every bit as darling now as he was then, just in a different way. His cheeks look rounder and his eyes look bigger and the best part? I'm now relieved of the 5-6 daily random people in public who have to stop to tell me, "oh my gosh, your baby has so much hair!" in case I hadn't yet noticed. My life is now void of these helpful reminders. Now when I go to the grocery store I can add items to my cart in peace without anyone bugging me in that way. See, there's a new way now: "oh wow, your baby has dark hair!"

Good times, good times.

The Charleston

Go Sk*rt Yourself

I've added a "Sk*rt This" option at the end of each post. DesignMom turned me on to it. Why do I love? Because now, if you especially like something on ShrekLovesFiona, you can just click that button and put it on Sk*rt in a snap. And then all those amazing sk*rt users will come check it out. Which means my readership will grow, bringing me ever closer to world domination.

From the feedback Sk*rt has received so far, any blog or website that makes the front page of Sk*rt, apparently gets a ton of hits.

So... go create a Sk*rt account (takes 2 seconds, you don't even have to respond to a verification email) Then. Sk*rt me. Sk*rt yourself. Instructions are here.

Why it's good for you: it's free, it's easy, and you'll get a bunch of traffic when your readers list your posts on sk*rt. Why it's good for sk*rt: sk*rt wants to be associated with super-cool blogs like yours.

Enjoying

Go ye swiftly to iTunes

My Moon Has Come

twas waiting for me on my doorstep when i came home today.
goodbye world, for just a little while.

today.i.love

i love the smell of: the custom-scented lotion i created for carter: pear, egyptian musk, freesia, and a few other notes. i keep stealing it for myself.
i love the sound of: carter's laughter. steve's voice telling me about his day. colbie caillat on the ipod.
i love the taste of: fresh strawberries. only a few more weeks until they're out of season.
i love the sight of: sleek furniture, cuddly bedding right before i turn down the top and climb in, art: lately i've been inspired, inspired, inspired to stretch myself and create a little more. i used to get so much joy out of artistic and musical outlets. where has my focus gone? i've heard it whispering to me for quite some time now, but lately it's screaming for me to come back. it seems every day the last two weeks, i've been startled by a muse of some form. it's carrying me at the moment.
i love the feel of: coloring with crayons, my lips on carter's chin, being around a good, old friend.

My Inspiration For August's Masthead... (and then nothing else about the boy for the rest of the week, I swear)

Thanks to Nana Whitney, this is his new favorite thing to do while at the office with me: listen to Baby Einstein on the iPod. f'shizzle.

Waterbabies!

Yesterday my friend Chante invited me to go to the pool with her and her almost 8 month old, Brecken. It was so much fun! Carter hated the initial shock of getting in the pool, but once we were in for a few minutes, he was content turning into a prune with the rest of us. It was nice to sit and chat with my friend while our kids splashed their hands in the water. We spent an hour in the pool (reapplying sunscreen about evern 47 seconds), and then when I pulled him out, he fell asleep in the middle of me changing him into dry clothes. He slept on my chest while Chante and I talked another hour by the side of the pool.

Me as a Disney Character

I recently ran into a dear friend on Facebook that I haven't seen in five or six years. It's been so fun to recall old memories. Drew and I used to sing in choir together and I thought he was the most artistic person I knew. His dearest professional ambition was to work for Walt Disney as an illustrator/animator. I have often wondered if he made it there or not... he certainly had the talent! I'll never forget the sketchbook he carried with him everywhere. It contained (among a gazillion other things) concept art for "Disney's 12 Dancing Princesses", which he someday dreamed of animating for Disney. His inspiration for the 12 princesses were his friends, and I was honored when he drew me as one of them.

Now that we've somewhat reconnected, I have been looking at his online art gallery, which I find overwhelmingly inspiring. His talent has flourished and whenever I open the lappy to take a look, I find myself losing lots of time scrolling through his brilliant drawings. Lo and behold, last night I came across a folder in his gallery called "Disney Concept Art". My eyes fell upon a cartooned depiction of me in my prom dress (I went with Drew's best friend). My hair looks just as I remember that night and after a second of silence upon discovering the drawing, I cheered out loud with my hands in the air.

(I'm on the left. If you click you can see my name scratched into his book. He didn't finish my face in this picture, but still.)

I was so excited to see this last night! What an amazing talent, and the above picture is NOTHING! Drew's out of town and unreachable until March 2008, when he'll be back and ready for Disney to beg for him.

Here's a link to his gallery - Harry Potter fans watch out - I promise he's an even bigger fanatic than you (in fact, I sometimes wonder if he actually thinks he is HP) and he has about 100 or so little HP delights in there to gobble up.

So here's his site: Drew Graham's Gallery
And a few of my favorites are here, here, and here.

Maybe I Just Have a Little Problem, Okay!?

90%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Free Online Dating from Mingle²

Compartmentalizing

There are so many little joys in life that make my eyes sparkle, and I know that some of those things are of little to no interested to you, my beloved three readers... so in an effort to keep you entertained (and in response to some sisterly complaints), I've decided to split my blogging self into a few different areas. Virtual split-personality disorder, if you will. I now have four blogs for you to keep track of, don't you love me?? Well, at least this way you can completely ignore the blogs you don't find interesting. But you have to go to each of my blogs just every once in a while to comment and make me feel special. It's a good chunk of the reasons I blog in the first place... to read the comments.

So here are the blogs and what you'll find in each:
1. Domestication in Progress (DIP) - this is a blog with many contributors. We mainly post recipes. I'm quite enjoying cooking lately, except on week nights. I love to cook when it's special, I hate to cook for the sake of eating merely to stay alive.

2. Banana Colada - All things design and art just speak to me! I am a fragrance designer, media makeup artist, graphic designer, doodler, and lover of all beautiful things including nature, food, music, dance, paper, books, school supplies, and pina-coladas with banana mixed in. Enjoy my findings!

3. Kenna's Vision Board - If you haven't seen The Secret, click to order it now. Here's where I'll post my vision board and if you don't hurry and watch The Secret, you'll soon start to think I've become completely delusional and narcissistic. It's not the case at all, I'm just completely happy and grateful to be practically perfect in every way!

4. ShrekLovesFiona - here's where I'll continue to post about family, friends, passing thoughts, book-movies-music reviews, and the occasional rant about stupid drivers.

Selective Color

Okay, I've been asked how to make an entire picture black and white except for specified highlight areas. So here's how to do it using Photoshop:

Start with a color photo like this:

Make a duplicate layer of the photo.

Make the duplicate layer black and white (there are a gazillion ways to do this, the easiest is to go to Image > Mode > Grayscale, and then adjust the Brightness and Contrast to your liking.)

Use your eraser to erase back in color highlights.

Flatten your image. Done!

In the image below, I used a soft-edged eraser to erase only the eyes from the B&W layer. I did some additional processing when converting to B&W for more of a grunge look.

Should I Be Worried?

So it appears someone has not only plagiarized my blog name and my wedding picture, but also has some sort of sick, sick crush on my husband. Shrek Loves Danny!?

Here's hoping he doesn't know my address. Freak.

Swiss Chicken

Do you know what "Hump Day" meals are? Think Wednesday night, which is the night of the week you find yourself most tired - It's as far into the week as you can get, without being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel (weekend) quite yet. A "Hump Day" meal means it's the perfect meal for one of those nights where you hardly have enough energy to climb into bed after work, let alone make dinner, then THIS, my friends, is a Hump Day Dinner! This one is so easy, and very simple to adjust for more or less servings.  This recipe is by my mom:

Ingredients:
6 chicken breasts
6 slices swiss cheese
1 can Cream of Chicken soup
1/2 cup water
1 cup bread crumbs
1 stick melted butter

Directions
1. Clean and arrange chicken breasts in a casserole dish.
2. Place one slice of swiss cheese on each breast.
3. Mix the Cream of Chicken soup with the water and pour/spread it over the chicken.
4. Sprinkle bread crumbs on top.
5. Drizzle butter on top of bread crumbs
6. Bake 1 hour at 350 degrees, or until chicken is done (juices run clear in middle) The swiss cheese, cream of chicken, and butter make the gravy.

I served it with rice (whatever kind I had in the pantry). When the rice was done, I rolled in a bag of heated-up frozen veggie medley. Easy! And the chicken turns out very tender (I am picky about chicken!)

Laughing