I hope everyone had a very happy holiday!! We had a wonderful time with our families, and I think Henry had a pretty good first Christmas.

Happy New Year!!

Three kids in costumes …

And man, those kids are cute, if I say so myself.

Henry was Charlie Brown. We weren’t really going to dress him up, but he has the cutest little round head, so I couldn’t help myself. Plus, all it took was a little dye and black felt. Done and done.

Lucy was a giraffe. This is the costume Emma wore when she was 16 months old, and Lucy picked it over the Elmo costume that we bought for her this year. I love that.

And Emma was Doc McStuffins. If you don’t have kids or cable, Doc McStuffins is a Disney show that focuses on a little girl who can bring stuffed animals to life with her stethoscope. And it’s Emma’s favorite show right now.

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This was the EASIEST costume to put together, because we already had most of it!

Purple striped shirt
pink skirt
kid’s white lab coat
pink stethoscope
pink glitter sneakers

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I could barely get them to eat supper because they were so excited about going out.

Okay, so they maybe needed a little candy after all the pictures … so we obliged.

I love our little neighborhood – safe, friendly and nothing too scary for the kids. This was the first year Lucy was really into it, and she was adorable. Walking up to the door with Emma, holding out her bucket, waving bye-bye when she left. I can’t even believe we’ll have THREE kids doing it next year.

And a few phone pics to round out this monthly post …

old picture. 2-year old Emma. toddler hands. ♥

This post was meant for Friday, but Ken needs to check my blog issues while we’re sitting here together, so that’s why I’m posting this tonight.

Christmas was far too long ago to recap with words, so I’ll just let the pictures do the talking. Mostly.

I love watching kids open presents and then gradually start putting on the clothes that they receive.

Lucy sat on every. single. present. And poor Emma was so patient with her. Heh.

The only thing Emma asked for consistently was a pair of ballerina slippers. I ordered her real ones. From a dance store. And she has worn them daily since then. I also got her a leotard with a tutu, but it’s been to cold for her to wear it.

We also got her a small tv for her room – this was a purely selfish present, because she is an early riser, comes into our room at 6am and turns on our tv. We thought she might watch tv in her room in the mornings and give us an extra hour of sleep. But of course, that didn’t work. At all.

[Mom, can I help take the red “garlic” off of the tree?] And is it just me, or does she look twelve in this picture?

As per tradition, we let the girls open presents here, then we all piled into the van and headed to Georgia to spend the rest of the day with my family. It was a perfect day.

I normally wait until the laaaaaast minute to order Christmas cards. I usually wait until it’s too late to actually get them into my friends and families’s homes before Christmas. But this holiday season, I did it all in one day. Took pictures, designed the card in Photoshop Elements and sent it off to be printed.

And it arrived via UPS around 8:30 Monday night. I didn’t open the box until Tuesday morning due to the fact that we have some seriously nasty germs floating around right now. I’m still keeping the card box closed and away from the germ-meisters for a few more days.

But I did let Emma have one to photograph …

And I just have to say … I LOVE IT!! I love how it turned out, I love how thick it is [it's printed on some serious cardstock], I love the rounded edges, I love everything.

For those of you wondering, I used elements from Sassy Designs* to design both sides [clipping masks!!!] and then had it printed at OvernightPrints.com* [rounded corners!!!]

Someone asked why Ken and I are never on our cards, and the answer is simple. Neither of us like having our picture taken. At all. Maybe I’ll actually hire someone to take our pictures next year once our family is complete?

Anyway, as you can see, I used the swing pictures on the sides and then this as the main image …

I love that Lucy has her fingers in her mouth, because that is SO Lucy.

Since I can’t send a card to every one of my 800+ readers, consider this your card. Merry Christmas!

*I paid for everything out of my own pocket. I just wanted to share the who and what and where because I am so so pleased with the overall product.

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I hope you all have a safe and happy July 4th!!

ISO 200 * f/11 * 1/4 sec shutter speed * manual focus – while babywearing a wiggly baby on the front ;)

Happy Mother’s Day …

* to the one who taught me what it means to be a mother … my mom.

* to the one who taught her … my mema.

* to the ones who teach me daily … my friends.

* to those mothers who have lost their precious babies and to those who are still working on becoming mothers.

I wish you ALL the most beautiful day full of live and love and everything you deserve.

Mothers hold their children’s hands for a short while, but their hearts forever.

Do you use Lightroom? I do.

I love Lightroom. (Well, I have LR2. Dear Adobe, you are more than welcome to send me LR3. Just sayin’)

Did you know that there are a bajillion plugins for Lightroom? There are.

I love plugins.

My latest favorite is Export to Facebook – this has really come in handy lately, because I was able to send all of the photos from Ken’s family Christmas party to the Hoskins Family Christmas album in Facebook with just one click.

Easy peasy!

I also just installed the Storyboarder plugin, and it is fabulous for making quick and easy storyboards for my blog. Now, this one requires a donation to unlock full features, but they leave it up to you as to how much you want to donate … it is definitely worth $5!!

I am supposed to need to add this disclaimer … Ken does NOT throw like a girl. He was “slowing it down” so that I could get good pictures. He did not tell me to say that. Did you, Ken? *ahem*

So I was all ready to type that LR doesn’t have the ability to apply my brush watermarks, but then I found another plugin, installed it and figured it out.

And I. Am. In. Lightroom. Heaven.

LR/Mogrify 2

I will spare you the details on how to install this plugin (maybe a tutorial later?) but I just saved my watermark as a .psd file (straight up Photoshop) and then used the “graphical watermarks” portion of the mogrify plugin to put it on the image as it was being exported. (Somewhere in Georgia, my mom’s head just exploded from having to read that sentence … I will post more pictures later, Mom.)

Voila!

The only thing I don’t like about this is the freedom to mouse+place the watermark. I just kind of have to make a wild guess about where it’s going to land based on the parameters I plug in … so that’s kind of odd. Especially since I don’t like things centered and am no stranger to blown highlights and a lot of white in my images.

But this can be a huge timesaver when I want to do a blog post with a lot of pictures. Oh wait, that’s every blog post. Hmmm, I guess I’ll use this one a lot.

I would also love to be able to use Export to Flickr, but I prefer putting watermarks on my Flickr images due to some stealing issues I had a while back. And even though nighttime sleep is going great, my brain may still be too mushy to figure out how to do the watermark + Flickr export.

And oh yes … WE HAD A WHITE CHRISTMAS!!!

My first white Christmas ever! It was Emma and Lucy’s first white Christmas, as well, but I’m 32 and have never had snow on Christmas. So exciting!!

(For those wondering, Ken spent the first 10 years of his life in Michigan, so not his first white Christmas)

Anyway, we’re taking down the Christmas decorations today, and I’m happy. I love having them up, but I NEED my house back. I need to get these Christmas boxes out of the hallway. My depression is kicking in, and I’ve got to get this place cleaned up before I shut down completely.

We had a wonderful holiday with family and friends, and we are so very very blessed.

Miss Lucy enjoyed her first Christmas (I think) and it was so good to have her here with us. Sometimes, it just hits me in the gut how close we came to losing her, and I’m just so thankful that she’s here and healthy as a horse. And almost as big as one, too.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!! xo

Merry Christmas!!

ken * keli * emma * lucy

From our turkeys to you …