♥ 5 Months ♥

Happy Five Months, Miss Taylor Grace!


I cannot believe how quickly time passes.  You are getting so big, and changing daily.

You are now:

♥ Rolling over.  Especially if you see a toy just out of reach.
♥ Smiling & laughing.  You are the happiest little thing, giving all those smiles away.
♥ Down to two naps most days.  Usually a morning nap and one in the afternoon.
♥ Still waking to par-tay in the middle of the night about half the time.  The other half you wake several times to eat and drift right back to sleep.

You are growing before our very eyes, and such a tremendous joy to us.  From your sweet little cheeks to your infectious smiles.  We don't know what we'd do without you, sweet girl!

Photo Tip Thursday

Just a quick tip for today :)

Change up your point of view.

Get low.  {Lie on your tummy and see things the way your little ones do}

Shoot from above. {stand on a chair or step stool}

Enjoy telling the story from a different vantage point.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

No tip next Thursday due to Thanksgiving, but keep practicing, and put that White Balance to work.  I still want to see your photos taken on a different WB setting than you normally use! :)

Wordless Wednesday ~ Christmas Card Outtakes

Back?

Whew, it has been hard getting back into the swing.  Partly because life has gotten crazy busy here.  And partly because I've been in kind of a funk.  And blogging {among many other things} just aren't as enjoyable when you're in a funk, don'tcha know.

But I'm missing my blog reading.  And I'm missing my journaling.  And I don't want to be completely flung out of the loop altogether!  So, I'm going to try to do better.

Anyway, what's new with y'all?

♥ Quick catch up ♥

♥ We had a very busy deer hunting season {and Jeremy's gearing up for his season which starts this weekend}.  I passed on the hunting this year since Taylor is still so little, and Sierra took my place.  I won't go into detail,  but let's just say . . . her first year of hunting was a success!

♥ We've been spending a lot of time in our studies.  This year has been especially time-consuming with two official homeschoolers.  Makenna needs a lot of my time and attention {and God bless her, she constantly needs to be kept on track or she veers WAY off}, and as Sierra gets older, and I'm still using my hand-picked curriculum, she needs quite a bit of guidance as well.  It is so rewarding, and I really wouldn't change a thing, but some days it feels like it's all I can do to get the basics {laundry, meals, clean-up} accomplished AND put in a full day of homeschooling.

♥ Bible study is coming to a close for the holidays.  I've struggled a bit with this recent study.  It's like my heart just isn't in it the way it should be.  And then I feel guilty that I'm not giving it my all.

♥ I've been re-working our budget, and trying to find ways to save money and ways to make more money. {It's tough!} Really considering investing in one of Dave Ramsey's books.  {Anyone use his plan?}

And finally, we took a mini trip to the beach last weekend.  Last year Jeremy traded fire wood for the use of a beach house, and we just never got around to using it.  We figured we'd better use it now, or lose it, so away we went.

The weather was miserable, but we still had a good time.

{This about sums it up.  A total of 10 minutes spent on the beach before we were soaked to the bone and Kam could no longer stand up to the wind!}



We came home with crab though.  So, totally worth it :)

Hi There

Well, hi there.

I'm always at a loss when I've been away from the blog for more than a few days.  Not quite sure how to jump back in, other than to just jump back in.

I want to thank you all so much for the sweet thoughts and prayers.  And for those of you who emailed to check in, you are dear, dear friends to me.  I think it's natural to go through phases when life is a little overwhelming, but prayer is so powerful.  As my dear friend, Kelli, stated so beautifully, even when circumstances don't change you can still find His peace.  Amen to that, sister!

So. Moving on.

We have been enjoying some beautiful Fall weather.  I love all of the beautiful colors.  The crispness in the air.  Delicious smells coming from the oven.

We've been keeping ourselves busy with homeschool studies, dance classes, a new bible study, and life!  {And I had another Senior Portrait session!} 

How about y'all?  Catch me up for goodness sakes!

Happy Halloween

Hope yours is carefree and full of candy :)

Shutterfly Christmas Cards

 

Alrighty, just checking in real quick to announce the Shutterfly Christmas Card giveaway winners.  I used Random.org, and these were the numbers picked:

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

3 1 12

Timestamp: 2011-10-28 20:12:51 UTC

Looks like Miss Kelli {Random Thoughts of a SuperMom}, and Mimi {Living in France}, and also Shutterfly Adict {how appropriate, lol!}

Okay, ladies, I've just emailed you your codes.  Will you let me know that you got them? :)

Busy, Busy

It's been a busy week.  Kind of strange when an entire week just passes you right by and you're not sure where it went.

We celebrated my nephew's 18th birthday.  Holy moly, how is it possible that he's 18??  Fun story:  I was actually in the room when my sister gave birth to her first baby.  I was 13 years old, and after watching my sister in hard labor for several hours, I'm quite sure I said something along the lines of, What a miracle!  However, I will never be having any biological children of my own.  Adoption for me, thanks!
Funny how things change ;)



My little sis, Annie, and her two kiddos came up to celebrate with us!  Kam and Mona are just 5 months apart.



Taylor actually let someone besides Mama hold her!  She was passed around and around, and didn't fuss much at all.  Major breakthrough!



And we even found time to carve pumpkins.






I may be kind of quiet for a bit.  Having a hard time with a few things right now, and really want {NEED} to just turn it all over to God, but am finding difficulty relinquishing my control.  Sigh.  Just really feeling He wants me to do this right now:

Be still and know that I am God . . .  Psalm 46:10

I'll definitely check in on Friday for the Shutterfly Cards Giveaway.  Go enter, if you haven't yet!

Pumpkin Patch Pics {Say that 5x fast!}

We made it to the Pumpkin Patch this week, and had such fun!  We seriously look forward to it all year long.


The swings and slides are a favorite.  I think the girls could've stayed there all day.





Then we moved on to the animals.  Oh these little piggies were so cute!



Kam loved the goats :)



See?  She normally keeps a safe distance from all animals ;)


And we picked out a few pumpkins.



And some apple cider.  Mmmmmmm, apple cider.  Our favorite!



And one of Tay, just to document that she came along ;)

Time for Christmas Cards! {Giveaway!}

Can y'all believe it is nearing the end of October?  You know what that means.  After eating twenty five pounds of Halloween candy, it's on to Thanksgiving, and then . . . only a short while until . . . Christmas! It is definitely time to be thinking about Christmas cards.

I love Christmas cards.  I love designing and sending ours, and I love receiving them from others.  Last year I got to participate in Shutterfly's holiday promotion, and so enjoyed browsing all of their options for holiday greetings.

Shutterfly is a favorite of mine.  Not just for Christmas cards, though this will be our third year in a row using them.  They offer Calendars, Birth Announcements, and a large collection of other personalized gifts. Shutterfly offers gifts for just about everyone on your list.  I recently ordered a photo book from Shutterfly for someone on my Christmas list {not tellin' who, just in case they are reading}, and it turned out BEAUTIFULLY.  It was super easy to put together, and is going to make the perfect gift. 

I couldn't help but take a sneak peek at their selection of Christmas cards this year.  I love that there are so many options.  I like these because I can load 'em up with pictures of my girls:

The greatest thing?  Shutterfly asked me if I'd like to give away a set of 25 cards to THREE of you!!! Um, YEAH! Simply leave a comment telling me what your favorite style of card is.  Do you like room for lots of photos?  Classic colors?  Who do you send cards to?  Or, just leave me a comment saying "hi" ;)  I will randomly choose a winner sometime next Friday, October 28th.

{Disclosure:  For reviewing Shutterfly's holiday line of cards, I have been generously compensated with 50 free cards for myself, as well as coupon codes for three sets of 25 cards each to be given away to three of my readers.  All thoughts and opinions are genuinely my own.}

Photo Tip Thursday

{Edited to include a teensy bit more Kelvin detail}

Okay, today I want to talk briefly about White Balance.  {The funny thing is, I had a whole long post typed up, and then it got WAY too wordy and confusing, and so not brief.  So here I am, REALLY trying to keep this short.}

Different lighting situations produce different temperatures and can result in color casts in your photos.  Have you ever noticed that if you take a picture inside, under artificial lighting, that your photo has an amber-ish quality to it?  A quick white balance adjustment, and these photos will improve tremendously.

I'm going to be honest. When I first started becoming passionate about photography, I didn't notice lighting and color all that much. I just didn't pay attention, I guess. Now, even when I don't have my camera in hand, I take notice of lighting and color casts.

 These days, digital cameras have many WB options to choose from:

Auto
Daylight
Shade
Cloudy
Tungsten
White Fluorescent
Flash
Custom
Kelvin

I'll admit.  Sometimes I'll just set it to Auto.  If the girls are doing something cute, and I'm in a hurry, it works in a pinch.  It tries.  But it's not the best.  You're letting your camera guess, and that doesn't always give you great results.

Recently I've started using Kelvin, and I love it.  I feel like I have a lot more control this way.  Although, if I'm in constantly changing light, I find it to be a little time consuming.  If you have this option, give it a try, and let me know what you think of it.  {A little more info on Kelvin:  in the Kelvin mode you actually set the temperature you'd like to use.  So, at first, it's really kind of trial and error.  I think, in the photo below, I had my Kelvin set to around 3800 to cool down some of the amber color casts created by the artificial lighting.  For some, though, the photo might be a little too cool.  I prefer my images a little on the cooler side.  Can you use Kelvin outside?  Great question, Sarah Kate!  Absolutely!  You would then adjust the temperature according to the lighting outside.  For example, if I was outside on a cloudy day, and wanting to use Kelvin, I would probably set it somewhere around 5700 or 5800.  Not sure, exactly, as I still use trial and error a great deal.  But, you see, you are warming up the temperature to account for the cool casts due to the clouds.  Make sense?}

In Custom Mode you use a grey card to set your own custom white balance.  For some reason, I have not had great results with it.  I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but I obviously haven't mastered it.

Daylight, Shade, Cloudy.  These modes adjust the warmth according to the color casts you'll experience when you're outside in different lighting situations.  If it's overcast, for example, you can set the WB to Cloudy, and it will "warm up" your images a bit.

Tungsten & White Fluorescent.  You may try one of these when indoors and using artificial lighting.  I use the Tungsten one regularly, and it helps to reduce some of that amber color cast I tend to experience when shooting indoors.

So, there ya have it.  A little run-down on White Balance. And a few photos to help you see it a little better:





{Top left was taken in Auto, Top right was taken in Tungsten, and the bottom was taken in Kelvin}.
The differences are subtle, but I think you can see that the top two photos are warmer.  And for fun, I took the photo below in the Cloudy Mode.  Whew!  Look how orange that one is!  That's just bad.


Now, the challenge:  If you don't regularly adjust WB, try it!  Use Tungsten inside to see if it doesn't eliminate some of the amber.  Get out your grey card and set a Custom WB.  And if you do regularly adjust, try a new mode that you haven't yet used.  Then, come back here next week and we can link up a before and after.  Take a photo without doing a WB adjustment {if you don't normally}, and then one with an adjustment.  Or show me a photo taken using an adjustment you don't normally use.

Happy Snappin'!

Wordful Wednesday ~ Tea Party

For weeks Sierra had been asking about planning a tea party. 
So, we scheduled one for Saturday.

She made special invitations for Nana and Grandma.  Complete with a request that they wear "tea attire".

We baked Snickerdoodles and Blueberry Bread, and waited for our guests to arrive.


Grandma brought the hostess a beautiful bouquet.



Princess Stephanie {this is the only name Kam will answer to these days} sampled her first peppermint tea.  And I'm happy to say that she loved it.



And we enjoyed an afternoon of tea sipping, cookie eating, and lovely visiting.

In our fanciest tea party dresses ;)