Starbucks

My nephew Ayden is in town! He is staying with my mom and dad for a week. He got in last night and since we didn't get to see him, I called my mom and asked her to meet me and Sierra at Starbucks. OK, maybe not the best place to take a two and four year old! They were running all over the shop, jumping up and down on the chairs and acting like maniacs. I know part of it was that they were so excited to see each other but I was exhausted by the time we left. Well, I'm OK with it because they had so much fun together and I got some awesome pictures. Who knew Starbucks would be such a cool place for photos? I love the art and colors on the wall and the chairs they were playing on were right in front of huge windows with lots of beautiful light shinning in.

Love this one...

My Funny Valentine...

I love this little girl with all my heart!

This is the 5 x 7 card I mailed out....
(paper and dots by Katie Pertiet at Designer Digitals, font is Two Peas Hot Chocolate)

Yvonne

A Valentine's session for her hubby...Isn't she hot? She almost set all the weeds on fire!

I love the Aldo red heels she changed into! They were fabulous...Here are a few after dark...I got a new light and Tammy helped me set it up and held the reflector (thank you so much Tammy). Cool huh?

Editing and Beautiful Lips

A lot of people think my pictures look just like they do on my blog SOOC (straight out of camera) but it actually takes quite a few steps in Photoshop to give them the extra punch I like. Here is a picture of my friend's beautiful daughter (oh, why can't I have lips like that!) straight out of my camera. It looks OK, but is a little boring and definitely not as sharp as I would like...
To make this photo pop, I first used the lighten and slight sharpen action from pioneer woman's first set, I adjusted the opacity until I liked the way it looked. (you can download them here, they are free). Then I used the fresh and colorful action from the same set. I also wanted a little bit of glow, so it wouldn't look so flat. I used my diffuse and glow. (in Photoshop go to filter-distort-diffuse and glow) I set the glow amount to 1 and the clear amount to 14. (if you decide it looks too bright you can go to edit-fade diffuse and glow and adjust it) Then I decided to sharpen just a little more with my unsharp mask (in Photoshop, go to filter-sharpen-unsharp mask) and I set the amount to 20% and the radius to 30. Then I went in to brighten the eyes using my eye doctor action from MCP actions. (you can purchase it here) I sharpened the eyes and slightly brightened the catchlights and iris. (I also have her magic skin action and I love it, I didn't need to use it here, but believe me, I use it on myself!!!) OK, as if that isn't enough, I still wanted it a little brighter so I went to the levels (go to image-adjustment-levels) and I moved the bar all the way to the right hand side a little to the left. Here is the result...Then I wanted to see what it would look like in black and white so I used my Indie Fave BnW action (you can purchase it here)...I wanted to try one more so I used Brenda's b/w 2 action (you can purchase it here)... did I mention that I really want her lips!!!I did the normal editing on this one and sharpened the feet a little (with the sharpen THIS action from pioneer woman's second set, download here) to make them stand out more...I love little feet :)For this last one, after my normal editing, I used another one of Brenda's actions (brown tone for color)... I love her smile!

Little Princess....

I have been going through all of my personal pictures from the last year trying to get them organized and edited. I haven't printed any of our family photos (except for cards, invitations etc.) and it's driving me crazy. I really want to get them put in an album. I saw this one I took of my sweet baby girl when she was about 15 months old and wanted to share it. I can't believe how much she has changed in a year! I miss those chubby cheeks :)

Family

Sorry I haven't posted! It took me a while to get everything back in order after my Arizona trip. I have been cleaning out the kids rooms the last couple of days too. I guess I am doing my Spring cleaning a little early. (oh how I wish it were Spring!) It felt really good to get rid of all the old toys they don't play with anymore and all the clothes they outgrew. Now their rooms are nice and tidy again with lots of room to play.

We have some big news in our house right now. Sierra is potty trained! Yeah! We are done with diapers forever. We started on Saturday morning and worked with her all weekend. She even woke up this morning dry and told me she had to go potty. (I didn't even get mad that is was 4:45 am)

I am starting to realize how fast my kids are growing up! Noah doesn't even want to order kid's meals anymore at McDonald's and Chic-fil-A. He thinks he is too old. Too old! He is only seven. Oh well, just little reminders to spend as much time with them as I can and enjoy them. I am so thankful for my children and my husband, I don't know what I would do without them.

To end this post, I thought I would share some of my favorite family photos taken back in September by my awesome friend Tammy Staley. I didn't share them earlier because I wasn't sure which ones I would use for my Christmas card. She is an amazing photographer. I can't wait to do our Spring session with her....