Recovering exposure in CS6 & LR4!

I took some pictures of Alivia on Friday night and as I was checking the play back feature on my camera I noticed they were a little under exposed.  I had forgotten that I set my ISO to a maximum of 800 which means that even if the ISO needed to be increased to create proper exposure, it wouldn’t.  Although I had adjusted the ISO for the remainder of my images that night, I was disappointed thinking the images I had taken of her already would require more editing time that I actually had. 

Brightening Eyes

I’ve been using a pretty awesome action from Paint the Moon to brighten eyes in my photos but have since found a great little tutorial online to create the effect myself.  Of course, wouldn’t you know, I can’t find it.  I could have sworn that I pinned it to a board on my Pinterest page but apparently not so much.  Thinking back, I don’t think I pinned it because it was so easy for me to remember.  If I’d a known I was going to do a post on it, I would have saved it especially so that I could give credit.

Where did the weekend go?

I hope everyone had a wonderful Labor Day weekend!  I had quite an eventful one!  The hubby and I took Alivia to York’s Wild Kingdom in York, ME with her Auntie Nancy, Uncle Erik, and friend Mackenzie on Saturday, Auntie Gina’s on Sunday, and Nana’s on Monday!  By Monday afternoon, Livi* was asking for nothing more than to go home.  I’ve noticed that as much as Livi enjoys getting out of the house and socializing that she gets over stimulated after awhile and wants to be left alone.  Oh the tribulations of being an only child!  Poor baby!  I don’t blame her though, her mama is the same way!  With that said, we took her home and she relaxed with Daddy for the rest of the day while I went to the mall with my mom and started Livi’s Fall shopping!  I say started because I still have shoes, outwear, and some hair accessories to purchase.  Lucky for me I love shopping (I sort of have a serious shopping problem addiction) or I might find this to be overwhelming! 

This is a test

This is going to be a short post.  I am using my new Macbook Pro Retina and just installed (or I should say my nephew just installed) VirtualBox so that I could run Windows 7 inside of my MAC operating system all so I could keep Windows Live Writer (WLW) as my blog posting tool.  Now if that’s not dedication, than I’m not sure what is!  If you’ve been following me, you’d know that posting has been a pretty BIG issue for me.  Every blogging tool that I’ve tried was removing my formatting (adding or removing spaces between paragraphs and images) so that my posts would look sloppy.  Anyhow, WLW is the only blog posting tool that has ever worked for me.  It keeps my formatting in tact!  I’m sure now you can understand why I’m so dedicated! 

The Missing Link – Week 18

Have you ever felt like something was missing from your life?  Well, it could just be one of the links below.  Hence my post title!  You may ask yourself "Is she serious"?  Well the answer is "No, I'm definitely NOT serious”.  I'm just feeling silly.  Seriously though, I thought I'd share some of my favorite links with you in an effort to spread the love.  What's better is that I thought I'd make this post a weekly thang!  No that isn't a typo.  I told you I was feeling silly.  So the links below may not complete your life, but I'm hoping they, in some way, add to it. I separated them into categories for easy navigation.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

Alivia’s Birthday Party!

Alivia’s birthday was yesterday!  She turned two years old at exactly 8:58 pm!  I can’t believe two years have gone by!  It’s like I was just mixing formula for her bottle, turned around, and a little girl took my baby’s place!  As much as she’s changed, if I look hard enough, I can still see the newborn in her.  Her eyes and nose are quite the same, only a bit larger.  Her mouth is the only thing that has really changed.  Although the shape remains the same, her lips have become fuller.  And the shape of her face that was once a tiny round circle has become slightly more defined around the jaw line!  And these are just her physical differences.  I could write a book about how much she has developed mentally!  It’s crazy really! 

Getting my craft on!

I have a little treat for you guys today!  I’ve been crafting all weekend (you know in between changing diapers, giving baths, washing clothes, cleaning out my closet, making returns, etc.) and you can say I’m rather exhausted!  It was so much fun though!  Crafting I mean.

Jake

While on vacation in Cape Cod, we had the pleasure of visiting with my sister’s Niece-in-law (NIL) and her 3 month old baby, Jake (or as they like to call him, Jakey)!  So this is my sister’s husband’s niece (his sister’s child).  Let’s call her Bianca.  Why?  Well, ‘cause that’s her name!  So Bianca and Jakey stayed with us for a night and I took every opportunity to snap pictures of this cutie!  Let me just warn you, this infant is ALL boy and man does he have a set of lungs on him!  He has the cutest little infant cry ever!  Really, though, Jake is such a good boy.  He sleeps well, eats well, and poops well!  What more could you ask for?  You know what I love most though?  That adoring look that an infant gives to his mama when he’s all snuggled safe in her arms.  You know that one where they just look up at you as if you were a super hero?  Assuming they even knew what a super hero was of course.  Oh how I love that look.  With that said, I’ll start you off with this photo of Jakey looking up at his mama with his BIG eyes…

Melasma anyone?

Apparently at some point during pregnancy my body responded with a “hell yes” to this question!   Wondering what Melasma is?  Does the term “pregnancy mask” spark any type of recognition?  I read a little about this while I was pregnant but never looked into it.  I guess I really should have.  Two years later, after giving birth to Alivia, I have been battling with what I thought were age or sun spots when all this time it was Melasma! 

Finagle a Foto Guest Judge and FREEBIE

Guess what?  I am going to be a Guest Judge for the Finagle a Foto challenge this week!  You could say that I’m a a little excited!  Okay, a lot excited! Woo Hoo! So, have you heard of this photo challenge? Did you say “No”? Uh oh, well I hate to tell you but, you sure are missing out!  I hate to see people missing out.  If you are interested, here is a little information about the challenge!  If you’d like to join in the fun and link up, feel free to click on that button below!  The linky goes live on Sundays!  See you there!  I can’t wait to see your submissions!

Guest Bloggers Needed

That’s right, I’m going on vacation again in two weeks!  The family and I will be packing it up and getting our SUN on in Cape Cod, MA.  I hate to leave my little bloggy for an entire week but I’m excited to go and relax!  I’d love to have guest bloggers to post in my absence and was wondering if you would be interested?  Yeah, YOU!  I’d need five guest bloggers to make sure the entire week is covered.  And in case you are wondering, or have never been a guest blogger, it is really simple.  You can submit your posts to me in one of the following ways:

 

Monday already?

Can’t believe it’s already Monday?  Yeah, me neither!  I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.  Alivia’s cousin, Esterina, turned the BIG 2 in June and we celebrated on Saturday with family!  It was a gorgeous day (a little chilly for June but still gorgeous)!  I snapped some pictures of course only I haven’t processed them with the exception of a few of Alivia which I’ve attached below.  Hopefully I’ll share the rest of Esterina’s birthday party tomorrow (Tuesday).

Web hosting + blog registration = confusion

I have a question today.  Does anyone out there use web hosting for their website?  Also, do you register your blog?  I’ve been doing research on these two topics and I’m still not understanding them completely.  Apparently a web host makes your website accessible on the world wide web.  This is strange.  The minute I created a domain name, I was accessible to everyone on the internet.  I’m not sure I get it.  Among providing accessibility though, hosting sites will provide you with various amounts of disk space to back up your content to.  Some hosting sites also provide security monitoring and advertising credits (which I’m still not quite sure what that is).  I don’t know about you but the back up services alone are enough reason for me to purchase services.  Does anyone know if Blogger does this already?  Back up your content? 

New Pics… Home from vacation

Well, the family and I are home from vacation.  I usually get home sick and miss home, but this vacation was so different.  I felt so relaxed and at home in Sarasota that I just didn’t want to leave.  I think I speak for the rest of my family when I say that too!  We definitely weren’t ready to go home this time.  We could have used another week in Florida.  I guess that is a good indicator that we had a fabulous vacation.  We made some memories that will last us a lifetime!

I’m nothing but a Finagler!

On vacation here in Sarasota, FL so I’m a little less wordy than usual.  I know it’s not Wednesday or anything, but it really should be allowed on the other days of the week ;o)  Sorry for such a short post, but if you had a gorgeous beach in your backyard what would you do?  So, let’s see, you can stay inside and write OR swim in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, build sand castles with the white powder sand, soak up the sun for some much needed Vitamin D, and relax and let the gentle breeze cool you off!  Hmmmm, it’s a toughie I know.  I’ll let you think about it.

New Pics… She’s going to be the death of me

I seriously don’t know how I make any time for blogging.  Alivia has been glued to my hip.  Yesterday was the worst.  It seemed like from the minute she woke up in the morning to when she went to bed at 8:00 pm that night, she was in my arms.  Every other minute all I heard was “hold”, “hold”.  When I couldn’t hold her than all I heard was whining, but mostly crying followed by the overly dramatic hunched over mope.  I never felt so bad in my life and you can’t even imagine the cramping I’ve been getting in both arms.  It’s like I just had the hardest workout of my life!  Last night, in an effort to give myself a break, I thought I’d run an errand when my husband got home.  Saying goodbye to Alivia for the night was the worst feeling ever.  When she realized that I was going out she started crying and shouting “hold mama”.  It was horrible and all of a sudden my heart sort of dropped and there I was standing there in a pool of guilt.  Like I was doing something wrong.  I fought the overwhelming feeling to just stay home, wiped my tear filled eyes, took a deep breath, and walked out the door.  This kid is seriously killing me.  She is going to be the death of me.  I know, I say it all the time but it’s so true!

When I told my mom this story she said that I am still the death of her.  I will continue to be the death of my mom no matter how old I get.  She told me as if I were going to be surprised or something.  I get it though.  I already realized that Alivia would be the death of me until, well, forever!  That’s okay though.  I signed up for this!

New Pics… Mother’s Day

So, how was everyone’s Mother’s Day?  I got some beautiful flowers from Alivia and the hubby!  They must love me bunches!  Thought you’d like to see just how beautiful the bouquet was.  Gorgeous colors right?  And who doesn’t love roses?  Especially white ones!

Just a few photo challenges

I hope everyone had a splendid weekend!  Our weather wasn’t too bad this past weekend.  It was about 62 degrees on Saturday but overcast and around 65 degrees on Sunday with partial sun.  Hey I’ll take what I can get. 

I had a very busy weekend.  It was sort of non-stop from Saturday morning right up until 8:00 pm on Sunday when I placed Alivia in her crib for the night.  I went clothes shopping for myself on both mornings, then a little walk around the neighborhood to get Alivia some fresh air, some chores around the house, and a visit to my sister’s.  I’ve been trying to get Alivia outside every chance I get since I’m pretty sure we are supposed to get rain after Monday for three days straight.