I Am His Daughter

30/365

 So between pink eye, ear infections, teething, the flu, wheezing, the nebulizer treatments every 4 hours and not sleeping terribly well through the nights.... taking pictures kinda took a back burner. Not to mention that the hubby was out for training so I was flying solo and exhausted from the parts of the illnesses that hit me as well. Nobody should be allowed to be sick when their significant other isn't there to take care of them! Just my opinion though :) 

At dinner tonight Kaela was so happy about her green beans she started posing and saying cheese even though no cameras were around. So I asked if she wanted me to take a picture and she said, "yeah". I wasn't going to fight it too much. Not with this cutie pie. 

Here are the poses she gave me with her green beans: 

She's adorable, right?! 

9/365

My intention while we were out was to get a great picture of her and the dog, but between the ice she kept slipping on and the cold I didn't want to let go of her hand for too long. So I snapped only 2 shots and this is the better of the two. I just keep telling myself at least I am learning how to use manual, even though I am not absolutely loving the composition. 

7/365

I do not love the lighting of this photo, I wish I would have had them move over just a little to correct it. BUT I love how grown up they look. I am pretty sure they could have this same picture taken when they are teenagers with the same pose and facials. These girls are stinking adorable!!

5/365

So I am pretty excited about today's picture because I made it completely from start to finish. I work with the youth and we have an event coming up that we needed an invitation for so I searched for ideas for designs and I found this idea on pinterest: 

I loved it and decided to use that general pattern. Thank goodness they had downloads on this site for all of the different parts of it. I only had to create the invitation part, the temple card with this year's theme, and the watermark for the outside part of the paper. 

I used this website: 

http://helamangallery.com/

for the free images of the temple that they have available. I fell in love with his work and now really want one of his prints for my home. I actually made two options for the temple card, the second option was my favorite print but didn't match the rest of the invitation quite as well. 

Here is that photo: 

Isn't it gorgeous?! Here is the one I used for the invite: 

Still gorgeous, I just love the colors of the first one so much! 

And here are the pdf downloads of the parts that I created to use in case anyone finds a use for them later on. Feel free to use them. 

And here is the finished product and my day 5 picture: 

Thanks again to picmonkey for my editing purposes,
I was able to adjust the white balance quite a bit to make it
less yellowy than it originally came out. 

4/365

So the ending of this week has been a little crazy to say the least, but yesterday I was able to snap one photo  on our date night at least. Don't judge me that it was with my phone, it was better than nothing. Plus it was of my hot husband so that's a pretty redeeming factor.

I did play around with editing on Picmonkey, which probably taught me close to nothing about editing photos. BUT I love picmonkey! So easy to use!

3/365 - (Bad Mom Award...)

So my sweet baby girl woke up from her nap yesterday with an eye swollen shut. The doctors couldn't get her in till this afternoon, but this is how she woke up. Broke my heart.

When we went in to see the doctor: pink eye in both eyes AND a double ear infection. She hasn't even been messing with her ears. Not to mention her eczema. Does someone want to take over for a week?? I feel like I am breaking my child, the poor thing! And yet she is still always SO smiley!

2/365

Nothing like a little indoor window frost to welcome you to the North Country!

Project 365 Kickoff

So I have a confession to make:

Most years I see New Year's resolutions as pointless. In my way of thinking I was sitting down at least monthly or weekly to evaluate my life and my goals and was making goals at that frequency. 

It has been a good long while since I have sat and done that. 

So this year I see New Year's resolutions as a chance to recommit myself to self improvement and I am making a few resolutions. 

1. To keep a journal every day 
1. If I blog about my day that counts, otherwise I am using my favorite journal and want to fill it up by the end of the year. Then I will have an excuse to buy a new journal. I love journals! 
2. To improve my photography skills
1. Project 365 
2. Online class in January
3. Possibly take online course through the Art Institute online... that one's still a maybe 
3. To improve my relationships 
1. Not miss sending birthday wishes to a single family member (parents and siblings, I wish I were organized enough for cousins and everything. Maybe after I master sending them to parents and siblings:) )

With all that said, this is where I will be posting my photos for Project 365. I am excited to see if I can improve my skills with shooting manually and doing minor editing. 

So here is the first photo of the year, my gorgeous smiley daughter playing with her Christmas dolly. She has just started cheesing it up for photos and I am loving it!! 

I used Gimp (a free editing software) for this photo. It's still a little over my head, but hopefully this will help me get better at it!