which one?

Which "after" do you like better?

Before:

After #1: Perfect Portrait Action

After #2: Lomo Action


I can't decide.

day one: success!

Today was Jboy's first day of school. Ever. He's been so excited to go ever since we were there to sign him up & they let him play with cars while I filled out paperwork. Cars? That's all he needed to know!

After much searching we decided to enroll him at Bright Beginnings Preschool at First Baptist Church Loganville. At this stage in his life I wasn't quite as concerned with how much he'll be learning, but more about the social interaction he'll get. Also I think the structure will be great & learning to respect authority that's not Mommy & Daddy.

He got up, had a good breakfast of oatmeal & was ready to hit the road. I of course had to make sure that we got a few pictures to celebrate this special day. Thankfully he was being mostly cooperative.

When we dropped him off at his class he just walked right in & didn't look back. I'm so thankful that he's not afraid to leave us behind & try new things. My friends & I joke that I have a heart of stone because I don't cry at events that would bring most to tears. That was proved today when I didn't cry. I felt a little teary a time or two, but I held it together. I know this is going to be a good thing for both of us.

The time finally came to pick him up & he was happy to see us {thankfully} and he'd had a great time. He's really looking forward to going back tomorrow.

Here are a few pics from the big day:

Big boy ready for school.

Sweet feet.

As expected, he fell asleep on the way home.


I'm sure tomorrow will be just as much fun.

new favorite

The edited version of this photo may be my new favorite of Jboy. Today was the first day of school for the little man {more pics to follow} and I snapped this one of him on our front porch.

Before:

After: CoffeeShop Lomo Action


This one will definitely be printed & hung in the house somewhere.

again

I downloaded a few more actions tonight & here's a before & after. I could stay up all night playing, but we have to get up early in the morning. Jboy starts school tomorrow!!!

Before:

Edited with CoffeeShop Lomo Action I love the vintage look it gave.

Still with the Lomo Action but I also ran the CoffeeShop Rounded Corners Action for extra fun!


Stay tuned tomorrow for a first day of school post.

Oh dear, here we go again...

I've learned another technique in Photoshop. I've seen people talk about "Actions" that you can run in Photoshop. I've always wanted to try them, but have never taken the time to learn how. Well, Pioneer Woman did a post today on Actions & I decided to take the plunge. Unfortunately her actions aren't supported by the version of Photoshop that I have, but in her comments someone posted a link to a site that has a bunch of FREE actions for PSE. Yay!

I've been playing around with them ever since. Love it! I like how you can apply the action & then make changes to each layer so it works best for your picture.

This is a picture {that Rebecca took} of a chapel at the R-Ranch where we spent last weekend. The actions that I ran were Vintage News and Web Rounded Corners.

I really like the way it turned out. Be prepared to see an influx of edited photos coming your way!



What do you think?

blessed

I must be the luckiest girl in the world! Last month I won a giveaway on Amanda's blog, and this month I won on Crystal's. This time I won Crystal's August 2009 Collection. Love it!!! After looking through all of the goodies I was inspired to create another layout. I have a hard time coming up with ideas, so I scraplifted one of Crystal's layouts from Two Peas.



I'm still learning how to do some techniques, but I like how it turned out. I have a few ideas of projects I'd like to do with this collection. Keep an eye out!

blank pages

I have always loved journals. I've bought many, wrote in a few, and never filled one. But I'm always drawn to them. I think I like the idea of filling the pages with ideas & plans & innermost thoughts. I like the idea of pulling out an old journal after several years & looking back at who I was & what was going on at that time.

Last night, Chris gave me a much needed break and I headed to Barnes & Noble to peruse the shelves & enjoy the quiet. The first stop of course was the Starbucks counter for my favorite; a tall Double Chocolaty Chip Frappucino. Yum! I did a little browsing, grabbed a copy of The Vampire Diaries and found a chair. I don't know how long I sat there, but I finished the first 100 pages & it was good. Now I just have to get my hands on a copy so I can finish it.

It was getting late, so I thought I'd better get going. On my way out I stopped & looked at the {several} tables of journals & calendars they had set out. I had no intentions of buying anything, but this one caught my eye. Something about it drew me in. It's mine now! I like that its small enough to fit in my purse or Jboy's bag. I love that the pages are lined at the top & a grid at the bottom. Hopefully I'll actually put it to good use.





Isn't it super cute!

weekend snapshots

I can't believe this weekend is over already; it flew by! In honor of Rebecca's birthday a group of us went to the R-Ranch for fun, lots of food & fellowship. All of the above was had in abundance.

Saturday was spent at the pool. We set up camp & enjoyed the day. As you can see, Chris & Jboy were completely worn out. I swear they slept for 3.5 hours!

Love the new look, honey! (I love Jboy's expression in the background. He thinks his Daddy is hilarious!)

After a delicious dinner prepared by Rebecca's mom, Chris & Michael started a fire & we roasted marshmallows & made S'mores. We had such a great time singing old campfire songs. We sang everything from "Kum Ba Yah" to "All the Single Ladies". At one point we even sang some Christmas carols & decided to go caroling at Rebecca's mom, Ellen's, window. We were getting quite a kick out of ourselves. I love making memories like this with my friends.

Jboy got to do something very exciting this morning... ride a horse! Doesn't he look so tiny up there?! Michael walked with him as he had closed toed shoes on & I had only packed sandals for Chris. I think Jboy really liked it. He tends to be pretty cautious so I wasn't sure how he'd react to this huge animal, but he had a great time. Hopefully Laurel or Rebecca got some better shots than I did.


We had a great time. Thank you Ellen for inviting us & thank you Rebecca for having a birthday so we could all get away for a little bit. ;o)

birthday wishes

Happy Birthday to one of my besties, Rebecca! I really don't know what I'd do without you in my life.



Love you, girl!

here's hoping

Like I said earlier, we're going to try a new incentive for potty training Jboy. This kid loves cars, so why not play into that? I made this handy dandy Potty Chart this evening & so far so good. Every time he pees in the potty he gets 1 sticker, poop (sorry!) is 2 stickers. When the whole row is filled & he covers the little car he gets to choose a new Matchbox car out of a bucket. At the end of the entire chart he'll get a big present. I haven't quite figured out what yet, but I'm sure it will involve cars in some way. ;o)



Just for fun, here's what the front of our refrigerator looks like. Kind of a mess, but it works for us. I love my calendar from FlyLady. It has huge spaces to write in and I got ridiculously excited when it came in the mail. It's all color coded and makes my heart happy.


Wow, two posts in one day. It's a miracle ladies & gentlemen!

I know, I know....

I deserve a slap on the back of the head hand for being such a cruddy blogger. But to beg for forgiveness I'll post a few pics. That's all the parents care about anyway, right?

These two are from a cool park in Pinehurst/Southern Pines, NC. We were up there last week for a wedding. It turned into a longer than expected trip, but I'll go into that in a minute.



Here's Jboy & his cousin Aiden pretending to be Indians. They had a tee pee & everything!

This is their version of "HOW"! I'm not sure if real Native Americans ever actually said "HOW", but if they did, I'm positive they didn't say it whilst eating tortilla chips. Nor did they have big yellow flashlights. I might have to check my Encyclopedia on that last one though.


So, what's been going on. How about some bullets to make things easy...

* Chris' cousin, Lindsay, got married on 8/1 in Southern Pines, NC. It was a beautiful wedding. Thankfully Jboy fell asleep right before it started as I was quite concerned that he would start yelling for Aiden when he saw him coming down the aisle.

* Unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse at the reception. The festivities were pretty much over when Chris' grandmother started feeling ill. For a little background, she's been taken to the emergency room 3 times since March, before the reception. Each time we thought it was her heart. However, she'd had every test known to man & they could find nothing wrong. So, she starts feeling bad at the reception & was becoming unresponsive. Thankfully Chris' cousin Susan is a nurse so she was there to help. An ambulance was called & she was taken to the hospital. In the ambulance her heart rate was 30! A person her age should have a heart rate between 60-80 I think. Anyway, this hospital has some of the best cardiologists in the country. It was determined that she needed a pacemaker. The doctor said that even with all the test she'd had done they wouldn't have been able to see the problem unless she was still in the midst of an "episode" when she got to the ER. Thankfully now that she has the pacemaker she's feeling much better & should be like new in just a few weeks.

* Jboy starts preschool in just under 2 weeks! He'll be going three days a week, Tue/Wed/Thurs, from 9:30a to 12:30p. He is so excited! Since his birthday falls after the cutoff he'll be in the 2 year old class, so he'll be one of the oldest. His teacher is coming over tomorrow morning to meet him. I think it's really cool that they do that so the child recognizes them at school.

* Potty training is going... well, it's going. He does really well sometimes, then others he has no interest. I'm trying to think of some other incentives besides Skittles. We may go with stickers or something for a bit & see how that goes.

Well, I think that's all I've got for now.