More Lightroom work

OK so I worked on other photographs the other night that I have been meaning to work on for while. I took all these photos at the Zoo this summer and have not really had the time to fiddle with them. I am now tired of working in Lightroom and might fiddle with Photoshop now.

Before

I used an aged preset and I like the look of it.

Before

I can't remember what I did with this photo.

Before

I think I used a direct positive preset with this photo.

Before

I cropped this picture and increased the saturation on some of the colors.

Before

I cropped this picture and I think it applied a direct positive affect to this photo. This is probably my favorite change.

My new niece

My niece was born on Monday October 27th at 8:45 p.m. She weighed 8 lbs and 13 oz and was 21 inches long. So she was a large baby but still looked so tiny. I was fortunate enough to be present at her birth. It was a great experience and I was so thrilled to be a part of her birth. My sister-in-law did an excellent job of delivering her and she was very strong and calm during the entire process. That moment when your children are born is so exciting and special. It made me think of my own children's births. I took lots of pictures and here are some of my favorite.




I took the kids to visit with her the next day and they were in love with her. The girls wanted to hold her the entire time we were visiting. Nathan even wanted to hold her and he did not like when I helped him. He was a little unintentionally rough but would give her lots of kisses. He was so cute to see him with her. I did not know how he would react but he definitely reacted in a loving way.



On Wednesday night we carved pumpkins that we got at the pumpkin patch. It was a lot of fun and Julianne was really good at carving her pumpkin. Nathan was not really interested in carving or touching the pumpkin guts. He actually was on the other counter top eating dog treats. In order to distract him I told him he could give the dogs a treat and he sat at the counter top next to us intermittently licking the dog treats. It was really funny. He was all shy about it and tried to be sneaky but he kept doing it so he must have liked the taste.


Notice Julianne's tongue. She was doing that in several of the photos.


Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-seeing Nathan try to comfort Julianne when she was crying in the car. He kept saying "hug".
-Mallory going into school yesterday without crying for the first time.
-Mallory saying she did me a "favour" for me by putting out he chairs and getting water while we were outside. She was all shy but loving about it.
-playing and raking fall leaves.

Some quick Lightroom work

OK so after I composed my last post and I mentioned that I wanted to work with Photoshop more I took some of my pictures and edited them in Lightroom. Lightroom is a program that helps photographers manage pictures and perform post production work. I have not used Lightroom since this summer so I thought that I would export some pictures and see what I remember. Here are some pre and post Lightroom pictures. There are so many interesting and different affects that Lightroom and Photoshop can perform on pictures and I only know a little bit about each program. I would love to learn more but at this point I only know the basics.

Pre edited picture. Notice the bluish color.

I adjusted the color temperature and the picture looks ten times better.

Pre-edited picture.

I used a standard Lightroom preseting to change the look of the picture.

Pre-edited picture

Post-edited picture. I darken the picture, increased the color concentrations for some colors and I do not know what else I did. I know it does not look that different but I can tell.

Anyway it was fun to experiment and I need to do it more often. These programs can transform pictures and I just don't have the knowledge right now to do it.

I am watching it lightly snow outside. Yikes.

Pumpkin Patch

On Thursday I took the kids to a local pumpkin patch and we had a great time. The kids played for a long time in the blow up toys, the hay maze and the corn box. The girls loved the hay maze because it was tricky to follow and it had hidden slides in the middle. I liked it because I could see over it so I knew where the kids were. The corn box was a great idea, it was basically a sand box except that it had corn in it. It was a lot of fun minus the sand in the shoes, diapers, pant cuffs, etc. The pumpkin patch was actually a bust since all of the pumpkins were rotted but the kids had a fun time running in the field.





I was really attracted to the barn at the pumpkin patch. It was an old barn covered in old barn wood and I took a bunch of pictures of it. I wish I was more proficient in Photoshop because I am sure that there are some special effects I could add to the picture. Maybe I will work with it in my free time.




Our craft for the week was making slime. It was so easy to make. It only contains glue, water and Borax. The girls played with it for a long time. They made pizza with it, played doctor with it and cooked with it. Nathan was not too thrilled with it. He did not like it when it was sticky. He threw it around the room. We made it on Tuesday and the girls even played with the slime this morning. It was a great project and one we will make again.



Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Nathan saying "Mama, whereareyou"
-Mallory saying that her new rented Barbie movie "was so beautiful".
-smelling the dogs after a much needed bath

Nathan's breathing episode

Well I put Nathan on the potty again after he woke up on Tuesday morning because he pooped all over himself and I was going to give him a bath and he peed in the potty again. It was so exciting. However, since then I have asked him several times if he has to go potty and he says "yes" and so I put him on potty and nothing has happened. So we had those two days of success and many days of nothing. That is usually how it happens and like I said before I am not the least bit ready to really potty train him but he still enjoys sitting on the potty and pretending so we will continue to do that.

On Tuesday night Nathan was coughing a lot in his bed. He never woke up or wanted me or but he did cough quite a bit. Mallory had a cold the past week so I figured that he was getting her cold. On Wednesday morning he was not really coughing excessively so I sent him to school. I went running with my neighbor and then the school called me and said that he was "belly breathing and was wheezing". So I picked him up and took him home with me. I thought that maybe he had bad congestion and that it was not too bad. When I got him home it kind of got worse and he was really breathing from his belly and he was wheezing. He was also laying on me a lot and I must stay that Nathan never lays his head on me. He has never been really sick where he lays around all day or just wants to snuggle with me. So I called the doctor because I was actually starting to get worried. We went in about 1:40 p.m. and he ended up getting a breathing treatment, steroids and Motrin. The doctor said that his cold probably triggered the labored breathing and she was not calling it asthma but when kids have a lot of these reactions then they classify it as asthma. So this was his first episode. The breathing treatment helped his wheezing but not his deep breathing. We were sent home with a nebulizer and extra steroids. We used the nebulizer once that night and gave him one more steroid pill. The next day he was much better and we did not give him anymore treatments or steroids. So hopefully it will not happen again but with all his allergies I think that it probably will. She thinks it probably occurred because he had a cold and it just moved to his lungs. I know that there is a strong link between severe eczema and asthma so we will see over time. She said that if it happens a lot you can try to figure out the triggers and be more proactive before it happens.

So anyway that was Nathan's week. It was hard for me to see him like that since I still in the back of my head think that "we don't have kids with allergies". I am pretty much in denial of him having any allergies or that his body is not working properly. Both D and I don't have any allergies and the girls do not have any but I know that he is different and he does have allergies so we just need to be aware of those and accept them. I even hate that he takes Zyrtec at night. But I know that he itches less during the day when he does take it so I am slowly excepting that he has to take medicine everyday. On the other hand I am thankful that all he does have is allergies. He could have other more life threatening/debilitating illnesses so I am glad that he currently only has to deal with this.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. The kids went to Mimi's house on Friday and I cleaned the upstairs and rented a carpet cleaner and cleaned the basement, TV room and porch carpets. It was nice to be able to do all that cleaning without the kids to get distracted or to get frustrated at. On Sunday D ran the Columbus Marathon. He did an excellent job, enjoyed himself and was proud he ran steady race. We cheered him on from the 20 mile mark and at the end. We were all proud of him and his accomplishment.




Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-knowing that there are medicines to help Nathan breathe better. He was much happier after he had his first breathing treatment
-having a day to myself and having a night with D
-running with a new friend
-Julianne understanding why I could not see her class play and her saying that she just wants Nathan to breathe better

Potty news

Last night I gave Nathan and Mallory a bath and after the bath Nathan was playing with Mallory and me in his birthday suit. I was playing in Mallory's room throwing him up and down and then he said "pee pee". So I said, "do you have to go pee pee". And he nodded so I took him into the bathroom and set him on the potty and he actually looked liked he pushed and he peed a lot in the potty. It was so funny and amazing all at the same time. I have put him on the potty only a couple of times after we have talked about it or the girls have gotten off of the potty. It seemed like it was not an accident, like he really tried to pee. I don't even think he is ready nor am I going to think he should start using the potty now. So I am just going to continue to talk to him about the potty when he seems interested.

He was really excited and the girls made a big deal of it so it was nice to see his face. He was really excited.

I don't have things I am grateful/thankful for since this is a short note and I have to go.

Walk for Autism

On Sunday we all participated in the Autism Speaks Walk Now for Autism. It turned out to be a great event with over 9,500 participants raising over 500,000 dollars. It started with a short walk and ended with many games and activities for the kids. Julianne got her face painted and the girls played on the many inflatable toys. The weather was perfect and everything ran smoothly. I know that my stepmother was very happy that it was such a success and I know that she is glad that it is over since she was co-chair of the event.


Here is Julianne and Nathan with "Freedom Brutus". They had about two dozen or so Brutus sculptures around the basketball stadium and all of them were different themes. I was really intriqued by them and wanted to see all of them but I did not get to. For those of you who do not know but "Buckeye Brutus" is the mascot for The Ohio State University.


Here is Aunt Lisa and her belly. She is due December 31st.

Here is the whole entire gang. Disclosure: I did not take this picture, it is a little off. We had some nice person take a ton of pictures so I am sure he was a little overwhelmed and did not know how to operate all the cameras he was given.

I caught Nathan in our backyard the other day getting into our lavender bush (I actually don't know what kind of bush it is I just made that up) and he was actually trying to touch this bee. I tried to get him away but every time I left to finish cleaning up the lunch mess he was in the bush trying to touch this bee. I don't know if you can see it from this picture but he actually has the bee in his hand. Yikes.


Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-being able to participate in family events
-seeing a community gather for a common cause
-having a great supportive husband