Sanya

Our vacation to Sanya in pictures. We stayed for two days after Mike's wedding and basically did only three things - swim, play, and eat! It was lots of fun.

The view from our balcony.

So peaceful and relaxing to swing from a hammock. We stayed there for an hour!

Ethan's 'cheese' face when we tell him to smile.

More funny faces.

My cutie patootie!

Artsy editing.

Rare is a day that goes by without chomping down a banana or two.

If Ethan likes a stuffed animal he totally cuddles with it and showers it with kisses. He actually purrs. For the parents though, we have to beg for a kiss and the most he will do is offer us one cheek to peck if we are lucky!

Piano lessons starts early!

Ethan was scared to go down the slide at first. But after the first ride he was hooked and we ended up going down a gazillion times each visit to the pool.

My parents having fun relaxing in the hammock!

Monkeying around at the kid's club. Ethan did his first slam dunk. =P

Going to the Chapel and We're Gonna Get Married...

My brother just got married! The wedding was held in beautiful Sanya and it was an amazing day for the beautiful couple. =) Congrats Mike and Venus! I welcome Venus to the family with open arms. I've always wanted a sister so now I finally get to have one. And Mike is an amazing brother - generous, protective of those he loves, caring, goofy and fun. Best wishes to them both! We love you two!

Here is a slideshow of some pictures that we took:

And some pics for those that don't want to view the video:

As a sidenote, the wedding was very memorable to Ethan too. Afterwards he claimed 'Enan get married'. To who you might ask? 'Enan marry yaya (his duck lovey)'. =P

Suiting Up

Did I mention that Mike is getting married?!  Well he is and in honor of the occasion Ethan is getting all decked out.  Our family friend who always very generously donates clothes to Ethan sent us a pimping 80's suit awhile back:

If anyone can pull off pink with checked houndstooth, Ethan sure can!


But we decided that we should tone it down.  So an all white tux it is (yes I realize the tag is still on):



Here Ethan is perfecting his Zoolander pose:


His thoughts of all that modelling:

Fix-It-Friday's #54

The Original:

Color Edit:

Lightroom:

1. Bumped up brightness, contrast, clarity, vibrance, and exposure.
2. Removed red blemishes on the face.
3. Whitened teeth.
4. Increased exposure and clarity in eyes.

B&W edit:

And a funky crop:
(which is the only way I can think of to fix the overexposed parts on the right side of the face).

Happy Mommy's Day

Today is Mother's Day (at least in the US, it still is, and that's what matters).  This weekend, we had not only one mom, Emily, but Emily's mom came to visit us as well.  Ethan got lots of attention from Nai-Nai, since she hadn't seen him for a while.

Since it's Emily's day, she gets the day off from blogging and daddy is taking over the duties, though Emily will still have to post the pictures, since I can't even operate a Point and Shoot camera.

As you can see from the past 1.5 years of posts, Emily has been a tirelessly devoted mother in all aspects of Ethan's life.  The amount of time she spends researching toys, foods, techniques in raising kids is incredible.  She's probably knows more about child care than I've ever read or learned, which is very fortunate for Ethan and me, since we can be sure Em's got everything down pat.

We had a hard time deciding between Emily staying home vs working, but all the compliments from people on how well Ethan is doing makes it a slam dunk that we made the right choice.  I hope when Ethan reads this when he's older, he realizes how lucky he is to have such a great mom.

IHeartFaces Fix-It-Friday #53

Original:

My Edit:

All editing done in Lightroom.

1. Adjusted WB using whites of eyes
2. Used a free preset called Soft&Dreamy by Preset Heaven
3. Followed with Auto tone preset in Lightroom
4. Skin soften tool on blotchy area near left eye
5. Underexposed right side of picture due to uneven exposure
6. Increased exposure and clarity in eyes
7. Sharpened picture