night #2 - fail

well, the big bed time plan didn't work tonight because blake ended up not feeling well and went to bed just before chase.  hoping blake is feeling better tomorrow night so that we can try again.  blake has a headache, and guess what ... so do i.  i felt it coming on toward the end of the day at work, and it's been building.  crossing my fingers i will be able to make it through the day tomorrow, and blake too!

tomorrow is a christmas program at chase's school.  i am fortunately able to go.  looking forward to talking to chase's teacher.  one of my possible solutions to this whole sleep and bus dilemma is to have chase join the afternoon class instead.  still a possibility.

my mom had asked me to make her a digital christmas card to send to the people she bought her dog from, and i made that tonight.  i emailed it to her.  one digital project off of my list ... several to go!

take care,
melinda

night #1

first of all, i apologize for typing in all lower case letters, but i'm too lazy to use the shift key on the right hand side of my keyboard, and the key on the left hand side is not working.  historically, it will be neat to come back and read this some day, remembering the dumb issues i've had with this keyboard which is less than 2 years old.

bedtime has been a struggle ever since school started in september.  chase is new to going to any type of school, and not only that, but he goes to school in the morning after having previously been "trained" to sleep in due to my husband's work schedule.  the idea was to get him closer to the school schedule he will have in kindergarten, and to give him something to do while his dad sleeps in from working until the wee hours of the morning.

well, chase does not go to bed well.  he claims to be afraid of the dark.  it may very well be true, but based on some of his behaviors, i really think it is more of an attention thing than anything.  he seems to enjoy the negative attention it brings him from both his siblings, and me.

tonight, though ... i am hoping that i've finally figured out a way to deal with it.  in the past, i've sent all three kids to bed at the same time. i sent chase to bed first tonight.  chase likes to turn the bedroom light on when he's going to bed, which has always been an issue for poor blake who sleeps on the top bunk and has it shining in his face.  with chase being on the bottom, the light doesn't shine in his face, and so he isn't bothered by it.  for whatever reason, the two nightlights in their room are not enough light for him.  anyway, he was asleep within 15-20 minutes after he was sent to bed.  Hallelujah and Amen!!! (Yes, I broke out the right-shift key for that bit there!)  while he was falling asleep, i did the dishes with the older two kids.  they weren't happy about it because we had a lot to do, but i surprised them with a few oreos and some milk afterward as a reward.  bedtime was supposed to immediately follow that for both blake and julia, but apparently blake hadn't finished a math assignment -- there were some corrections to make on a  previous in-class assignment -- and so he stayed up to do that.  julia was asleep within 15 minutes, and blake went to bed last, and seems to have gone to sleep well also.

you have no idea how excited i was by the quiet bedtime process tonight.  i have been at my wits end and near tears with frustration over kids coming out of their rooms, lights being turned on, and that one child who just plain would not stay in bed.  chase went to bed without a fuss tonight.  wow.

so ... so far the new plan seems to be working.  the test will be to see if he makes it in his bed all night long, but this has promise!!!!

please let this work,
a tired mommy,
melinda

Horrible blogger

I'm a horrible blogger.  I think its probably because as far as I know, no one reads my blog but me, hee hee (except for when I enter photos at I Heart Faces, maybe)!  I wouldn't want to read a blog that didn't get posted on though, so I will try to be better about it.  I've updated my blog tonight to have Christmas colors ... kind of ... and added my Christmas playlist to the side.  Turn your sound down or off if you don't care to listen to Christmas music.  I happen to love Christmas music!

Christmas is coming way too fast this year.  Less than 4 weeks away.  I have thought about setting up the Christmas tree, but I'm sure I'll get to drag it up out of the basement again, and am not looking forward to it.  I'll have to enlist Blake's help, as I'll admit I'm afraid I'll hurt myself trying to drag it up the stairs if I do it on my own.

My goal for this weekend is to get some house cleaning and organizing done so that we CAN put up the tree.  Hubby has been doing a bunch of that lately, which is great, but he has a tendency to go overboard.  He's got the chore of laundry and keeps going through the clothes and putting things in a donate box ... except he's not paying attention to sizes and he's put things in there that we can use again in the spring, or that can be saved for Chase for when he's older.  It's good that he understands I'm going through them after him, rescuing things! :)

Blake is almost done with having braces.  He just got them put on in July, and will get them off in January already.  I am really hoping we can avoid "Phase 2" of braces with him, which would be needed if the rest of his teeth come in crooked and messed up.  So far, he still has several baby teeth in the back, as he should.  He's not old enough to be losing those yet.

Speaking of age ... I laughed internally when I took the kids to a restaurant this past weekend.  The hostess asked me if I just needed 2 kids' menus.  Kids menus are for ages 12 and under ... and apparently Blake looks like he might be older than that?  Well, I will give him that he's huge.  Well, not HUGE, but he is tall for his age, and he is wearing braces ... which most people (as would I before going through this adventure) would expect to be done in the teens.  He still has more baby-face than I would expect a 12-13 year old would, though.  So, that gave me some internal giggles.  Thank goodness for places that have menus for kids that he can still find enough to eat on, though ... this kid can't even really tolerate a Mighty Kids meal at McDonald's anymore because it isn't enough food!  I have NO idea what I'm gonna do when this kid IS a teenager, hee hee!

Well, as usual, I'm trying to get too many things done and am not getting to sleep early enough, so I'm going to close up shop for now.  Time to start winding down and get some rest!

Thanks for stopping by,
Melinda

I Heart Faces: Tickled Pink

This time I decided to feature my daughter who was covered in pink for one of her first T-ball practices of the season this past spring.  You can see some of her face ... hope it's enough to count, as this was just too much pink for me NOT to enter it.  My daughter borrowed a friend's pink helmet, and another friend's pink bat, and so she ended up covered in pink ... it was just too cute! :)

This week's theme is pink in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month.  My aunt was touched by this disease.  She beat it several years ago, and now faces another battle with another form of Cancer.  Love you, Aunt Mary Jane, and I think about you every day ... hoping for health, comfort, and as many good times as possible.

See more entries at the I Heart Faces site, at the address under the image below.

www.iheartfaces.com

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Melinda

So excited! ("Raise Your Hands" challenge at I Heart Faces)

 

Here is my entry for this week's challenge - Raise Your Hands - at I Heart Faces! This was my little man on his fourth birthday last year ... SO excited about his new Big Wheel!  I loved how expressive his face was with his hands up, so it was an easy pick for this challenge.  See more entries at the link below the icon.

www.iheartfaces.com

Back to School

I Heart Faces is having a Back to School photo challenge ...

I didn't do a photo shoot for Back to School ... I just took some pictures of my kids like I always do.  I really liked how this one turned out though, so I submit a picture of my youngest son, waiting for his very first bus ride to pre-K!

Check out all the fabulous entries at I Heart Faces!

Beautiful Eyed Beach Bum ...

When I saw the prompt, I knew I had to share this picture that I took last summer of my son at the beach when we were camping with my parents.  I love my son's eyes!  I did apply a pre-set by Kelsey Smith that I got ages ago called "Dance," that I did just a little tweaking on.

  I Heart Faces - Beautiful Eyes Challenge

Thanks for looking, and check out more entries at the I Heart Faces link above!
 

I Heart Faces photography challenge: shadows

I have decided to enter this photo for the shadow challenge this week.  I didn't take it this week, thank goodness.  It was an amazingly chilly day this January that I took this picture at the Silvermine Invitational.  It was so cold that my camera would not stay on, and at one point my camera even re-set its date back to 1/1/1980!!  Wiped it right out.  I snuck a few shots on my camera, and on my dad's camera.  My dad would tuck my camera down under his jacket to try to warm it up so that the darned thing would work!  It was so frustrating as I could see the amazing potential if my camera had been in proper working order.


Still, I really have nothing to complain about, as I caught this pretty cool shot with a neat shadow of the skier!

Thankfully, this type of weather seems to be finally moving out.  The big pile of snow in our back yard has been reduced to a small pile of ice, and that should melt fairly quickly.  We've had unseasonably WARM weather today, but there is a threat of severe weather in addition, so that's an interesting trade.  Here's hoping that everyone stays safe today with the unstable weather pattern!

See more entries for the Shadow challenge by clicking on the I Heart Faces button above! :)

Fix-It Friday #89

I have no professional skill when it comes to photo editing. I just like to play in Lightroom! I saw a post on Facebook for the Fix-It Friday event at iHeartfaces.com with a link to the newest photo provided, and decided to give it a go, even though I know many other more experienced editors will be playing with the same photo. I am anxious to see what direction they take with it.

I decided to smooth out the subject's face a little, and went with a desaturated look, and added back in a pop to the blacks, reds and blues. I really like how it drew out his blue eyes, and the texture/design in his shirt. I would have liked to blur the background beyond the brick wall, but I wasn't sure how to achieve that, so I stopped with what I've got.


Here is the original with credits to the photographer, Dana Suggs:

and here is my edit:

and a second edit cleaning up the wood and the back wall with some cloning and slight gaussian blur in PSE, a slight vignette added in LR, and an addition of film grain from PSE applied to the brick wall.

You can see more on this week's Fix-It friday here:







Thanks for stopping by!

Vote for my Shutterfly book! :)

Check out my book in the Shutterfly Best Gift Ever Contest!

I've entered a Shutterfly contest! My parents went on a trip to Alaska. My dad took lots of pictures and tons of them were great and really interesting! But, they sat in envelopes after they were developed, and I had no idea what some of the pictures showed.

I got the idea to make a Shutterfly book of the pictures for Christmas. I got my mom to put the pictures from their trip on a disc ... she assumed I'd do digital scrapbooking with them ... and started a book. Then I got my parents' friends' email address in Alaska and asked them for help. They helped me with the captions, and even contributed some more pictures so that the book could include pictures of my dad, who otherwise would have been missing due to being behind the camera the whole time.

The scenery was breath-taking, and the trip was very special to my parents. It was an amazing feeling to see them open the gift at Christmas!

It would be awesome if you would vote for me ... please check out the above link to see it!