LOST DAWG FOUND!!!!

After an incredibly sad 5 days, we have been lucky enough to find Buster....safe and healthy and clean and being loved by another family in our city, who thought it prudent to call the phone number on Buster's tag. I think he was as happy to see us as we were to see him.

Thank you for everyone's positive thoughts and energy and prayers. And thank you to the family who brought him home.

We can't be more happy that he's home.

oh my Buster

In a crazy effort to find my missing doggie, Buster - who managed to jimmy open the fence and take off yesterday afternoon -

This is what he looks like - he does have a small scar under his right eye. If you see him, please leave me a comment here - I can only hope someone has picked him up and wants to give him back.

Holiday Mayhem

Every year I wonder if all the craziness that surrounds the holidays is really necessary. I mean, there's the shopping, the wrapping, the card making and mailing, more shopping, more wrapping, worrying that the kids will love what you give them, the worrying that you got everything that you needed to for everyone on the list, the worrying that you spent way too much on the holiday, the cooking, the baking, the eating, the stomach ache after all the eating.

And then there is the worrying that you wouldn't get enough pictures of it all. And prior to that, if you are me, you should have practiced taking pictures a little more with the pathetic lighting in your living room. I did manage a few ok pictures (with lots of help from CS4).

I don't often center my subjects anymore - and unfortunately this was the best Christmas picture I took with my 3 babies together. Someday when I get over the anger of shooting my relatively uncooperative kids, I'll post up all the outtakes (there are many more of those than there are good pictures of them!!!) In case you were wondering, the weird shape of the lights on the tree are called bokeh - which can be created a few different ways - we can talk about that some other time.
My toothy 9 year old, Dylan - complete with bokeh...With that picture window to Dylan's left, I even caught a reflection on Dylan's left eye.
This is a better shot of Dylan.


Here is my Christmas Angel. I tried to take pictures from different angles around the tree - I wasn't really thrilled by this lighting. But rule #1 in photography - there is no such thing as perfect lighting. Except in my living room, the lighting isn't even close to good. It's lovely on a sunny day through the picture window but the light from the ceiling isn't conducive to easy non-flash photography.
This was Melody's turn with the tree.

I will say that I still prefer SOOC shooting with very little post-processing to the photoshopped pictures here....like this one -
This was taken out of the window of my car while I was parked in my driveway a few weeks before Christmas (there aren't 2 suns, just a reflection through the glass).

Earlier on Christmas Eve, Adam and the kids made this -
He was practically perfect. Until the temperature rose above 50 degrees right after Christmas...there was about 20 inches on the ground for nearly the entire week of Christmas - now's it's all but gone - that's a New England winter for you....

Some of the above pictures were taken with my Tamron 24-75mm f/2.8. The Christmas close ups of the kids were taken with my Canon 50mm f/1.8. And the kids were all dressed in new jammies sent for Christmas by Auntie Booger, Uncle Mike and little Claire.

I will resolve to blog more this coming new year than I had this year. It will stay here at blogspot and if I am lucky enough to finish more scrapbooking projects this year, I will shoot those and post here too.

I have a few more good shots to post later this week - I'm on break from school for another 4 weeks!!! YAHOO!!!

NEED TO WIN

...this free watermarking action from CoffeeShop. I love their free actions! In case you didn't know what actions were, they are a series of editing steps in a photo editing program such as Photoshop or Elements.
This is my nephew Connor - I used the CoffeeShop Vignette action to darken the edges. I did though enhance his beautiful blue eyes from scratch. Such a cutie!

If by chance, I am randomly chosen to win this prize - it will make my weekend!!!

Here I go again...

So I've been on typepad for a few months and decided that paying for blog space (while I love how big the images can be) was not worth it because I don't have the time to blog as often. So here I am trying to learn how to work around making my images bigger.
This is my Angel - I did a little photoshopping to enhance the color of the leaves in the background and make her a little warmer. I used two actions that I got from Pioneer Woman Photography (I love that blog!!!). You can download 2 different packages of actions for free!!!And they are amazing!
This is a picture of my Melody - taken in the front yard the other day. She is getting so big!!! This photo is SOOC.

This is Dylan in the same spot as his sisters. I used the same actions on this photo as I did on the one of Angel's except when I used the warmer action, I dialed down the opacity - which made Dylan not look like he was bathing in the sun. I also used my flash (which if you know me, I'd rather not - but sometimes, it can be necessary.) Using my flash filled in Dylan's face (which is backlit from the sunlight). Now, if I could only remember to do it more often....

Since I have tomorrow off, I will attempt to accomplish more fundraising related activities for Brockton Youth Hockey, do the last of my design team assignments for the Scrapbook Cupboard, do laundry (because what day would be complete without some laundry?), and run some errands. I also need to tend to all the stupid time-based games I got myself into on facebook and try to alter the background and layout of this blog.

See you on the other side...

Permanent switch

After 2 weeks or so of testing, I decided to give typepad a shot - mainly because I like how big the pictures can be.

So if you're still interested in my blog - it's new home is here. Thanks for reading and following - I'm hoping that while I'm on vacation for the next few weeks that I will get the chance to post more photos...

See you on the other side....

Possible switch

I haven't blogged in days because I'm thinking about switching to Typepad. I'm free trialing their weblog service - so for at least the next two weeks, my blog will be here.

Thanks for checking it out - please leave comments here or there to tell me what you think of it.