A little visit from Aunt Kim and Elliot.

On Sunday, we had a little visit with my sister Kim, and my nephew, Elliot. For some reason I never get pictures of the kids together! Addie took a nap while Kim took Elliot and Aidan to the park down the street. When they got back, she was still napping. I swear, one of these days I'll get some cute cousin pics! For those that don't know, Addie and Elliot were born 2 days apart.

Here he is! He's sure getting to be a big boy!


And here's my little sister. Skinny girl here doesn't have to work out or watch what she eats. How did she get the good genes?

Just another trip to our neighborhood park

We went to our little neighborhood park yesterday to kill some time and let the kids play. I admit, I had an ulterior motive. I wanted to play around with my camera and get some cute pictures! Winter will be here before we know it, and we'll be stuck inside this dark house with bad lighting. I struggled with the bright sunlight, shadows and active kids. While I didn't get anything fabulous, I got some of my kids having fun.

Here is Addie running around. She headed straight for the slide. She was so cute trying to climb up it.

And here's Aidan, being Aidan. Silly boy loves to give mommy a hard time when she has her camera. Do you see what I'm dealing with here?Then I tried to get a picture of them together. OY! I did somehow manage a couple of shots of Aidan having fun on the slide. I even think they kind of turned out!

And there's this on of Addie that I'm loving. Actually, I'd love it more if she didn't have that shadow across her face. But, I think she looks so pretty here. Then, Aidan decided that he was done. Reeaallly done.

A story board for Addie

Nothing too exciting. I just made my first storyboard of some pics I took of Addie the other day. We were just hanging out in the front yard, and I thought she was cute carrying her favorite dolly around.

Sleeping Aidan

At least he was right before I shot this pic! Aidan is in a current bad habit of needing to sleep with the light on and the door open. Trust me, nobody in the house (including his little sister) gets any sleep if we don't indulge him on this! So for now, we're going along with it.


Anyway, I just got him down to bed and I walk by his room and see him sleeping like this. Book still up and everything. Only he was really sleeping, or at least dozing. His eyes were closed right up to the moment I pressed the shutter button on the camera. I obviously need to work on my sneaky spy skills.

Look, it's me

I've had these just sitting around on my computer for a couple weeks now. Since my kids and husband are over being my models, I resorted to photographing myself. It's not easy! It's hard to guess where I should be lined up and how my angles look. Not to mention that I don't have a remote for my camera. So I set the timer, then try to position myself in the frame and try to look natural before the shutter snaps. Then I run back over to the camera to see that I didn't cut myself off and am in focus. In doing this, I had a lot of funny expressions that I won't dare show anyone!

So here I am. I tried giving them a more edgy look. Because you all know, I'm sooo edgy. LOL! With an exception of a couple little things, like my super white arms, (that I probably could go back and fix if I really wanted to), I'm pretty happy with them.

Just playing around

I downloaded a cool new Photoshop action from one of the websites I visit. It's called Cindy's Periwinkle Haze. I haven't really been playing with the camera much lately, so I thought I'd try it on a couple of older photos that I thought it might look cool on. Let me know what you think!

Just to show the difference, here is my original color edit of Addie in the bathtub at around 7 months old. Actually, looking back, this is shortly after I got my camera and photoshop. I can see lot's of stuff I could go back and fix, but that would be a whole different postHere it is with Cindy's Periwinkle Haze Action and a little bit of sharpening. Kind of different and neat. She looks kind of cold though, don't you think?

Here is one of Aidan on the beach. On this edit I went for a vintage look. I've actually always liked this, but I figured what the heck.So, I totally re-edited the original and added the Cindy's action. Notice something missing that my other edit had? I also attempted to clone out that blue bucket that's been kind of bugging me. I normally say that I'm a sucky cloner, but think I did a good job this time.
And tried it on a black and white pic of my nephew, Elliot. This was my original B&W edit.and with periwinkle. I also tried a different crop. I like them both, but it definitely gives a different effect.