2013, Here We Come

2012 has been a year full of blessings and heartache. Pneumonia, having a totally adorable baby girl, my mom moving in with us, threatening suing our landlord/ us winning, moving, computer crashing and losing tons of family pics, youngest boy child entering preschool, returning to work after 6 years to an awesome salon, renewed energy in my jewelry designs, Auroa theater and Sandy Hook shootings, Jesse from My Mod Style giving me an awesome blog makeover, Obama winning again, leaving our lifelong, LDS/Mormon religion over REAL issues that most Mormons know very little or nothing about and seeing support from some family/friends and nasty claws come out from other family/friends over it... which I have to say is interesting that people will so quickly delete you simply because of a difference of faith... Now, we had our first *real* family photo shoot (by erin smith photography), just like I always wanted! 2012, you were a nasty you-know-what, but at least we got some good things out of you. Please be nice to us, 2013 as we continue our journey! But if not, we will roll with your punches and throw 'em back! Much love and peace to my lovely readers this year! And oh, my comp is STILL giving me major problems!  Visit me on pinterest to see what is inspiring me during bloggy dry spells :)

 Isaac, aka "Izzy" and "Future Heartbreaker", almost 7

Elisabeth, aka, "Lil Bit, Bit Bit, Miss Liss, Lissbiss, WizBif, Angel Bit, Fairy Berry", 7 months

Married 9 years, starting to show it!

 Caleb, aka "Cabah", "Chicken" and "Kissy Face" almost 5

 

 

 They love their grandma!

 I redid that chair, tutorial coming soon!

 She loves open mouth kisses, Elisabeth that is, not my mom....

  Year of the skinny pants, I kind of converted.

 

Ornate Frame Prop for Family Pics

I have been getting a lot of amazing thrift and garage sale finds as of late, (which those re-dos will eventually be blogged).... but this massive, gaudy frame is a favorite! It was only $1 at a garage sale a few weeks ago. Hubby is not so in love with the print that came with it. I intended to shabby it up with a coat of spray paint, which I may still do, but am glad I waited because it turned into a really cute prop for some family pics we took over the weekend. I've compiled a pinboard of photo prop pictures that have been so popular the past several years for ideas, though here are a few we did. Have any of you used frames in photo sessions? If so, I would love to see them. I think a fancy oval frame would be neat to try next.

 

 

 

Happy framing!

Memories

My husband went out of town for a week for a business trip... and everything went wrong! The garage door broke, the boys were crazy, major fatigue set in... but even worse, my computer crashed for the whole entire week. (Though I DID get a lot of cleaning done!) When we got it back, all of our pictures were totally wiped out. I had been backing them up on an external hard drive, but apparently the last 2 years of photos hadn't been backing up like I though they were.

Through a lot of trial and error, we were able to get SOME back... for free! We were told by hp it would cost at least $100 for them to even try, and the geek squad and other places quoted us a lot more. But my husband did some google searching and found a program Recuva you can download that got them back. It only took about 2 entire days, but now we have them. Unfortunately, the recovered ones are most of what we had already saved, or ones I had already blogged. Some of my absolute favorite newer photos are still totally gone. About 8 thousand photos that we never took or have ever even seen before, like random logos, arrows, borders, color gradients, facebook pictures of people we don't even know and that sort of thing. So it is took a very long time to sort through them. We plan on getting an automatic online backup like Carbonite that should help in the future.

 

 

It made me really sad, because all this time I have been editing and saving pics for the blog and other sites, but I have failed to do the ones that matter to me the most... my family! I had just finished edited and organizing a few hundred family pictures, but didn't back them up. I keep seeing the images of my little guy in is homemade ghost costume for Christmas, or the boys playing soccer and their adorable little faces, a photo of me 'scolding' my oldest, and him rolling his eyes at me (hilarious), or the pictures of our family by the lake during Christmas time (which we totally lost).. then I thought about my family blog and how I haven't updated it in over a year!

I tend to be the type of person who, if I skip posting about Halloween, I think, I need to do it before Thanksgiving... then before you know it, Christmas has passed and I never updated because I could never update things that late or out of order. I do the same thing with my journal. Well, now I know better... I am really going to try and focus on not only making those memories, but keeping them alive, and not drowned in some hard drive to be lost somewhere. And, I am going to try and focus more on making memories with my kids, than on missing old photos with them. I've come to realize that is why those photos were so important to me, because I haven't been doing as well of a job in being there for them right now. So, apparently, I have got a looooot to work on.

Family Time: Impromptu Couples Photo Shoot

It was my mother's birthday, and we gathered with all six grandson's for a nice 'ole time at my sister's. Boys, taking a break from the trampoline to devour some cake, us ladies, sitting around chatting, and the one lone male adult was nowhere to be found.

I wondered outside, and here he was, sitting on this roof, reflecting, looking at a cut on his hand from climbing a fence. But, man was not meant to be alone... so I moseyed on over to that swing set behind this adorable shed and heft myself up, all clumsily ninja like. I've lost my stealth.

Then, my sister came out to see what we crazy kids were up to and started snapping pictures.

It turned out to be a good day for an impromptu photo op.

When was the last time you had a little unplanned photo time with your sweetheart? Something you could frame? Anytime is a good time to do it. Seriously, just go grab a friend who can take a semi decent photo, act natural and kind of half hug and stuff for twenty minutes in a semi attractive background. Then upload your photos to Picasa or some other user friendly photo editing program like Picnik, and crop out unsightly background things (like a pooping dog in the corner, telephone line, dead patch of grass or a garbage can), brighten photos or whatever you need for a semi decent shot. It'll be a nice change to have something casual and impromptu.

 And free. Never forget the free part. Have fun with angles and don't be afraid to be yourself. I Heart Faces has lots of good ideas on styling and photo editing. A few more good photography and styling resources here, and here. I will probably go in a add some warmth and haze to some of the photos for a dreamy effect. You can do whatever you want. Making the photos black and white or sepia toned is a nice choice if you question the color or photographer's skills, or if your outfits don't match. Maybe the photos won't be the highest of quality, or won't be blow up poster size, but that isn't what matters.

Feet pictures are safe and trendy. No shiny foreheads, muffin tops, weird hump back shots, windy hair, goofy smiles, half blinks, bra straps, food in teeth, inappropriate giggling, balding spots or gobble necks to hide here.

Perspective shots are fun. And to think I cut almost six inches off of my hair yesterday. I can't believe it was that long, and I, a woman who has sported a shaved head... already miss it.

So un-ninja like, he helped me down. It's nice getting older, and losing our swiftness and agility together. One day, we plan on going grocery shopping in bath robes, slippers and canes, [mildly] swearing up a storm and being rude elderly people to those cursed teens, just for the fun of it.

But for now, we will start [next week] working on getting back in shape together and trimming down those gobble necks and love handles.