A Sampling of Mr. A's Announcement

I came up with a couple of announcements for Mr. A's family to choose from. This is actually the one they didn't choose. I didn't want to spoil their surprise when they mail the actual one out. I truly love photographing little ones like this and then getting to create designs for them to share with their families and loved ones.

Front

Back

This card is a 5x7 postcard style. It can also be UV coated for protection and that wow factor. Oh and in the front the last name has been blurred for their safety.

My New Favorite... Canvases!

I recently had a client order a canvas of an image I had taken around Christmas time. She doesn't have children, but she has horses. They are her babies. I suggested the canvas and she was all for it and selected this image. Here is an example of how it turned out...


I think it turned out great! I liked it so much I contemplated ordering one for myself. LOL! And it's not even my horse!

I went ahead and tried it out on a couple of other images to give you an idea of what you could do for your images.



These canvases and gallery wrapped around wood and come ready to hang with the attached hardware. No frame needed. They make a nice mantle piece or hallway art. With spring in the air, now is the time to schedule an appointment for that perfect image to create a canvas for you and your family.

No words to describe

Something fun...

Just a quick post to show a siggy I made to use on the message boards I frequent. I just used 3 of my favorite images I'd gotten recently of the kiddos and added some text. If you are looking for something similar or even something a little more detailed just let me know and I can probably throw something together for you pretty easily!


This is fairly low res as I had to follow some guidelines when making it. Nothing spectacular, just something fun! I thought about incorporating something like this into an auto signature for my email, but I'm learning that Yahoo doesn't like stuff like this too much. It doesn't even like links...

Don't you love it?

Sometimes being a mom of 3 is hard. Go figure! Especially when you want a picture of all 3 looking at the camera. Well, the other day we were playing outside and I thought I would take advantage of the shade I get on my driveway in the evening. So I sit all 3 down, get them situated, backup and snap! Look at what I got... This is literally the first picture I took! LOVE IT! Just ignore the fact that I cut Maddie's legs off... One of the downsides to having a fixed lens and not so fast momma legs. LOL!



On this picture I used a free action called Sunshine in Your Hand. But then I lowered the brightness since it was already a pretty bright picture. No sharpening done... Just resized for web. I actually haven't sharpened any of my photos for web... Still learning CS3 and gotta look into that.

Just trying something... My Custom Designs...

Trying out a slideshow feature I found on another blog... I'm not liking how it doesn't show the crispness of my designs though... They look very low resolution. Hmmm... Maybe I'll still keep checking around... What do you think? Do you have a slideshow template favorite?

ITEM REMOVED

Update: I found another slideshow that will work on the sidebar of my blog... I think I like it better. Much better resolution. You can click on it to make it larger.

Locks of Love...

Maddie has been wanting to cut her hair for quite some time now, but it has finally gotten long enough donate it. You can see how long it was in the group picture I took for our Christmas card at the top of the blog. I shared with her the meaning behind Locks of Love and she decided that she wanted to donate her hair so that other little girls that don't have any hair can have some of hers.

I wish I would have documented the whole process... getting it washed, first cut, etc., but, well between watching it get done, holding Caleb, and making sure Haidyn didn't get into anything, but I missed that opportunity. We did take these pictures once we got home.



Oh and here is the back ... This was taken in the car right when we were leaving.


A side view , also taken in the car.


I think we will forever remember this selfless act that Maddie wanted to do. And I have to say her new 'do' turned out mighty cute! She loves it... She thinks it 'feels' CUTE!

Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall...

Recently, Caleb and myself spent the day with his cousin, Brice and Aunt Mel. Brice is 3 days younger than Caleb and is passing him up in size! After taking a break to eat, Aunt Mel had put Brice in front of the mirror and discovered that he loved looking at the little boy on the other side of that mirror. So we put both boys together to check it out and we couldn't stop laughing and smiling at their newest discovery.

Photos courtesy of Aunt Mel since some days I do good just to get myself and 3 kids dressed and out the door! Well, and Kev got on to me for leaving my camera in the car all the time. I guess he doesn't understand the reasoning behind that.

The Middle Child

A friend recently brought to my attention the lack of posts and pictures of Little Haidyn. Our Haidy-Hoo. She's definitely not forgotten... she's actually our most, ummm, how do I put it? Needy? My shadow during the day? Lovie-girl? She recently turned 3 and some days it is a little more obvious than others.

Well, here she is...


Isn't she just the cutest thing? Leave her some love and I'll read them to her... She's my little computer girl too! Loves looking at pictures and blogs with me. She's always telling me to 'click' on the pictures so they'll be bigger.

A Tooth! Or lack of...

Miss Maddie is quite a hoot! She has now lost 3 teeth. And would you believe she has pulled every one of them herself? The first one was at home and now the last two have been at school. I snapped some pictures the other day to remember how she looked after loosing a top one.



Don't tell her, but I find it quite cute that such a big gap resulted from pulling one little bitty tooth!

Oh and excuse the lack of photography rules and messy background.

So new...

I had the pleasure of photographing Mr. A today. He was absolutely wonderful! Rarely a peep and just went with the flow. Little man didn't want to sleep though at first. Mama said he slept all the time, but today he thought he'd prove her wrong. I was focusing on his little hands in this shot, but I love how I captured his profile too.

Finally, as I was getting ready to leave, Mr. A tuckered out and we got this gorgeous shot of him. Gotta love it!

Almost gives you baby lust! ALMOST being the keyword here! Can't wait to finish editing these.

**Updated to try out my new logo and an action frame I downloaded. I think I like!

Back-tracking to Valentine's Day

One of my favorite things to do besides taking pictures is making cards out of those pictures. Since Maddie is in Kindergarten this year, we decided to make custom Valentine's Cards. It was actually quite an event to get some pictures because it was so cold (and wet) prior to then. We finally had a day of sun and decided last minute to take some pictures outside on the driveway.

We started with this... Just too bright! I couldn't get her to quit squinting.


And then she wouldn't smile right!



Then finally we ended up with this! Here is the front.



Then the back.



I had these printed on 4x5 cardstock with UV coating. They turned out great! I wish I would have done them sooner so I could have used them to advertise for others Valentine's Cards.

So keep that in mind! I can create any occasion card you are needing. Any holiday, birthday, thank-you, showers, parties, etc. The options are limitless.

Had to be the BOY!

So with Maddie we started cereal with her at 4 months. She was our first and we were excited to experience the firsts as soon as possible. She wasn't ready much to our surprise... I don't think she was ready until closer to 6 months. So with Haidyn, we waited. After researching we discovered it was best to start solids at 6 months due to their guts not being truly developed and ready. Well, she wasn't ready! It was closer to 8 months that she was wanting to explore her palate.

Fast forward to the 3rd child. Caleb... THE BOY! We waited until 6 months (and two weeks). We wanted to make sure his tummy was ready, he was sitting really well, etc. So we tried rice cereal this week (organic) mixed with a little breastmilk. He is a champ! He liked it from the first bite! So every night now he has 'dinner' with us and if you don't shovel it in his mouth fast enough he fusses. Such a boy! They recommend like a tablespoon of breastmilk to however much cereal to make it liquidy... well the BOY went from a tablespoon the first night to 2 oz. of breastmilk mixed with a ton of cereal! LOL!

Here's some pictures of his first experience...

Anticipating the first bite

Not so bad...

It is really good...

See Dad... I can eat too!

Ahh... success!

Looks like I'll be going to the store for more cereal and maybe some fruits and veggies for next week. I'm still debating making my own babyfood though... Like I have time for that with 3 kiddos! Do you make your babies' food or have you?

ETA... These pictures were taken by Kevin since I was obviously the one feeding him.

New Logo!

Most of you have seen my old logo... It was dated to the year I was shooting... Well it was old and the person who created it no longer was doing logos. So I was able to find someone to update it. We kept it the same for the most part, but we also added a little color to it.

How do you like it?



I'm hoping to update my webpage eventually and this logo will be the basis and color scheme for the new design.

One down... two to go!

I actually accomplished one of my goals for this month! I took Caleb's 6 month pictures. Woo-hoo! I'm still editing them, but I'll post a few that I'm done with. And actually there are a few more poses I want to do now that I'm done, but at least I got these done. Haidyn was my helper and believe it or not, he smiled in almost all the pictures!

So here you go...






This last one is probably my favorite because it shows his blue eyes. I've got lots more to edit, so be on the look out for more pics.

I'm also adding one more goal...

• A group picture of the kiddos

Oh and for those of you wanting to get better pictures of your kids, family, etc. Let me tell you my setup... Breakfast nook, kitchen table, black sheet, and a sunny day with the blinds open. Well, and then a little photoshop to fix the wrinkles in the black sheet. So see... you don't need all that fancy stuff (most the time)! All manual settings and natural light (no flash). Enjoy!