Halloween Party 2012!

You may remember last year  when I had a little  Halloween party at my house for some kids and stay at home moms I know. Last year we did the party actually on Halloween---you can see that  blog post here  .  Well this year we did another party! For some reason I have trouble  tracking down other moms who want to party it up lol...but we had a couple groups who were free today and could come over :-)

Here are a few pics...enjoy!

I turned our water table  into a playdough table :-) Seemed like the least messy option for a party! The  babies thought it was a jungle gym haha.

My brother  dressed his kids for the party. He did follow my suggestion to do black  and orange, but poor harper in her orange legging carpis and black and yellow top lol...I had to help the girl out and lend her a skirt haha.

Monsters!

Aren't you jealous you can't be here to party with this crew?! :-)

Halloween is so spooky!

It  was g reat way  to kill the morning and get some adult interaction as well! Already decided we need to do one for Christmas I think :-)

And to end on this wonderful FRIDAY, a few random pics from past days I haven't shared.

The other night the girls helped daddy clean up our leaves!

The other day it was so cute...Brielle laid her babies on the coffee table and said "night night babies"....and then next thing I know she's fumbling around crawling up there herself and saying "night night me" LOL. Then Raya  joined her and they all went night night on the table!

Speaking of "night night  me"....when Raya was  little she always referred to herself as "Ray Ray"....but Brielle rarely refers to herself in 3rd person....she refers to herself as "me"  ....it's so cute.

And  finally, last night both girls ended up sleeping on the couch in weird positions at two different times haha.

First was Brielle, who fell asleep in the car on the way home from grandmas, and continued to sleep once I laid her inside

And then Raya passed out on the couch during her tv show before bed lol

Well  that's all I have for you today! And guess what? Today is me and Lee's 5 YEAR WEDDING ANNIVERSARY! 5 years down, can't believe  it! My parents are keeping the girls on Sunday so that we can have brunch at my favorite restaurant, Granite City, and then we're going to a movie I think. Any time kid free is a good time, so I'm excited  LOL :-) Happy weekend everyone!

Calling all Lightroom users!

Sorry, no cute pics today. The girls are with my mom and I'm getting things done around the house because  tomorrow morning I'm having a Halloween party here for some kids and  moms, like  I did last year :-)

But, I need your help if you know how to use  Lightroom! I've been  using Lightroom to edit  photos and haven't had any problems, but suddenly after editing my last family photo session my "adjustment brush" tool has stopped  working correctly. This is the tool that  does skin smoothing, iris enhance, dodge and burn, etc.....and I  used to always just  select the function I wanted and wave my little curser over the area I was editing and like magic it did what it was supposed to! But *now* it doesn't do anything! I select "soften skin" for example and then  move my curser over the face  and nothing noticeable  happens.

I  am assuming I messed up a setting or something, but  I've tried to reset settings and it doesn't  help. Anyone have any ideas how to fix this? I'm not even sure what to search online looking for my answer haha.

TIA!

Art Museum

Welcome to our art museum!

Feel free to "pin" my gorgeous fridge! haha. Whenever I see pictures on Pinterest of kitchen ideas, etc. I always laugh to myself because clearly those people do not have  children. Between the magnet toys and the art work you can barely see my fridge!

And seriously, what do you guys do with all your children's artwork?! These paper plates are what Raya and Brielle made this morning alone. That's not counting the millions of little scribbles we get sent home from preschool.

I've been trying to hang the items up on the fridge for one day and then secretly throw them away, but Raya is starting to remember and notice when things go missing. A few times she's gone to throw something away in the garbage and discovered her artwork....and then she gives me this heartbroken puppy dog face and says "Mommy, why did you throw my beautiful artwork away?"   .....crap.

 So is there something I'm missing here? What  do you guys do with it, or discreetly get rid of it? I was thinking maybe I need to designate 2 magnets for artwork and she gets to choose what  to keep and what to throw away...and  let her  be in charge or rotating it. BUT when I've suggested that in the past she doesn't  like the idea of throwing anything away at all :-P

Here are some pics from art time this morning

Her  fingers  are stained now...it won't  come off!

Besides art time today  we played freeze dance. OMG, Brielle freeze dancing was HILARIOUS! She'd wiggle and dance and then I'd say FREEZE! and she'd get in these really strange poses and make me laugh and  laugh!

Outfits today  are  really old Gap jeans and an old navy size 6-12 month dress for Brielle  (We're having a one day heat wave here and I really don't have much for short sleeves that hasn't been packed away!) Raya is wearing Naartjie that I bought used for next spring...the capris are clearly pretty big right now, but once again I had packed most the other warm weather stuff  away :-P

Bye everyone!

pumpkins and puke

This will be short today.

Today was supposed to be Raya's preschool trip to the pumpkin farm.  Parents  were invited to come. As I loaded the girls in the van this morning Brielle puked on herself. We were almost late to preschool because of the clothing change  and carseat cleanup.

I had about 1 minute to decide if we continued to preschool or not. Raya's screams of horror at the thought of missing preschool made me decide to press on. Brielle was acting better and I am choosing to believe it was a freak thing, and not the stomach bug!

Then came rain. And a *cancelled* trip to the pumpkin farm. So instead Brielle and I hung out at preschool to play with Raya, as did other parents.

Raya was so excited I was there (dripping with sarcasm). Actually she said "Mommy, why are you here?!" "Mommy, I want you to leave!" 

Thanks kid.

We stayed anyways haha. Brielle had fun.

Then I went and picked up Sawyer and Harper since Tuesdays are my day to babysit them. It's naptime now. Yay.

Here is a picture of pukey-face, after the cleanup.

That is  all ;-)

My own Mommy Confession

First  off, thanks so much to everyone for the sweet comments on my last post! I am definitely feeling more confident with every photoshoot I do and while I still have a lot of things I feel I need to improve I do recognize that  my photos are looking more and more "pro" and that's exciting! I have  no  desire to set up an at home studio, and prefer to stick with outdoor photography, so the bummer is that with winter quickly approaching I think I'll probably  be taking a break for awhile from any real "clients" ;-) But  I'm hoping that come spring maybe I can set up a facebook page and start to do a little advertising and think about charing a (very small!) fee. My last couple clients have been so sweet as to gift me payment though (even though I said no!) and that has been  much appreciated that  they  think I do that good of a job!

....now if  only I  could take  my own family pics lol

And  now onto the real post  today!

Today my blogger  friend Amy from Mrs. Mommy wrote a mommy confession post about how she caved and  bought  her little  girl a toy that she wanted in the store.Well Amy, I can  definitely one up you on that!

You see, my girls have  one doll stroller. It's a tiny  plastic one that is meant for babies learning to walk essentially, but even Raya still uses it to push her babies around! And it's a hot ticket item in our house. Oh my, I can't even begin to tell you how many fights I've broken up over that stupid stroller. And when Harper is here all hell breaks loose with three of them  fighting over  it!

Now, a "good" mom would probably use disciplinary actions to teach the girls to share, take turns, etc. Or maybe even wait for "Santa" to bring another one.

But  I  am not  that mom lol. Here is my confession:

Yes, I bypassed all  the normal solutions and instead took them to Walmart to buy two matching strollers! And yes Lee, it was worth it to me to stop the fighting haha.  Now they have identical  strollers so no fighting (different patterns to help them identify who's is who, because god  forbid they push the other person's stroller! ;-) ....only  thing I regret is not getting a 3rd for when Harper is here tomorrow LOL

And see, Brielle already has that busy mom on the go look  down!

Looking a little  frazzled haha...like  me most  days actually! ;-)

And to end, just a couple cute pics  of my girls modeling their attire today

Raya's shirt is Gap and says "I'm the big sister" ;-)  Her skirt is size 2T and I  can't  believe  it still fits!

They were  trying to coordinate their supermodel  poses ...ha!

My photography biz' :-)

So this  morning despite the  clouds and fog and leftover rain puddles we ventured out to do Finn's family photos, as well  as my brother's foreign exchange student's senior pics. Overall I love how they turned out!

Here are some of my favs (And can we just  talk for a second about what a great job Casey did styling everyone?! Seriously, I die over the matching hats and suspenders :-)

This bridge is right behind my brother's house. It  washed  away in the flood awhile back  and they just finished rebuilding it. It's a historic bridge---for walking on, not driving.

Love that smile!

 

Ok, so clearly I had  a ton of favorites LOL ;-)

And now a couple of my first attempt at senior photography...

Let me know what you all  think! :-)