Professional or Not?

So I got my 2nd present from The Hubby yesterday, it arrived in the mail a few days early.  I got Photoshop Lightroom!  So today I did a photo shoot out in the yard with the kiddos.



Today was Devin was Devins 8th Birthday so of course I had to get some shots of the oldest for her Birthday!

 I really enjoyed taking some pictures of my girlies and then editing them in Lightroom

I even went to get them printed out at Meijers today and the guy actually though they were Professional pictures!

It sure does make a girl feel good being told your photos look professional!

I used my moms backyard for all the photos

During the summer her yard looks really pretty and a perfect back drop for photos

and I personally love the natural light of the summer

I love taking pictures of my girlies!

Although some times I wish they would cooperate a little better :)

I had to throw this picture in of my Best freind Jamie and her Sweet little 5 month old daughter Kylie, I took this at my surprise party and I just love this picture the way the black and white turned out!



Have an Oh So Wonderful Day!

Catrina

I just had to share!

I'm very excited... The Hubby got me my lighting kit for Christmas and of course Christmas day I had to try it out so well, I did. Guess who was my Guinea pig?

Why Carly of course!

Don't you just love her smile?
Well I do!

She was very patient with Mommy while I tried to figure everything out.

I don't know for sure but I think she had fun!

She definatly made some cute faces and expressions

Don't you just love that smile?

I am so glad she didn't mind smiling so much for me!

I was trying out different techniques and they were pretty cool!

I swear though the child never blinked!

Have an Oh So Wonderful Day!

Catrina

Huh, What? I don't know...

How many people here partook in Black Friday yesterday? Raise your hands! Nope not I, because well there is no way I was going to be dragging 4 kids to a ton of overly crowded stores with people who would maul you down for a good deal with no disregard for your well being. That sure in the hell wasn't going to happen. I would have love to get some awesome deals on Christmas gifts and such but I just didn't have it in me to deal with all that mayham. But I did do some online shopping and guess what I found?! A professional photography lighting kit with the estimated retail value of $1149 and we only paid (after tax and free shipping) $300! So can you guess what I am getting for Christmas? Yes I ordered my own gift but when the Hubby doesn't exactly know what I want then sometimes I have to do it myself (haha). Hopefully though the set is a good one and helps me with my photography. If I practice enough with my kiddos and my freinds & family maybe I will take it up professionally. I just need to learn more about the camera settings and other such things to get perfect pictures.

Sorry I'm getting ahead of myself... I do that alot, and I mean ALOT! I start thinking about things and my mind just keeps going....

I guess this will just be a short post today, because honestly I don't know what else to say.

Have a Great Day!

Catrina

Pictures Anyone?

On Friday my very sweet Neighbor (who I mentioned in a previous post) that is a photographer invited us over for a little photo shoot, mainly for Carly but we involved the other kiddos a little. No you won't be seeing Devin because she was unfortunitly at school. But I wanted to share these pictures with you anyways....

I think its so cute how Brookie is smooshing Kara

My babies...

My little 12 week old

Eating Mommys shoulder

I love my sweet baby

One of my favorites

She was trying to make her sissy happy

A bit shocked because we made her hold her foot (I don't think she knew she had them yet)

Little Toes

One of the only times we could get her to smile (haha)

another favorite

So sweet

It was very hard to get her to fall asleep and stay asleep

My middle girlies

what are we doing mommy?

Well Have a Great Day!

Catrina

Pee Pee in the Potty! (sung to a tune)

This took me a few days to write and post so forgive my inaccuracies on dates:)

I honestly don't know if I mentioned this before and I really don't want to go back and look but we are officially potty training Kara. Just shy of 2 years she has made the decision that she is ready to use the potty. We knew it was close when she began taking off her diaper all the time when it was dirty and when she began pulling poop on her diaper and handing it to people, but I knew for sure the day she took her diaper off and actually told me she had to go potty and went, instead of the old sit on the potty sing "poo poo in the potty" or "pee pee in the potty" then jumping off and saying done (when she has done nothing at all, but sing a song). She finally will sit on the potty and actually go! Things have gone well with it, She is still in her pull ups but when her diaper is dirty she lets us know (most of the time) and will go pee in the potty before she gets a new diaper on. The main problem we are having right now with her is that she does not like wearing underwear! If you put underwear on her instead of a diaper she cries usually until either she finally realizes your not going to change her (which last night was about 15 minutes) or until you change her. I can already tell that this is going to be a long drawn out process but since the older two did not even attempt potty training until they were 2 1/2 and Kara is still 8 days away from her 2nd birthday we have some time to get her potty trained and I am not going to force her into it.

Kara turns 2 in just 9 days and well the terrible 2's have kicked in for sure! Ever since the Halloween candy was brought into the house this kid has been on a candy kick and well she finds ways to get into the candy and its getting pretty annoying for sure to tell her NO every few minutes. She's began hitting and scratching and yelling at everyone, oh I hope this is just a phase because if not we're in trouble!

I've mentioned before that I signed up to be a PTPA Evaluator and so far I've only evaluated one product, yeah I'm kinda bummed about that but I look forward to my evaluation. But I won something from PTPA! This is actually the 2nd time I have won a product from them, I don't know if I ever posted about it but I won a Coral product for thier Fan Friday giveaway awhile ago. and this week I was so happy to find out that I won for making my profile... You know what I won? A product called EasyDaysies If you have never heard of them you can either click on the link that I just posted or you can go to PTPA's Social Media Heather's review of the poduct. I can't wait to get it and try it out, I am so unorganized it would be nice to have something to help me organize my Oh So hectic life. Since I won it they are not asking for a review but I will probably still let you all know what I think about the product so keep watch for that.

I'm not much for online shopping I admit it, I would prefer to go to the store and pick and choose clothes that way but I have been shopping on Etsy and Ebay lately mainly for photography props because like I have posted before I am starting to take the kids photos myself and well I need props. I have already decided that I am going to ask for photography props for Christmas, which will probably mainly consist of back drops (you know fabric for the back ground of my photos). Anyways back to what I was saying. I have been looking at props on Etsy and I would love to buy some things from there but right now I just have that kind of money to spend, so I went over to Ebay to see what I could find and I found about 5 cute little hats that I won for $0.01 (one of them I got for $0.95) and I got a pair of angel wings with halo for $1.50 which I will use for Carly's 6 month photo's. I went a bit over board though and started bidding on clothes and won 7 outfits that were just to cute, one was a pair of cutie jammies for Kara that say big sister and are pink and zebra print and then each of the 3 older girlies get 2 outfits each for Christmas. I'll post some pictures of them when they open them :) The only other problem I am having is I want to bid on so many things, its just not possible to buy it all if I win. So I have to pace myself with all the bidding.

Is this all enough for you to take in? Has this post been long and overwhelming? Sorry about that but like I said at the beginning it took me a few days to write it so its all over the place. Not to mention there is more I want to talk about so hopefully you will be seeing more post soon

Have a Great Day!
Catrina

Not so Wordless Wednesday

I have posted before that I am love taking pictures and I am having so much fun with it. A neighbor of mine who is a professional photographer mentioned to me today that there is a free program alone called picasa so I thought I would check it out. I signed up for the picasa web albums and it gives you the option to edit with picnik and OMG I am having a field day taking pictures and editing them now!

So of course since I am having so much fun taking pictures I have to post some of the edited pictures that I took.....

Some of these pictures you have already seen because I have posted them but I was able to finally edited them :)

I have so much fun editing these photos

I am going to have so much fun taking and editing picture now

See like this one of Carly at 2 months ain't it cute!

who knew editing pictures was so much fun?

This was taken the other day after the "bad" storm we had

I had a little photo shoot with Kara & Carly today

It was alot of fun for all of us

and although I couldn't get Kara to smile

She took some great pictures

She is such a charactor

She wanted me to take a picture of her toes ain't that sweet?

So I took some of Carly's as well (and would you believe I did not pose her this way either?)

I had alot of fun with the editing tools on picnik

I really like this one :)

I love playing with the colors

and editing all the cuteness

and Carly cooperated so well

most of the time :)

She spent alot of time chewing her hand

and not as much time smiling but at least I got some smiles

and adorable toes!

again did I mention I had alot of fun?

Because I really did!

Have a Great Night!

Catrina