Shoot. Edit. Submit. & FIF

I almost forgot to link up to the Shoot. Edit. Submit. photo challenge over at Mom Tried It.  How could I forget?  It's been a crazy Friday already and it's only 12:39pm.  Anyhow, here is this week's submission.  I love this close-up of Alivia.  If you've seen any of my pictures, I'm sure you know that I'm a BIG fan of filling the frame shots.  I like this one mostly because of her messy hair (it was windy out) and I'm glad I chose to convert it to black & white.

The Missing Link - Week 3

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.

My Day of Randomness

Okay so here's the scoop.  It was quite chilly yesterday so I didn't get any outdoor photos!  Boo!  I did, however, make up for it in Instagrams and indoor shots!  Yay!  Livvy and I didn't too much yesterday.  We had a little trip to the Carter's store to use some gift certificates that had been sitting in my wallet just beggin' to be used!  I bought her 6 sundresses.  On the way home from Carter's we stopped at DSW for my mom to buy some shoes she wanted.  While I waited in the car with Livvy, I snapped some Instagrams.  Then it was back home to have chicken for lunch and strawberries for dessert.  Livvy watched an episode of The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Jake and the Neverland Pirates and then it was back out to my mom's house where we visited for a couple hours and stayed for a pork roast, corn on the cob, and broccoli dinner!  We left my mom's at around 5:45 pm and were back at our house by 5:49 pm.  Did I mention my mom lives across the street?  Yes, it is very cool!  I don't know how many times we've walked to each others houses in our pajamas, slippers,  or kitchen aprons, sometimes not having showered yet, no make-up with our hair dirty and all!  What a sight!  I'm sure you can imagine.  Although you wouldn't have to imagine if I got some pictures of us.  No, I wouldn't do that to you!  That's just wrong!  Trust me when I say it's NOT pretty!  Seriously though and silliness aside, I wouldn't change it for the world!  I'm sort of a mama's girl.  Even still, at 35 years old. 

New Pics... The Instagram (and some more Freebies)

I don't think I'm so wordless on this Wednesday but what do you think? 

Intermittent Exotropia (Alivia's follow-up Ophthalmologist Appointment):

You can find a previous post about Alivia's Intermittent Exotropia HERE.

Livvy had her follow-up Ophthalmologist appointment at Children's Hospital yesterday.  She has been seen in the past for Intermittent Exotropia.  Since her last appointment, her eye has gotten increasingly worse so I was anxious to get her in to see the doctor as soon as possible.  I was almost certain that the vision in her eye was starting to deteriorate and was preparing myself to hear treatment options.  Luckily her vision was fine!  Apparently because her eye is only turning outward some of the time her vision is less apt to deteriorate at a rapid pace if at all.  On the bad and scary side, the doctor informed us that she would probably need eye muscle surgery in the future but that it was difficult to know for sure since she couldn't get an accurate reading of her eye placement.  The only thing that would allow her to get an accurate eye reading was if Alivia were a little older and more cooperative.  With this said, the doctor will continue to see Alivia every three months.  In the meantime, she had suggested the patch as treatment for the eye muscle.  I am supposed to patch her strong eye for 20 minutes to a half an hour a day.  With her strong eye patched Alivia will be forced to exercise her weak eye in hopes of strengthening the eye muscle.  Unfortunately, however, the eye patch can cause the strong eye to deviate (since the eye muscle is not being used, this can sometimes happen).  In this case, I am instructed to stop the patch treatment immediately.  Now, for the BIG question.  How the hell am I going to get my 20 month old to wear a HUGE band aid patch over her eye?  And the other little questions that seem to follow.  What if I can't get her to wear it?  Am I a bad mother if I don't insist she wear it?  Do I argue with her?  Will she dislike me for making her wear it?  I guess I'll just have to see what happens.  It doesn't make any sense to worry about it now. 

New Pics... Some Freebies

After installing the Instagram application on my Android, yeah I'm a little behind the rest of the Instagramming world, I was inspired to find an Instagram collage maker for all of my cute and perfectly square instagrams!  After searching and searching for a simple collage maker, I ended up with nothing.  That's right; nothing.  It did get me thinking though.  Thinking about how I would love to post all types of collages on my blog. 

New Pics... Happy Monday!

First, I had to attach an animated GIF of Livvy walking around outside.  I was super excited to see a post written on how to create your own animated GIF in PSE over at Finding my Creativity.  I used Gickr in the past and although it was easy to create, the quality of your picture was affected in the conversion which was, let's face it, a little disappointing.  Creating an animated GIF in PSE keeps the quality of the photo in tact even if you opt to make it a large file!  My example is actually a bad one only because I started off with horrible pictures.  Horrible in that they were super blurry and underexposed to begin with but I couldn't resist animating them to see my little one in action.  The only thing that I did not how to do in the tutorial was to copy and paste a picture onto another picture.  So instead, I wanted to share the alternative that I used.  With your original picture opened, go to File / Place.  PSE automatically converts your picture to a new layer that is placed on top of your original.  It's that simple!

New Pics... Almost forgot these

I can't believe I almost forgot to post these pictures of my cutie!  I took them right after her bath.  I usually let her play a little in the buff.  Well not completely in the buff, I'd be too afraid she'd pee from the breeze of running around.  Jeez, I make her sound like a little puppy dog or something.  If she had a choice though, I don't think she'd be wearing a diaper at all.  She usually pulls at her diaper until it's hanging off her bum and you can see the top of her crack.  My husband will jokingly say "crack kills" in which I always reply "not this crack!"  I know.  There is something terribly wrong with the two of us ;o)