crunch time

I just got back from the most wonderful, much needed, well deserved girls trip to Arizona. It was beautiful, sunny and warm. No kids, no laundry, no dishes, no schedules. Just us girls. It was awesome!

However, I come back home to rooms stacked full of boxes, clothes ready to be put in boxes and random piles of papers and clutter then need to be organized and filed so that they too can go in boxes. It's chaos here and time is quickly ticking down to when we need to get all packed, cleaned and ready to move.

I just have a feeling that the next two months are just going to be pure chaos. Wayne leaves next Monday to start his new job in Kansas City. Fisher still has a another whole month here at his school, so we will be moving in with wonderful friends, while me and the three kids tightly share a room. Then it's off to Colorado to live with my parents so that we can finally decide on a place to live in Kansas. Yes, I am trying my hardest not to panic and not to explode with emotion and tears. This is all just happening so fast and I still feel like there is so much to do.

So for the next two months you will have to appologize for my lack in posts. I love blogging, I love taking pictures. They keep me creative and inspire me to do more. It's just going to be insanely hard. Hopefully I will have my computer with me and I will still be able to write and post. 

It's crunch time, I have a lot of boxes that need to be filled and a lot of scrubbing to do. 

Wish me luck! :)

before and after - dino edition

We love going to the zoo. We go there a lot and we are so going to miss it. It's become a place where we go with our best of friends. We've celebrated birthdays there. We've walked and explored, rode trains and wooden animals there. We love the Hogle zoo... it will be greatly missed.

However, the zoo just got a little bit more exciting. It has dinosaurs now. Big ones! They move and roar and even spit water! To my little guys... this was cool. Way cool!

Just check out t-rex. So big and so cool!



Plus a big dinosaur to sit on while you have your camera crazy mom snap millions of photos of you.


millions.

I loved that the dinosaurs are everywhere throughout the zoo. They are in the duck pond, along the train ride, and even up on your way to the tigers.

And I loved that we got to show grandpa and grandma our pretty awesome zoo.




Yes. We pretty much love our zoo. We are so going to miss it.

And of course we loved it so much that Wayne just wanted to come and check out these dinosaurs. Our last trip as a family to the Hogle zoo. It was fun to have him with us!

Here is my before shot. One of the millions I took. It's a little dark but I love his look.

So I opened it up in Adobe RAW and adjusted the white balance and just a tiny bit of the exposure. I then ran noise-ware and warmed up the image a bit. I also ran Coffee Shop Baby Powder and soften his skin a bit. I sharpened the eyes and then I used AMP Day Dream and adjusted the layers accordingly. I added a slight blue mist layer and adjusted it to 15%.  I also sharpened the whole image and added a slight vignette at 8%.

To check out more before and afters head on over to Pixel Perfect!

wordless(ish) wednesday

Just wanted to share a few more shots from when we went to see all of the flowers.





We have been spending a lot of time at our zoo lately.

We love our zoo for many reasons. So we go there a lot.


Just a sneak peak. I promise you more to come. It's exciting.

Happy Wednesday!

sleep

We love sleep around here. We all have been incredibly exhausted with the packing, and maze of boxes and the ton of cleaning that needs to get done. Moving is way too stressful for me. At least baby girl has no problem relaxing and sleeping!

i heart faces :: may flowers

I am submitting this photo for the I heart faces photo challenge for May Flowers. April showers have definitely brought tons of beautiful May flowers and I am just loving them all.

Go check out I heart faces for more beautiful and wonderful captures of flowers!

all the pretty flowers

The flowers in down town Salt Lake city in Temple Square are just absolutely beautiful right now. I just had to take my parents and show them how incredibly amazing and beautiful this place is.

We couldn't have asked for better weather, and we went right when all the flowers had bloom. They filled the air with their sweet smells.


My Parents loved walking through and admiring all the different kinds of flowers. They love places like this.


And the kids had fun just playing in the sun and running through all the paths.


They watched fountains, and played with trains.  They just love this place too.


I love this picture...

Me and my buddy. Who is finally back to his old happy self. He is fully recovered and I am loving the smiles and laughter he shares with me.

before and after - a quick post

Blogger decided on it's own that it was just going to randomly delete my last post. The before and after...

I am sorry I don't remember everything written so I will share you the pictures but spare you the writing.





my mind is overwhelmed with boxes, cleaning supplies and the short time we are quickly running out of.

Hope you all have a wonderful friday!

before and after

Yesterday we headed up to Park City to take in the mountains and cute little shops one last time. It was the first time either of my parents have been up there, and needless to say they fell in love. I am going to miss Park City.

Anyway, we decided to stop and grab some yummy lunch at Squatters. When I just saw Chase reading the menu and looking like he was actually studying it, I just had to snap a picture. I did it so quickly that I didn't have time to really adjust my settings.

As you can see this picture is definitely too dark and too cold feeling.

I first opened this image in ACR and adjusted the levels and added just a little warmth. Then I took it to photoshop CS and ran Ashley's Sisk's nice and easy action. I turned off the level layer and painted over the soft light layer with a black brush at 73%.  I wanted to have a lot of fun with this capture, so I slightly cropped it, messed with the contrast and brightness and sharpened his eyes a little. I added a warm honey color layer and changed the opacity and also added an indigo layer at 8%. I warmed it up just a little bit more and adjusted the hue/saturation layer. I finished by sharpening the whole image.

I love how bright it turned out! 

To check out more before and afters head on over to Pixel Perfect!

the paper mama :: food

This weeks theme over at the paper mama is food.

I just love this picture of Miss Sabrina with carrots all over her face. This is how she looks after every meal. She is the messiest eater. But she still has the cutest grin!

Check out more great captures over at the Paper Mama!

wordless(ish) wednesday

Today, today we saw some dinosaurs. We like dinosaurs here. Thankfully we have one of the largest and coolest dinosaur museum just a little bit away from us. Naturally, we just had to take grandma and grandpa and show them all the cool things it has.

Chase is a great tour guide. He will point out every. single. dinosaur.


He has the greatest relationship with my dad. I just love these two together.

Poor little guy. Today was a hard day for him. I cannot wait for him to just get better and just start feeling better. 

But he found his fish tank, which he just absolutely loves. He could literally watch fish for hours.

And sweet baby girl is just loving the attention from her grandparents. I know she looks sad in this picture, her brother scared her. But her eyes and pouty lips just make her so sweet and adorable!

getting outside

It's so nice have the grandparents in town for the week. We get to get out and visit old places we used to love and see. Places we forget exist and will soon be forgotten as we leave this place.

It was nice to take a walk and get outside. Fisher needed some sun since his surgery. And while we waited for those who decided to slip inside some beautiful antique stores. Fisher and I decided to enjoy the old rock wall that created the perfect platform for a few trains.

He enjoys the outdoors. He is slowly coming back to his old self and starting to feel a little bit better. His poor little faces seem so swollen here, but he is still as cute as ever!

cuteness

I am excited today. My parents are coming to visit for the week since my husband is out of town. It's been over six months since they last came to visit and I am going to make sure that we keep them pretty entertained. It's also probably the last time they will come to visit Utah since we will be moving to the mid-west in less than a month.

Plus, there is so much cuteness they are missing out on.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend! xoxo

getting ready for the weekend

What a whirlwind of craziness the last two days have been. I have been slacking on taking pictures and trying my hardest to run a full house while my husband is out of town for the week. Thankfully my parents are coming into town and I can't wait to spend some good and quality time with them and my kids. Lately, I have been nursing my much sleep deprived, much hurting little three year old who is finally on the right medication and finally coming back to his old self. 

Last night he finally smiled, a smile I missed so much.

He is a trooper this little kid. I am so happy he is finally getting back to his old self again.

So I share with you some fun and cute pictures from the week, pictures that just make you smile!


Look at that face! Seriously love her.

We like going on walks when big brother is in school and the weather is wonderful outside. One of the best places to go is to Wheeler Farm. It's got animals everywhere and it's free! Such an awesome place.

Maybe we should show grandpa and grandma the ducks at Wheeler farm.

Hope you all have a happy and wonderful weekend!