Friday, July 22, 2011

i scrapbook...

In case, you don't know, I love to scrapbook, although it is more for a personal hobby because I usually don't show my layouts to others or post them on the blog. 

I am so excited that I was mentioned on digiscrap101.  I first learned about this website on Paperclippings podcasts when they mentioned that Kayla was doing a free Lightroom Class.  I was about to purchase Lightroom because I wanted to get my photos under control for this photo managing class I was going to take at Big Picture Classes. Kayla's class was perfect, I learned so much, and it helped me when I was taking my photo management class. 

Now that I have been able to learn how to manage my photos better, and edit them faster, the whole reason to take these classes was because I want have to get more scrapbooking done.

So far what I have done is getting most of photos to share with friends and family on Flickr, and started updating my blog more often! 

My next goal is to get this blog looking better!!  Do you like the changes so far to the blog?

Friday, July 15, 2011

flickr friday...

I posted these photos up on flickr today.  It was my first photo shoot!!!  I love taking photos and I have been begging Court to let me do a photo shoot for her family forever.  She finally agreed!! I started freaking out the night before but I am glad the photos came out, at least in my humble opinion, great!  No, I am not quitting my day job, but I had a ton of fun and would love to do this again.  Any victims friends and family like a photo shoot! You just have to have a ton of patience for me to set the settings on the camera and change lens all the time, hey there is a trade off for having it free, right!

Back to photos...


Courtney is due one week before, it was so exciting when we both announced we were pregnant at the same time.  She looks great!!! It is so funny because Court and Randy met in high school, but you couldn't tell they are so in love.


This is the before photo, which isn't bad, but with the art students in the background it isn't wow!  So with a little LR magic I erased them!!
What a difference!!  And I also cropped it so you can see the three of them better!!

I love this photo of Court and Misty!!  Misty and Bryant are 2008 "babies" and the "new" babies are going to be 2011 babies!!  You would have thought that we planned it but we didn't it was just a coincidence. Misty and Bryant are also the good eaters in the moms group kids.  They can eat, and eat and eat when playgroup starts at 10am, and then Bryant and I stay after playgroup ends to have lunch  with Misty and Court at noon!!  I wonder if the next two boys are also going to be good eaters?   

Thursday, July 7, 2011

week(end) lens

The 4th of July Weekend:
The weekend started on Wednesday for me... Courtney asked for me to take some maternity pictures for her!!  I am so excited to have a guinea pig practice to take portrait photos.  We drove around several places in Long Beach, and decided on the Japanese Gardens.  This is a preview/practice shot we did the actual photo shoot a few days ago. Now I just need to find someone to take my maternity photos =)

On Friday, we went out for dinner with my parents to BJ and Bryant refused to go home with us.  My parents kept him over night.  They came over for dinner on Saturday.  Bryant kept telling them that he didn't want to go over to our house, but wanted to stay at "Bryant's House" aka my parents house. 
On Sunday, I completely forgot that it was Sunday and we didn't go to Church.  I was suppose to be there to help with the Children's Liturgy.  Instead we had breakfast and then the guys (Phil and Bryant) went to go play "golf" in the morning.  Phil said that Bryant did a great job chipping on the green but his putting needs improving...hmmm maybe he could get a golf scholarship for college, but it is too early to tell.  For me it was nice to have a quite house even though it was only one hour. 
Then Sunday evening Dana, Kurt and the girls came over for burgers, and hot dogs at the pool.  It had been really warm on Friday and Saturday, so we thought it would be nice to invite over a few friends to cool off at the pool.  However, it cooled early on Sunday and we were actually freezing.  The water was warm so the kiddos didn't want to get out of the pool because it was warmer in the water than outside.

Monday (4th of July) we went to the Bike Parade on Belmont Shore.  Last year, we walked the ride while the boys "rode" their bikes, although it was more like my dad and Phil pulled and carried the bikes.  This year we convinced my dad to ride his bike and have Bryant in the trailer. 


After the ride we went to Seal Beach for breakfast, and walk around the pier.  When we got back to the condo we tried to put Bryant down for his nap but he refused.

Crazy Sh** Bryant says/does:
(Note: Phil is taking over to tell Phil's story: 

I know that Bryant is not stupid, he is moody, difficult, and stubborn but not stupid.  Bryant learns lessons from when I discipline him, not always the right lessons, yet I can see that he is learning.  This weekend I was working on stopping his hitting problem.  I put him in the corner when he hits Carmen, Tri or myself and I am trying to be consistent in doing so.  I tried to put Bryant down for a nap that afternoon so that he could make it through the late night, his response, lightly hitting me and then telling me "no hitting Bryant in timeout for 2 minutes." Seriously I had to work very hard not laugh at him.  I wish he would put that determination in staying up to getting potty trained.  Oh well, he's learning just not the lesson I want him to... (end Phil )

Then in the afternoon we headed over to the Calderon's house for bbq, pool, and fireworks.  Bryant was excited to get into the pool, but got bored quickly and wanted out within a few minutes and sat down to eat instead.  It's cute to see Bryant and Tyler playing together two kids who don't share playing with one set of toys always makes for good entertainment.. 
Bryant was not scared of fireworks (not that it should surprise me since he isn't scarred of anything i.e. heights, animals, etc unlike me).  He actually wanted to hold the sparklers. 
 I was excited that I got to practice with my camera.  I got this great idea from DigiScrap 101 and the fireworks photos came out great!!