36/365

How sweet is this?




Today I am thankful for getting really great advice, for free, from someone who you respect and are certain that they know what they are talking about. The girls and I had a playdate with our awesome new friend, Janet and her cutie daughter, Goo (this is the nickname they call her and is how she is referred to on the blog - but she has one of my favorite names ever). Goo and Lucy are really similar to one another and they did great today. They mostly played on their own, but they were both really independent and had a great time. I met Janet a few weeks ago at a kickboxing class, we have been emailing, she is the one that inspired me to start the daily giving thanks in my posts, she is also posting everyday this year, and I think we are kind of keeping one another accountable on this project. Janet is a great christian, mother, and wife. I really appreciate her outlook on life and she is a person that will always inspire me to do better. I like that, a lot. We talked today like we had known one another for a long time and I hope we can both learn from one another in the future. She is a fabulous photographer - very, very talented and I have had a lot of questions for her that I finally got to ask today. We got to talking about what mode we shoot in and she convinced me that I need to go back to manual. (If you care nothing about photography, skip to the next paragraph) I have gotten kind of lazy lately and have just shot in Apenture mode because it is quick and easy and I can fix most of the issues that I don't like with some quick post processing. I have never been confident in Manual mode, but I did get where I could get pretty good pictures with it. But again, the lazy side of me stopped practicing once Annie was here because I just wanted to get the pictures. She gave me some advice that will change the way I take pictures from now on and make much less work be needed in post processing. And guess what? Since I love all of my fellow beginner photographers like myself, I will pass the tip on to you. First thing to do is figure out how to set your display mode to show the highlights on your viewfinder when you look at your pictures. If you shoot with a Nikon, go to the menu, then to Display Mode, and then check the Highlights box. I had to uncheck the Histogram box and then click Done. Now, when you take a picture and look at it on your viewfinder, click the upper arrow in the circle thing that you use to scroll through the pictures. This will make it so the highlights show up on each picture you look at. What this means is, the areas of the photo that are blown out from over exposure will start blinking. Next, set your apenture on whatever setting you want for your picture - a low number if you want a shallow depth of field and higher numbers for less blur in the background. Start adjusting your shutter speed until you have a meter reading showing you are properly exposed. Take a picture and see how it looks and where the highlights are. As long as the face does not have highlights on it, don't worry about the any other places in the picture having highlights. Janet and I both like really bright faces, so you can keep slowing down the shutter speed by a couple of stops until you get highlights on the face or the picture starts to blur from too slow of a shutter speed. If you start out getting highlights on the face, increase your shutter speed by two stops, take a picture, and check again. Keep repeating until the face has no highlights because you don't want blown out places on the face. You want all of that detail. It is really easy. You will realize that you don't have to have a perfect meter reading in order to get a great looking picture. I found that my meter always told me I was overexposing by a couple of stops, but I never had highlights on the face. I hope this makes some sense, because it really is very helpful.

So, when Annie got up from her nap, I put her in the AWESOME pettiskirt that Nicki sent her in the mail today (what a fabulous surprise, huh? Thanks again girl!) and out we went to practice. I was stunned by the results. The pictures looked a million times better than my Apenture mode pictures. Her face was bright and the colors were vibrant and it was greatness. Now, it is no secret that my ideal picture is bright, bold, and colorful. I am a big fan of post processing. I love to boost the color, brighten the exposure, increase the blacks, etc. I never post a picture that I haven't tweaked in some way, but these were good enough that I would still be proud of them with no processing because of the great advice from Janet. Thanks again! My picture taking just changed forever because of you. So, go practice this! It is amazing the results that you will get.

And just so you can see, here are the straight out of the camera pictures from this afternoon. Absolutely nothing has been changed in these examples. Then I will give you what I would still do to these pictures. Which do you prefer? Everyone is different so let me know. Do you like the editing or prefer the more natural SOOC look?

SOOC:


Edited (the skirt actually has more detail in this version because I increased the blacks, the face is a bit brighter, etc.):


SOOC:


Edited:


SOOC:


Edited:


All of the rest of these have been edited to my exact liking, but they required much less tweaking than I would normally have to do.

Lucy was telling her a big story.




















Lucy and Goo checking out the ice skaters.

35/365

Today I am thankful for the sound of my daughter's laughing. No matter how bad a day is going, when I hear one of my babies laughing, I can't help but laugh as well. I am sure most of you remember that Annie still doesn't really know how to laugh. She is getting there, but is not there all the way. She will let out these little giggles, but even those are hard to get. What you get most of the time are these big shrieks, but not true laughter. Today, Justin and I both got real laughs out of her. It is so fun when you get the little glimpse of what her laugh will sound like. It is really cute! Throughout the past few years, I have posted video after video of Lucy laughing. I LOVE Lucy's laugh. I can't wait to post videos of Annie cracking up. Ever since Vietnam, Lucy has fallen in love with Tom and Jerry. The only cartoon shows on in VN were on Cartoon Network, and that is where she was introduced to Tom and Jerry. We were in our hotel room one day and all of the sudden, Lucy was laughing as hard as she possibly could. We looked over and she was watching Tom and Jerry and thought that everything they did was the funniest thing she had ever seen. We have gotten her 2 DVDs of it since we came home and it has taken the place of Shrek as the all time favorite. Lucy has always loved humor where someone gets hurt, which is what Tom and Jerry is the entire show. Should we be worried? Who remembers this video? It is at the very top of my all time favorites. We love her laugh so much that we will do just about anything to hear her laughing. Look how teeny tiny she is.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Justin and I both decided today that life would be a lot easier if we all just acted like Annie. She goes through every single day - whether she is sick, exhausted, stressed, etc - with the biggest smile on her face. She loves life all of the time. She is the definition of happiness and living life to its fullest. I want to be more like that. Life is too short for wasting time worrying about things we can't change. We should all just smile more. I always feel great when I am smiling, so I am going to work on that.

Lucy has really been cracking us up lately with a few more things that she has been saying all of the time. She makes it quite easy to keep a smile on our faces. Have any of you ever seen the horrific show Lazy Town on Noggin? It is awful. Really, really awful. Lucy discovered it a month or so ago and now she knows when it is coming on and insists on watching it. Every single day, I say to her, "This show is so weird Lucy." This makes her so mad. She whips her head around to me and says, "Its not weird! Its new Lazy Town. I told you its not weird!" She never changes any of this, she says the exact same thing every single day. She is big into saying that she already told us something if she ever has to repeat herself. The other thing that is so funny is that she doesn't understand time yet, but she talks about it all of the time. For instance, she talks about going to Lee Lee and Papa's house ALL. OF. THE. TIME. I am always saying to her, "We are going there in _____ days/weeks" or whatever the amount of time is. So now when she talks about going to their house, she says, "I go Lee Lee's house on Wednesday (or tomorrow, or in 2 weeks, or in 5 minutes, or this weekend). The time period is always changing and never the same (or correct). We go over this scenario multiple times a day. Whenever I tell her we have to go somewhere and she has to stop what she is doing, she immediately says, "How bout 3 more minutes Momma?" or 5 minutes or 1 minute. Whatever she thinks of at that moment. Funny stuff. I love that she wants to talk about things that she has no understanding of whatsoever, but can use the words in appropriate context.









Lucy has a new trick. She can sit on the floor with her legs straight in front of her, open her legs until she is in full center splits (and I do mean both legs straight out to the side), roll hips over, and get her legs behind her. It is not normal. I have said it before, but she is a rubberband. Her legs can stretch any way she puts them. I will look at her on the couch some days and she is sitting there with a leg up by her ear - it is so easy for her she can just pull it up on its own and not have to use a hand to hold it there. It really is wild.




A quick sunbath for the doggies.

34/365

Today I am crazy thankful for amazing friends. I have had such an awesome day today!! Like several of you, I guessed that we were doing some sort of tea party. I had told Mandy that I thought that was what we were doing. So, I got the girls up and dressed all cutie this morning and off we went to Mandy's house to meet her. She said that she wanted us to go ahead and come inside for a second. I am not going to lie, I was a little put out by this because getting two small people in and out of the car is not especially easy. But we got out and Lucy was so excited she got to ring the doorbell so it was all worth the effort. Mandy answered the door, we walked in and I saw a sign that said, "Welcome Home Annie!" and around the corner were some of my best friends. They planned a surprise Sip n See for Annie because I told Mandy that I didn't want her to do anything like that for us. It was amazing. I truly have such awesome friends. We had yummy brunch, cookies, cake, opened presents, and just chatted. It was so much fun. I genuinely loved every second of it. Thank you so much to all of the girls who made this happen for us. Mandy was so sweet and kept it small because she didn't want it to be too overwhelming for the girls. Annie hammed it up for everyone there. She was so sweet, happy, and smiley the entire time. I love watching people around her because she literally makes everyone in the room smile and laugh. She is just that special and her smile is so contagious. I love you guys so much and thank you again and again.

To make it even better, tonight was my playgroup's mom's night out so I got to have a great dinner, margaritas, and awesome, normal conversation with girls that I love. I just had such a great day with dear friends. There is nothing better than a good friend, and I am so lucky to have so many around me.

Remember when we arrived home from Vietnam and we were so blessed to have the amazing Jen from Sugar Photography photograph our homecoming? Well, she was one of the girls at the shower today and one of her presents was a video of all of the pictures she took from that morning. It is so incredible and truly one of my most prized possessions. I have tried to explain to her how thankful I am for this and I sure hope she knows how sincere I am. Justin was in on the shower secret and he told them that the song that the pics are to is my ALL TIME favorite song, so that is what Jen set the pictures to - Coldplay, Fix You. For me, it is a song that touches my soul so deep it is like I can feel it in my bones. I know that sounds ridiculous, but that is how I always explain it. The build of the song as an instrument is added on each verse just gets me. And when the drums kick in, this song is simply the greatest. I could listen to this song over and over again. I think it is only done justice when it is on full blast. If you ever have the chance to see Coldplay live, RUN! It is the greatest show ever. Anyway, enough about Coldplay, who wants to see the video??? Click HERE to see our Wecome Home Annie video. I have a bunch of new readers lately and just in case you don't know the full story, none of us had slept in days, Annie was very sick, she had an EXTREMELY difficult transition in Vietnam, and she cried all of the time. She melted down when we walked out and you can totally see the extreme stress in her sweet little eyes. This makes it all the more amazing to see where she is today. I wish everyone could meet this love because she has come SO FAR from this time. I have never been so happy to be home in my entire life and I am quite certain that Annie soon felt the same way. It was like she instantly changed once we got home. She started changing minute by minute and it was a true miracle to watch unfold.

I took no pics at the shower today, but Jen did. I did take a bunch of pics of my girls this afternoon, but I am so late on getting this up that I am only posting the two above. All of the rest were taken by Jen from today. I love them. She is crazy busy tonight and I have been gone all night, so these are SOOC and I still love them to pieces. I love my friends. Mandy, you amaze me that you pulled this off and actually kept it a secret. What would I do without friends like you? You are the best.

Here we are walking up to the door from the car. Totally unsuspecting!


Surprise!










Whoosh. This is the closest I have ever come to not getting this done on time. 23 minutes to spare. Night, night.

I ♥ Faces - Bring on the Eyes

Here is my entry for the I ♥ Faces contest this week. The theme is "Bring on the Eyes" and my nephew, Wyatt, has truly incredible eyes. They are bright blue, but this picture just screamed black and white to me. This has always been one of my favorite pictures. It was hard for me to choose just one this week. I got #8 last week in the contest!!! I was so excited. Come play with us! And regular blog readers, I will still post my 365 post tonight.

33/365

Today I am thankful for Annie's improved sleep throughout the past week. We still have a ways to go, but she has made some pretty major headway in the past week. I don't want to jinx it, but I am trying to use the power of positive thinking here! I feel a lot more rested, which is so nice. I have been sleeping quite a bit better since I am not constantly waking up scared that she is about to wake up. She is really napping well and has only been getting up a few times a night and sometimes only once a night. It is greatness. I just know she is going to keep it up!!!!! Please Annie, keep it up. Life is so much better when we all get some rest.

A little explanation on the picture of Lucy. This is for my sister Holly. Lucy's cousin John taught her this little game. Right before bath when we take her clothes off, she wants to run through the halls naked. It is called a Nakey Fly By - or so John told us that is what it is called. I kid you not, every time we change Lucy's diaper or get her dressed she wants to do a Nakey Fly By. It really is hilarious. So here she is tonight, in all her glory, flying down the hall buck naked. At least I know she is comfortable in her own skin! :) Love that girl.

We had another really nice day here. Lucy went to school and did great. Justin and I got a few more things done around the house and our house is officially on the market. Yikes. Keeping it in showing condition with these two hurricanes is going to be quite the chore, but I know we can do it. Come on buyers, I know you want our beautiful house!!

I am super excited for tomorrow. My wonderful friend Mandy has some sort of surprise planned for me, Lucy, Annie, her, and Anna. We are just supposed to be at her house at 10 am and we are all supposed to have dresses on. We are going somewhere because she said I could just follow her to wherever we are going. We were supposed to do this last Tuesday but we had to postpone due to the weather. I really just want to know what we are doing. Isn't that exciting and fun?!?! She won't give me any clues except that it has to due with food. Any guesses??

32/365

Today I am thankful for my church. I LOVE our church. It is awesome. I walk out of the service every time feeling so refreshed and ready for the week. I can tell a huge difference between the weeks I go and the weeks I don't go. I often times just need the little reminders that I get from our pastor. The sermons are always like a little therapy session for me, and I really like that. Every week I can take what was talked about and apply it to every aspect of my life. It has been hard getting to church since we have been home with Annie. I have not wanted to leave her in the nursery. Lucy actually loves her Sunday School now, which I thought would never ever happen. I teach it once a month and I think that helped her figure out that it was okay. Last week I thought I would try Annie in the nursery for 15-20 minutes and see how she did. I handed her over and she started to freak. I stood outside of her room for 2.5 minutes and said, hand her over, she is not ready for this. I have this horrible feeling that being in a setting like that brings up awful memories of the orphanage. I could be totally wrong, but that is what I imagine for now - there are a bunch of cribs lined up, several caretakers, and several other babies. Too similar for her at this point. So this week I decided to see how she would do in the actual church service with me. I really had no idea. She is such a good baby, I thought it might work out okay. We sat on the end of an aisle and also on a row where I could hide behind these giant columns if I needed to stand and bounce her. I really wanted to stay for communion, so I needed her to do this for me. She LOVED the music and when the entire congregation would say something - like the Apostles Creed or the Lord's Prayer. She started to get a bit antsy by the time the sermon was starting, so I stood and bounced her and she was asleep for the rest of the service - she didn't even know we took communion today! During the time that she was awake, she had charmed every single person who was in her eyes' view. She loved it when I would let her stand on my lap and she could see behind us. She would be looking around and even though I couldn't see behind us like she could, I could tell every time she caught someone's eye because she did her whole body smile and would jump in my lap. It was really sweet. I hope she brightened those people's day. She sure does mine over and over again. So, I got to really enjoy church with the sweetest angel asleep on my chest. The choir is awesome at our church and during the communion songs that they sing, it was like I was breathing in God all around me. I really had a spiritual day this morning. My eyes welled up with tears multiple times as I reflected on how wonderful my life is.

After church, I took the girls to Krispy Kreme. Today is a special day. Annie is 10 months old today and Lucy is exactly 2.5 today. Lucy got to pick her own donut, which was of course a heart with a million sprinkles on top. That is the one she wanted me to have as well and to be quite honest, I was very pleased with her choice. It was so yummy. Donuts make Lucy wired - especially donuts with creme and sprinkles. She was bouncing around our booth, laughing her little head off. We had to take about a third of Lucy's home because Annie started to get a little antsy after a while. Lucy eats so slow so we were there for a long time. I really wish I would have had my camera. Then, to make this glorious day even better, Justin called and said he would be home around 1, which is three hours earlier than we expected him back!! We all waited outside for him and Lucy greeted him by running into his arms, hugging him, and kissing him. I love to watch those moments. Again, should have had the camera out then, but sometimes you just want to live in the moment and soak it up. I do need pictures though of Lucy waiting outside of our house and how she reacts to seeing her Dada again.

I am going to list a few things that the girls are doing at their new ages. Again, Annie is 10 months old today. She has 4 teeth and is working on a bunch of others. She can babble the sounds mama, dada, papa, and goo goo ga ga. I used to think it was dumb to say babies say goo goo ga ga but Annie really does say just that. She certainly has no idea what any of these words mean, they just come out in random babble, but we still like to hear them. She is working on doing better with sleep. This week she has been improving little by little. She is napping much better - 2 naps a day that vary from 1-3 hours. She loves baby food but only out of a bottle for now. We are stepping away from the spoon for a while until she gets a little more used to the idea of something being in her mouth. I am doing some gum stimulation with her and she is responding well. She still refuses to put anything in her mouth except for one vibrating toy. Nothing else except for a bottle, her thumb to chew on, and now my finger. She will get there with eating. She still drinks a lot of formula and she gets the most precious buddha belly after each feeding. Lucy never got this big tummy and still never does, so I really love it on Annie. She weighed 15 lbs 13 oz a few weeks ago so I would guess she is at least to 16 lbs now. She loves to be on her tummy or sitting up with a few toys. She LOVES the Jumperoo. Her favorite time of the day is probably bath time, which used to be a struggle. She lays on a big sponge and kicks and splashes like crazy. She goes to bed really, really easily. It is just staying asleep that seems to be our problem. She seems to do all of her grieving in the middle of the night. It has to come out somewhere and it could definitely be worse. We are so fortunate because she is just so happy all day long. I really cannot imagine a day without this baby girl. Mandy said yesterday that she could just eat her up because she is so yummy all of the time, and I really couldn't agree more. I just nuzzle, kiss, and love on her all day long and she loves it. I love her so, so, so much - even when she can't sleep.

I am going to say it again, but Lucy is in the greatest stage of her little life. She says the funniest things and has the strangest little quirks about her that make us smile and laugh because only Justin or me would know them. Her vocabulary is really big. She surprises us with a big, long, extravagant sentence all of the time. It is still hard to understand her sometimes, but you sure as heck better figure it out because she gets MAD if you don't know what she is saying. She does not buy the whole nod your head and agree thing. She wants you to repeat back to her what she said so that she can confirm it. She is very adamant about this. It gets a little tricky sometimes, but we can usually figure it out. She is really OCD about a few random things. She wants doors closed all of the time - except for her door when she is going to bed. In fact, every single night she when we kiss her and are leaving the room, she says, "Door open please. Check Dada please." Every night. That means she wants Justin to come and check on her and she says it even when he is out of town. If by some bizarre chance she forgets to say those things, she will quickly remember and we will hear her shouting those phrases at us down the hall and she absolutely will not stop until we say, "Okay Lucy. We will leave your door open and Dada will be in to check on you soon." She has started occasionally responding with a, "Yes ma'am." when I call for her. It is so sweet and it is not really something we have even worked with her on. She learned that from cousin John, so thanks Holly! She absolutely LOVES her school now. I thought we would never get to this point but she is awesome. She walks down the hall with her backpack on and her lunchbox in her hand, puts them in her cubby, and gets right to work. Her teachers always have the sweetest reports to give me and I love hearing that she is opening up so much in there. She knows all of her colors, most of the shapes, can count from 1-15, sings the entire ABC song, and wants to sing songs all day long. Today she told me that she sang Jesus Loves Me at church and I asked her what other songs she sang and she said, "Momma, just other church songs." I died. We don't differentiate at home between "church" songs or nonchurch songs, she just apparently knows the difference. She did the sweetest thing ever last night in the middle of the night. I had just been up to feed Annie and it was about 2 am. Lucy's room gets really cold because it is over the garage but she refuses any covers at all except for her two babies which never stay on her. Whenever I get up for Annie, I always go in and cover her up and kiss her head. She is usually balled up in a little ball and I know she is cold. Last night she woke up when I went in there. This occasionally happens and is no big deal, she will go right back to sleep. I was covering her up with pinky (her blankees are called her babies and their names are pinky and pink-o). She looked up at me so sweetly and I asked her if she was cold. She said yes so I asked if I could put one of the big blankets on her. She agreed, which is unheard of. As I was turning to walk out of the room after I had covered her up, she said momma so I turned back around and got really close so I could see her in the dark. She just whispered, "Thank you momma." and smiled the sweetest little smile and then closed her little eyes. I kissed her about ten more times. I am not kidding when I say that it took my breath away because it was just such a special moment to me. Lucy Goose, just like Annie, we love you so, so, so much. You are amazing.

Wow, this was a long one. I had a really hard time narrowing down the pictures, so here are a whole lot. The weather is PERFECT here today. We even used the word hot when standing in the direct sunlight. I wanted to get this all done before the Superbowl. I am cheering for the Cardinals. I have always loved the underdog if my team is out.











I am really trying to work on finding the best light for pictures, which is something that I have not been that great at doing in the past. The light completely makes an image. This is in our backyard at straight up noon but the light was PERFECT at this angle. Again, check out the bokeh that I have never gotten in any picture before today from our backyard. It is a sea of crystals and I love the sun ray coming down across her head.







Direct sunlight makes Annie's hair even a million times funnier. She is totally Kramer here.


Finishing up her donut.




The obligatory toe picture.


I made it through a whole month without missing a single day for my 365 project. Holla. Can I get a holla back, please?