Happy Halloween!!!

It is Miss Lilly's first halloween and I searched for the perfect costume. I wanted her to be a lady bug, mostly because I call her bug. But we had a hard time finding it, so we bought a poodle costume all pink and fuzzy. The poodle did not go over well. I wish I had pics but Lilly threw such a fit we had to take it off and hide it because if she even saw some pink fluff she would start to cry. So then I found the perfect ladybug outfit, but Lilly was not too thrilled with this one either. She would not cooperate for pictures, so I had to work with what I had in post processing with picnick.

First we have crawling bug. She is not too happy with that hood and the original picture was, well not great. So I cropped it a bit and did some highlighting.

Next we have my attempt to show off the wings on the costume, which Lilly refused to show on her own, this you will see some of me behind her. This one was cropped to get the cat and me out of the frame. I sharpened and brightened the color and then applyed some cool effect called vignette, which I really just used to try to block me out of the background.

And finally we have my favorite Halloween picture, which is funny since you cannot even see the costume, but I find it adorable non-the less. Miss Lilly finally grabbed the strap to the camera, so instead of trying to take it away, I snapped a few pics. This one is SOOC, no post processing because I did not think it needed it.

Figuring I fought the good fight I broke down and while at the Mall trick or treat party we stopped into the picture place and had them give it a try. Miss Lilly was actually a good girl and we got some good pictures, which I will post once I scan them in.

In all I think that Miss Lilly's first Halloween wasa success! Now on to Thanksgiving!

My Play

So for those who read this blog and do not know what the heck I am doing, I have started to frequent a blog, dolcepics, by an awesome photographer names Laura. Anyway, she has a thing each week where she posts a picture and people can play with it in post processing. This is my first time and here is my play! I used picnik for the first time which I found much easier than photoshop online (free version). i would love to say what I did, but I honestly have no idea, I just started playing.

Show me the teeth!

Did you know that Lilly has two bottom teeth? I didn't think so. You see she gives real big smiles to everyone in person (she is a big flirt), but every time I get out the camera to try to capture those teeth she all of the sudden becomes shy. Since I am new at this photography thing I took a few tips from some of my books and blogs and just starting shooting. I enlisted Jeff's help to make her smile and laugh and just started snapping away. The bad news, I did not get the teeth. Yeah 20 pictures and no teeth! But I did get this:

Almost all of the pictures were not worth much, although who knows maybe I will get them into photoshop and be able to do something with them, but at first glance they are super boring. But this one is SOOTC (straight off of the camera...I'm learning the lingo!) and I think it's pretty good. The only thing I would change may be the slobber coming off of the mouth. I am going to play with the others this weekend, so I will post anything good I come up with!

Look ma...

Last May on mothers day I mentioned an overwhelming urge to own a really good digital camera to take pics of Lilly and start a new hobby. Those who know me know that I try out new hobbies occasionally looking for some creative endeaver that I am good at. Some annoy me so much I throw glue sticks (hello scrapbooking), some stick. I have picked up some books on photography and have now started to frequent some phtotography websites and am really getting into it. I will now indugle my new hobbie on this blog, which I am sure most people will like because my favorite photo subject is sweet Miss Lilly. I have been taking 10 million pictures just practicing and all the advice tells me and I finally tried some post processing with the free version of photoshop online. In this picture I was trying to work with natural light and shadows and a just woke up from a nap baby. In post process I was able to fill in some back light and do some cropping. Yeah me. Let me know what you think!

Seriously...

Seriously kid, I love you more than anything, but would it kill you to grow some hair? We have two bottom teeth and some coming in om the top, but no hair to speak of....what I would give for some hair....I blame the P's side for this, I had a ton of hair! Oh well, enjoy Lilly's first professional pics, notice the distinct lack of hair....

Love Thursday

Tagged

Ok, so I was tagged a few weeks ago, but I got busy and there you have it. Jen and Swanny over at My Life with Dogs hit me again with a list of 6 more quirky thinks about myself. Mostly I have spent the last few weeks trying to come up with a list of quirky things because I think that everything I do is perfectly normal. When I mentioned this to Jeff he laughed and said something to the effect that I am about 80% quirky and 20% normal, and he was skewing a bit because he loved me. So without further ado:
1. I firmly believe in the Curse of the Goat at Wrigley Field. I mean come on, statistically how can you logically explain 100 years since a world series win? Or even half that since we went to the world series? I also believe that if you sing Go Cubs Go before the end of the game, even if the Cubs are up by like 10, they will lose the game. I have been known to threaten with bodily harm anyone who even contemplates breaking this rule.
2. Jumping off of that, I also believe that what I wear, where I sit and what I eat affects the Cubs and the Bears. My Bears sweats have been relegated to the closet on game days because every time I wore them the Bears lost. I always have a Coke when I watch the Cubs because they play better when I do this. I also will not listen to anyone who attempts to tell me that my sweat pants have nothing to do with the outcome of the game.
3. I NEVER pass a Starbucks without getting some coffee. Jeff has stopped arguing with me about this. Now if there was a Starbucks easily accessible (ours is in the mall) I would probably not feel the need to stop every time I see one on the road, but I probably still would. I would happily live in Starbucks if I could and on bad days contemplate throwing it all away to become a Barista.
4. I think anything is better if it is pink. I have pink golf clubs and towels and plates ect. Recently I saw a pink Kitchen aid mixer (but since I already have one Jeff vetoed it) that I thought was awesome and a pink dyson vacuum cleaner!! How awesome would that be? But the thing I crave the most? The new pink Mac Book Pro. I would give my eye teeth and maybe my first born (calm down I would still her back) for one of those.
5. I love really bad TV, I mean really bad, shallow turn your brain to mush TV. I love grey’s Anatomy and have recently gotten into Gossip Girl. It is so good it is bad. I figure that in my job I do nothing but read good books, so shouldn’t I be able to come home and watch so bad TV? Well who cares what you think, if loving Gossip Girl is wrong I don’t want to be right!
6. I like things to be in their proper place, I have threatened Jeff with divorce if he does not learn to put his dirty clothes in the laundry hamper instead of next to it. I mean really how hard is that???
And who shall I tag? I think all of my peeps over at killarney’s irish blog…