today

Today we woke up to more snow. I love snow in the winter time but lately I am just craving sunshine and 70 degree or more weather.

So today, today we let the snow get to us and we are going to be lazy. Sometimes lazy days are the best days.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

i heart faces :: soft and sweet

I just love her.

ten little toes

The cutest little toes...


This girl has rolls. And I love every bit of them!







Happy friday!

before and after

Baby girl loves her carseat. She loves sleeping in it, and when we come home from a car ride and she is asleep... I let her keep sleeping in it.

I took this shot while she was still sleeping and snuggled in with her blanket. I love this shot but I took it early in the morning so the natural light wasn't too bright and I wanted to add some more warmth to it.

I first opened the image up in ACR and adjusted the white balance and brighten it up a bit. Then I used Coffee Shop Baby Powder and soften her skin a bit. I used a contrast layer at 45% and ran a photo warm layer at 30%. I liked out it look from there but I wanted to add more of a sun softness to it so I ran a gradient map with a light pink color. I changed the layer to soft light and adjusted the opacity to 15%. I finished it off with a cream layer (8,11,16,0 ckmy) and adjusted that to 25%. I finalized it by running the unsharp mask.

I would love to do more dramatic edits but I just don't know where to begin... so I will just keep playing around! :)

Check out more before and afters over at Pixel Perfect!

She is so sweet sleeping! Those lips!

wordless(ish) wednesday

my two boys.

I just love this picture of the two of them. They are good friends. Always together, making trouble, laughing and having fun.

I just love them!

happy

Look who is eating carrots and is just so happy about it!!

She is one happy little girl.


And one cute little girl. Even if she is a messy eater.


Seriously... could that face get any cuter?

the paper mama :: multicolored

This week's theme at the Paper Mama is multicolored. I had fun with this theme. Lately, Miss Bre has been loving her baby einstein jumper. I have been loving it too.. it keeps her pretty happy and pretty entertained. Plus...it's just so colorful!

To check out some more pretty colorful pics, head on over to the paper mama!

happy monday

I missed this smile so much this weekend!!



Happy Monday!

kansas city

We spent this weekend driving around Kansas City looking for a new home. It was the first time both of us have ever been away from the kids for that long. It was nice, but we missed them. And we couldn't really call this trip a vacation, since we spent seriously all day sitting in a car driving around and looking at houses.

After the first two hours, it got old, but this was important for our family.

So I didn't do so well on the whole capturing moments and taking a lot of pictures on this trip. However, the nice rental car people were so generous to upgrade us to a mustang convertible for our trip, which my husband insisted on riding around with the top down as much as possible.

Picture courtesy of my husband. Love the reflection in the front windshield.

Kansas City has some beautiful scenery and amazing vegetation. We did enjoy driving around looking at all the beautiful ponds and lakes throughout the city. It got us excited on our move out to the Midwest. Planning trips and walks with the kids. Going fishing or to the many parks we saw. 

I took this picture while we were waiting at the airport. By the end of our trip we were very tired. We spent so many long days driving around that we were up late eating and tracking our recent finds. It was a great trip and we are hoping to go back soon to start finalizing on some of our decisions!

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend! I have some little faces to go kiss and love and love and love!

two

Happy Birthday to my sweet, funny and cuddlely little boy! He turns two this friday and I know that I say it a lot but I just can't believe he is two already!

Chase is our comedian, our chatty one, the one who loves to be around people and just laugh and play. He is the one who is turning two but thinks he is turning four. He is into everything and once he meets you, you are a friend for life. He is a great big brother to his baby sister and a best friend to his older brother. They do everything together and I am just loving their bond. They will always be great friends and Chase has been one of the greatest blessings to our family for many reasons!

Happy Birthday funny boy! I love you with all of my heart, body and soul. You have been one of the sweetest and greatest blessings a mommy could ask for. You make me laugh and smile every day. You encourage me to love in new ways. I love watching you grow, talk and live. You are our little ham and I just could not image life without you!

Love you!

worn out

This has been a crazy and full week of lots to do and lots of running around. I feel so behind on blogging (but i have been taking lots of pictures!).

Today we leave to go house hunting in Kansas City for the weekend. Another busy weekend of running around and getting things done. I am excited for this amazing opportunity and a little overwhelmed too... but a weekend away should be fun! Right?

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!

fish

Monday night our local aquarium hosted a free night for children with autism and their families. One of Fisher's favorite things is water. And what makes it even more exciting are fish in water and bubbles. Needless to say, the aquarium is one of Fisher's favorite places to visit and so we made the most of that night.

This little boy could seriously just sit and watch fish swim all day. I love that this is something he enjoys so much.

I love just watching him.

Trying to figure out how to capture moving fish in low light settings. Good thing there were some pretty fish to capture!

hello spring! so happy you are here!

So my plan of getting my boy's picture taken in front of the beautiful flowers and all dressed up cute, didn't go quite as planed, but boy were the flowers just beautiful! And the weather, just perfect! So the trip wasn't a total failure either... in fact, it was just wonderful!

Just walking in this place made me so happy. The smell of blooming flowers and soft sound of the fountains made me totally feel at peace. I definitely felt like I had seasonal depression this winter and with spring finally showing up I am so excited for all the new and fun things to do!

Yay for sunshine!!

inspire

My Four Hens is hosting their first photo challenge. It's a fun and exciting way to get people more involved and excited about photography. The first theme for their photo challenge is 'inspire'.

I chose those this picture I took again from Temple Square. It inspires me to branch out and become more creative in the photos I capture. I want to strengthen and grow in my photography skills and by capturing just the simplest of beauty helps to inspire me to do more.

I can't wait to see what inspires you.

shutter love tuesday :: blue

This week's theme at the Trendy Treehouse is blue. This past Sunday we decided to go down town to Temple Square to look at all of the pretty flowers in bloom. I was so excited to get pictures of the boys all dressed cute sitting in the blooming flowers. Well, that didn't go as well as I hoped and I promise to share those pictures soon, but man did the flowers look amazing! 

I love this shot and it's my something blue! I am so loving that spring has finally decided to show up! Yay!

To check out more blue shots head on over to the Trendy Treehouse!

oh... we celebrated!

Chase-man's birthday party was a huge hit and a lot of fun! I enjoyed every minute preparing and planning and just celebrating this little boy of mine and I think he enjoyed it all too!

This little boy loves everything but I thought having a dino party would be a lot of fun with him. He is still talking about the dinosaurs to this day... so I am saying it was a success! 

I am so blessed to have such an amazing group of friends who offered to bring fun and yummy snacks for the party. Seriously, there was a ton of yummy food! Again, another awesome success!!

I decided since it's so close to Easter, to do a dino-egg hunt. The kids just loved this and I loved watching them all run around looking for brightly colored eggs.

Inside each egg was a brightly colored dinosaur that the kids got keep. Super fun!

Then it was time for singing and cupcakes! Chase loved the singing. Although he wasn't too sure if it was for him or not. In true fashion, I couldn't find the candles I brought for him to blow out till after we did the cupcakes... but he didn't mind. He still loved digging into those cupcakes!

Cheese!

I made chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes from scratch and they were A-MAZ-ing! Seriously... delicious! 

This was such a fun birthday party! I know it's a total cliche but I still can't believe that my baby boy will be two this friday! Time is going by way too fast!