sneak peak behind the camera

alright here is a peak behind my lens.  The picture of Kenzie that i got yesterday wasn't exactly one that I had time to focus on and compose correctly since Xander was about to walk into our neighbors yard and Kenzie only looks at me for about .126937309 seconds.  I snapped the photo right as she looked at me and it captured her eyes in their gorgeousness well enough, but it just wasn't quite what i wanted.  So here is a before and after edits.

I cropped to the rule of thirds to focus on her eyes.  Then I upped the exposure a little.  I tinted the grass behind her with some slight orange and brightened it up so it sorta faded into the background.  After that I exposed the entire photo slightly more and brought up Kenzie's skin tone so that her skin wasn't washed out.  Then I tinted everything with a light red to give it the ethereal feel.  Once that was done i fixed the focus onto her face and blurred everything else ever so slightly.  So hopefully the pic doesn't look over editted, but there is definitely some work behind the scenes. I normally try to do more of this before I even take the photo but with these two movers and scooters, who has time!? 

:::sigh:::

I haven't taken any really GOOD pictures of my children in a while.  This was brought even more to my attention by my dad...I know i know....you come here to see the kids.  LOL.  So i decided ok, i can do this...no problem.  With Alexander walking now i figured it would be easy to get a few cute shots of him and his sister without having to pull grass and leaves out of his hands.  I was wrong.  I was very very wrong.  With walking being so new to Xander he has to explore anything and everything.  It's like the boy has never been outside of the living room and thus he must explore everything like it's a newly discovered planet.  This child...i swear he is going to give me a run for my money.  Kenzie as usual never looks at the camera.  She will smile and say cheese and look up, down, left, right, but NEVER at me.  When she does...it's a fluke.  So needless to say the session was a major FAIL. 

MOM! LOOK AT THIS NEW AND FASCINATING CREATURE THAT I HAVE NEVER SEEN EVERY DAY BEFORE!  IT IS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING AND THUS I MUST EXPLORE FURTHER!!!

I did get one good one of Kenz.  So until I can have someone on 'posing' duty and I can just snap pictures...this is the best I could do.

Tea Party

We found an old gift that Kenzie got when she was a baby today and decided that it was time to tear open the package and play tea party!  This tea set is teeny tiny but she loves it and has since been serving every 'friend' (stuffed animal or toy) tea.

Not so baby boy...

My attempts at photographing my own 'not so baby boy' have been pretty fruitless of late.  He's crawling at lightning speed, and occasionally gets up enough courage (and loses enough laziness) to walk.  He is a very busy boy...

No Secret....

Well it's no secret that my husband is a gun carrying citizen, and because we have guns in the household, we have already made kenzie aware of them just in case.  She knows that if she sees a gun she is to immediately get mommy or daddy...but tonight Joel let her get a little more hands on!

she looks dangerous huh?  We're thinking of using this as a guard-daughter sign.

a day in my life...

I have a son.  Said son keeps me busy ALL the time.  Whether he's eating dog food, getting into the garbage, pulling his sister's hair, eating electrical cords, playing in the toilet, sucking on my cell phone, pulling all of the diapers out of the basket, or just gagging himself on anything that he can find to stick down his throat...he is a little high maintenance.  This afternoon sissy was with GiGi so we had a day together.  I tried to teach him to use the little toddler bowls with the portioned lids to keep snacks in the bowl, and reach in as you need snacks.  It didn't work out.  3 seconds later the lid was pried off with his teeth and we were in a pool of cheerios.


I love our dog's intent look into the cheerios here...

 now where did that cheerio get to....

10 months old!

my wittle bitty boy is gwowing up!  My man is 10 months old now and i'm starting to think about his 1 yr birthday!!!!  AAAHHHH!  That makes me old too! We headed outside this morning for some shots of this little big man!

Hubers Orchard

We recently had a visit from a certain poppop and 'manny' (grammy) at our house and had an outing at a local orachard/winery.  Baby girl exhausted everyone with her excitement over her visitors but we all had a great time...

waiting to ride the horsey!

we didn't catch anything with xander...i guess he didn't taste so good....

yuuummmm....

fishin with poppop

and she got her first fish!!!

leftovers...

these are some leftover side photos from various times that i've taken pics....


what i was going for before the grasshopper joined me...

this leaf got a little crowded...

my princess and her new princess dress...

aaaaand again...

and some more of my lil model's pics with her bear...

and i leave you in peace with a shot of my very active pup...

sick babies

We are going to have a high water bill this month.  I have washed our son's sheets like 7x in the past 3 days, and have started using my daughter's pink sheets on his bed in between washings.  This poor kid can't catch a break. I guess he is like his momma in that when he gets sick...he gets sick.  I guess it's just a small stomach bug or something because there is no fever...just a lot of...mess...all over.  But his cute quotient has probably doubled since he's been sick.  His little sleepy puppy dog eyes are always begging to be cuddled, and his smiles are somehow bigger?!

edit...he has also become bipolar today...

Sunny Evening

All day today we had rain and clouds and just dreary weather.  I'm one of those people whose moods are affected by weather greatly!  So i was in an odd mood, but in the evening the sun finally made its way out and i headed out to take some pics of the flowers and bugs and stuff.  Kenzie made her way out and asked me to take her picture.  Ironically she never wants her picture taken and thus won't look at the camera...but i got a few anyways...



Gigi (Gee-Gee)

Gigi is our kiddos' grandma, Joel's mom.  She lives not too far off so we hang out pretty frequently.  Today we were just doin our normal stuff, running errands and such and i noticed that GiGi and Xander matched quite nicely in their white shirts and thought it was a good day for some pics....so off we went to an exotic location far far away....my front yard.

my children have GOT to be the least cooperative young children for photos...