Vickie,

Thank you for the Easter basket!

Adien and Kaylin

Meet Aiden. Aiden and his family celebrated his second birthday on Saturday! So we all got together for a 2 year old shoot.Meet sister Kaylin. Kaylin is five and a complete sweetheart.

Aiden wasn't too into sitting under trees and getting his picture taken while he could be playing or jumping in the lake.
But we got a few sweet moments - this one is my favorite of the day.
Finally, he was so mad, his mama laid him on the grass and said, "ok, go to sleep!" and Aiden finally calmed down.

I think this is an awesome one of mama and baby - he kept wanting to look at the ducks, so she let him get close to the lakes edge to look.
Then he figured it was time to go off on his own.
Kaylin was a perfect model

It wasn't until we sat down for drinks that Aiden cracked a smile for us.
But then it was back to serious
I bought this frame at a Goodwill several weeks ago and brought it along to the park.

Another one of my favorites

By the end of our shoot, we were all pretty exhausted

Star Wars according to a three year old

Have you seen this? Over five million people have, but if you haven't... you kind of need to.

My first attempt at textures

I feel like this is a grade school craft project... my first attempt at textures. I've done every tutorial on this website at least twice and have learned so much about photoshop from them. Even if I don't like an effect, I'll do it anyway just so I can learn about the tools they use and apply it to my own effect later. Several days ago, I sent them an e-mail suggesting they talk about textures. I have no clue how photographers do the "texture thing" and wanted to find out. So today, when I went to their website, they had a tutorial explaining a little bit about textures! :) I started looking online and found a couple to play around with and this is what happened: I'm not so sure about the second one... I think I liked it better before. But the other four, I really like. I'm sure Jesh DeRox would laugh and shake his head saying, "you have so much to learn." And he'd be totally right. So I'll continue with textures on my own until I can take one of his workshops. :)

*note: I've never met Jesh De Rox, so I have no idea if he would laugh at me or not...I assume he's very nice so I'm sure he wouldn't ... probably.

Haircut

Big pieces of hair have been falling into Kayden's eyes lately, so we decided it was time to get his first haircut today. I wanted him to have the actual "barber shop" experience, so we looked up local barbers. No one was in the first place we went to - no one except the barber. He immediately looked at us and said no! "I don't take 'em that young... if I had more patience, maybe I would..." And I'm thinking, "What else do you have to do? Read your newspaper?" Seriously, no one else was in there. So I left feeling a little offended. :( "We didn't want that mean 'ol man cutting your curls, did we, Kayden?" I kissed his forehead just to make him feel better... even though he had no idea what had just happened.

The second place was much better! Rusty, mismatched chairs, maxim magazines to read... perfect! Just the barber shop I was looking for! The man who was finishing up was handed a mirror to approve his haircut and exclaimed, "Just like Paul Newman!" One more and it was Kayden's turn. I explained to the barber, "I have a camera to take pictures and an envelope for his hair." The other men (of course) laughed at me... but I went on explaining how to cut it and what I wanted and then we got to cutting.

My little one was trying so hard to be very brave. He'd look like he was trying to hold back tears and then it just broke through all at once and he was crying... poor little guy. A man with a large dog came in halfway through and distracted Kayden for a few moments, but then it was back to crying... at least his hair is out of his eyes and I got some cute (and sad) pictures! :-)

Introducing

I'd like to introduce Kayden and Eric (I'm surprised I haven't done this sooner!). Kayden will be 21 months in a few days and Eric has the big three zero coming up next month! These two really make up my whole life. Eric and I seem to hold each other up during rough times and Kayden always adds a splash of happiness no matter what. It's distracting having such cute boys in the house, but somehow I'm getting my work done and starting this Photography adventure. Aren't they adorable?

Check back soon for Mama Whitney, big brother Landen and baby Nora - we're hopefully shooting this weekend and I can't wait! :)

Signing Hands Outreach

I've recently been trying to become active in our community. I know there are a lot of toddler classes we can go to and youth activities in the area. I will let you know what I find but this last week, we found Signing Hands Outreach.

We went to the AJ Library for "Baby Time." I had no idea what to expect, but when we got there, they were reading, singing songs and signing. Kayden had never really responded to signing in the past, but I actually think he picked up on a few things. After we got home, I tried to sign with him and he would look at his hands trying to figure it all out.

The woman who was teaching was fabulous! I was really impressed with her whole class. So if you want to learn more about the benefits of signing or see where and when her classes are held, her name is Katheryne.

If you're out of the area, check with your local library for when you can take your child to story time!

How To Make Larger Blogger Photos

I've gotten some readers interested in how to make your pictures on blogger bigger. I tried to find a good link online already and couldn't find any instruction... so I'm making my own!

I totally don't know if this is the best way or the only way to do this, but this is what I do, so hopefully it'll work for you. I am actually and html dummy.

Start by opening an account with photobucket. You can upload your photos there and the website converts them to html code for you. I usually make my photos 5X7 before uploading them to photobucket. I have no clue if that makes a difference, but I think it might.

Then get to a fresh, new blank post and click on the "edit html" tab at the top (next to the compose tab)

Switch back over to photobucket with the image you want to use. Under the image, copy the "HTML CODE" and paste it in your blogger new post box.

click back to "compose" and see what you've done!

Thats it!!

So you go from this:

To this:

Go ahead and experiment with larger ones than 5X7

Ok, so now the pictures won't fit in your margins...

My template is the "minima" one... if yours is different, I don't know if this will help... I hope it will though!

Start at your Dashboard

Click on "layout" or manage layout...

Up at the top, click on "edit html"

Click the box that says "expand widget templates"... pause and let the widgets expand...(can someone fill me in on what a widget is? It sounds like fun)

In the big box of text, scroll down to the part that looks like this:

/* Outer-Wrapper

------------------------------------------------------*/

In that little paragraph below, find the "width" and make the pixles bigger... I have mine set to 910 - which makes way for my photos and also the page elements on the right side - and gives the Babyhood color some room on both sides. just make sure you leave the px; after the number, so it should be something like :

width: 910px;

Then save template at the bottom and you're done!!!

let me know if this post was helpful to you - thanks for reading!

Meet Faith

Meet Faith's mama SomerSomer is learning guitar and Faith "plays" harmonica, so we went to the park to completely offend the musical Gods.
I love this one a lot - it has a definite musical feel to it.
We finally got her to put down the harmonica
One of my favorites of the day
Faith played some John Lee Hooker for us

Then decided to drop the harmonica inside the guitar
I need to have a daughter just so I can fix her hair

To be perfectly honest, Faith was being a little... grouchy... she was actually coming down with a cold or something, so I totally understand. But, after all the "moody moments" during our hour, Somer still looks at her little girl like this:
Aren't mother's amazing?