Back In It

Hi folks, I have been pretty busy lately and I have not taken the time out to relax and post to my blog. This week has just been a whirlwind of Doctors appointments and paper-work. Well actually this all started Wednesday. Before that I had two photo shoots on Sunday so I spent a day or two on that and only that. The discs are already out and mailed to the customers. Record time! Less than a week. 

My son Logan finally had is appointment with the developmental pediatrician and was evaluated by the speech and cognitive therapists. He is definitely delayed. If you are interested my husband and I have decided to start a blog on our journey through this "adventure." You can view it HERE!! I would love to have my readers follow us there as well. Only if you are interested in our journey with this possibly autism diagnosis. I am going to be doing my best to get back in the groove of things here. 

My photo shoot Sunday was a blast. I had two beautiful kids to photograph and I would like to share a few from each one of their shots with you. So without further ado here you go!

Here I was not really focusing on the shoes but more of the water lily in the back. I also did this picture where everything is black and white but the the grass and plants and trees. I love it besides the power-lines. 

Luckily the I have another photo shoot Friday at 5!! Wish me luck

Linked up With

Hop Along Friday

Friday Blog Hop

Friday Chaos

Presets Heaven

Hi all! Yes I have skipped out on my blogging lately because I have been preoccupied with my photography. I use several editing software's but my favorite has to be lightroom. I love love love it! It could use a few improvements such as the spot removal. It can be tricky and I have not gotten the hang of it yet. I just use photoshop elements for that and layers. The rest I go for lightroom and sometimes I do cheat and use Picasa 3 for adding text to my photography if the need comes around. I use them all and love them and now I am even more in love with my lightroom. I came across a site for FREE yes FREE presets. Over at Presets Heaven they have many presets to choose from and I am having a blast using them on some of my photos. Since I have not had many shoots lately I decided to pose my son and the dog. My husband laughed at me when I posed the dog. I started applying and playing with all these new presets. I have also taken a few pictures from my very first shoot and played with a few and have came out with some amazing results. I wanted to share a few of my pictures with you that I have edited again!

There's a couple of things I have been doing. I have also decided to host a contest over at my facebook fan page for my photography. If you want you can check it out HERE It has been going good. Just a lot to keep up with. My thing was to whatever fan sent me the most likes gets a free photo session, free copyright free disc and a free 8x10. I am hoping to reel in some more business. I am just a novice and need the practice. Through all this I have scheduled two photo shoots for Sunday. I am pretty excited about it. This evening (Friday) we will be attending the Benton Country Fair. I love Fairs. I do not care to ride any rides I just love the environment and hey maybe some photo opportunities.  Logan may be able to ride some of his very first rides if I can bear to let go of him to do so. 

Linked Up With

Photo Friday

Hop Along Friday

Photography Idol

Yes the title is correct PHOTOGRAPHY IDOL! It works just like American Idol except it's done with photos. I thought it might be fun to try it out and enter and see if I get anywhere. Feel free to join in yourself go ahead and click HERE to join in or just to take a look at the photos that have been submitted. Here is my submission

Textures and Tones Plus a Barn (Tuesday Edition)

My first photo today I am linking it up to BARN CHARM and to TONES ON TUESDAY

This photo is linked up with TEXTURE TUESDAY with the prompt being Look-down

Technique Kim Klassens to be texture, I used linear light for my blending mode at 50% and used the airbrush at 50% opacity as well. I brushed over the lizard and some of the ground. This guy was at the Tulsa Zoo. Have to look down to see him. 

Soap Box Time

When can a mom and wife break down? When are they allowed and does it have to be for a good reason? I am in a mood. Got that way last night and I thought I would stop feeling this way when I woke up. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed and felt more frustrated. I am frustrated at numerous things. 

It started last night when I decided we would clean out my step sons room and get rid of some toys and clothes that don't fit and get some toys out for Logan to play with. Logan and Race now have to share a room. Even though Race is not here most of the time the room is mainly Logans. 

Yeah so....You know those extra large rubbermaid tubs? Yeah these

There were THREE of them full! Completely full. This boy had tons of stuff and guess what. None of it hardly even bought by us. He had remote control cars, games, expensive Lego kits. He had one of those remote control cars that you build yourself. Kind of like build a bear but for boys. Yup broken. After we (his dad and I) found all the pieces to it and charged the batteries etc..Yup broken. Then he had another awesome remote control car that would turn into a truck. Pretty freaking awesome, special battery for it, missing. So both those are trash. His laser tag, one missing many other battery operated things trashed due to missing pieces or just broken. He had wonderful sets of Legos such as star wars and hero factory. All the pieces scattered in these three boxes, in the floor, under the bed. Trashed! I have had it. I give up. I have cleaned this room, organized it and put everything nice and neat and it gets destroyed so if I did not know what it went to it got trashed. I found numerous backs to battery operated stuff but no toy it went to. I found loads of batteries everywhere and we are always searching for them. Tools of my husbands in his room. I just got frustrated. Not to mention I found tons of socks in there. The whole time going through this I could not help but think of how much trouble I would get into for taking care of my things like this let alone if I was lucky enough to get those kinds of toys. Here is what is left. Well not all but mostly

And here is the trash, some of it

So after cleaning all this up I was hoping today would be better. I got up looked at my house and realized its horrible! Our entertainment center is falling apart, our couch is breaking down we have crap everywhere! So here I am frustrated still! I know I should not start cleaning it up because I could end up throwing everything away. I am so sick of the clutter and the falling apart furniture with no means to replace it. Then this brings me to being angry at myself. Why can't my photography start taking off so I can bring in some extra money for this family? Why do I feel the need to have some nicer things? Why do I procrastinate so much? Wish there was something I could do. I would work but then I would have to pay baby sitter and there goes all my money because that is all I am capable of doing. Minimum wage. Why can I not be better?? Ugh the frustration and then there is my baby boy. 

He is barely eating and is so picky when it comes to eating and he is losing weight so of course I am freaked out about that. His not talking or communicating with us worries me. I am trying so hard to think of things to do for him to learn, to communicate. I have thought about putting a book together to help him learn. Such as pictures in a book and working with him everyday. I have looked through magazines and realized to just take my own pictures. But how can I do this when I have other stuff and my husband already laughs at me when I say I need to do this or that. Yeah am frustrated and ready for a break down. 

Tuesday Things

So I unfortunately failed at the Sunday Scavenger Hunt and the Monday blog hops as well as Macro Monday. I have been pretty good at keeping up with these but the last couple of days I have been so tired. I have no idea why but I can barely keep my eyes open. I have been spending a lot of time resting. What I can with having an 18mth old that has been really really cranky. 

This Tuesday I decided to do Texture Tuesday, Barn Charm and Tones on Tuesday all one image. Here it is. 

I converted this image to black and white then adjusted the hue and saturation to come up with an antique look, after that I applied Kim Klassen's (way texture) used the overlay and left the opacity at 100% and took a soft airbrush over the barn image at 40%. I wanted the old timey feel to the image and I believe I captured that. 

Here is the original

The inside!

This post is linked up to

Texture Tuesday
Barn Charm

Logans First Haircut

Logan got his first haircut! He looks like a totally different boy! He is so handsome and his big beautiful blue eyes pop even more. These are some pictures from my phone I will be posting better ones at a later time. 

He did great as long as he was eating a cookie and watching the bubble guppies. 

This Saturday I am joining up with a brand new saturday blog hop over at Amanda's Books and More. Go ahead and give her some love and join up

Also linked up with

Beautiful

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Busy Days

I have had a few busy days since Tuesday. Tuesday we welcomed a new member to our family. So here is here introduction

Meet Millie

Sorry about the eye glare. But here is our new 3 year old French Bulldog. She absolutely loves to play, especially tug of war. She will bring the rope to you and put it in your lap and stare you down until you give in. I have always wanted this breed of dog and now I have one and so far she is wonderful. She is great with Logan, potty trained and crate trained. We have yet to bathe her but we will be soon to see how that goes. She has also taken up to my husband. I think he is her person. 

Yes she follows him everywhere. 

It was nice to have someone in the bed with me while my husband was at work. 

Wednesday we had Logans 18mth check up with his new pediatrician. His measurements, 32 1/4 inches in height and he weighs 24lbs 10oz! They gave us the percentiles while there but I never really understood them to begin with. He just said the numbers are good. As you mommies know they have a checklist they have you fill out at the 18 month appt. This checks for symptoms of Autism..Well Mr. Logan did not do so great. The doctor agreed with our concerns. He observed him for a little bit and even tried to call his name and get his attention but it did not work. Logan was to busy fussing and walking in circles. There are quit a few red flags in the possibility of autism. Logan does not imitate, he does not speak any words, he does not point, he does not wave goodbye or anything. If he wants to interact with us it has to be on his terms, not ours. He has always been developmentally delayed when it came to sitting up, crawling and walking. He just started walking in June. His pediatrician has sent a referral to Arkansas Childrens Hospital for Logan to be seen by an audiologist and a developmental pediatrician. This can take awhile to get set up since it seems to be the only place in Arkansas that does the evaluations. In the meantime I will see what I can do in the area of speech therapy. If he is autistic, early intervention is the best. 

People have asked me how I feel about it. Honestly, I have no feelings towards it as of now. He has not been diagnosed for certain. Even if he is I am sure it is mild. We will deal with whatever comes our way. The doctor did give us some different prescriptions to try on his eczema and a few more pointers. Just with two applications his skin looks so much better than it has in a very very long time. I have not even noticed him scratching much. 

He had a hard day. 5 shots and he was teething. 

Today has not been so busy its just being so tired after the past few days. I am not as young as I once was. I am not old but still. Chasing toddlers and running around doing errands was so much more easier when I was 21 than now when I am 31. Crazy how much 10 years makes a difference to your energy levels. Right now I am enjoying hearing some nice thunder roll and seeing some lightening. It even has been accompanied by some much needed rain. Not enough but it was some. 

Such a lovely sight!!

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