Happy Thanksgiving to All

We had a very nice quite get-together for Thanksgiving this year. I had a lot of help with the cooking…

 

This picture is too funny, she looks like an ad for a horror flick.

I also had a lot of help with the decorations…

Teamwork does it every time. We had a really nice time even though this was the first Thanksgiving without my Grandma, her birthday was November 23rd and we always celebrated her birthday on Thanksgiving, today was really hard for my Mom and my Aunt. We do rejoice knowing she is with Jesus as her faith was strong all her life.

My family loved seeing all the new pics of my girls, here are some new ones.

  

I hope everyone had a nice holiday, Christmas is just around the corner.

Mermaid Plugs

 

Maya: “Mom, where are we going?”
Me: “To the ENT to get the impressions of your ears taken to make you ear plugs”

Maya: “Why do I need them?”

Me: “You’ll use them to go swimming and diving.”

Maya: “Like a Mermaid?”

Me: “Yes, just like a Mermaid.”

Maya: “Yeah! I’m getting Mermaid plugs!”

Turns out we need to wait to get the Mermaid plugs approved by the insurance company, it’s not every day they approve mystical procedures.

Odessa started walking and dancing almost at the same time, she loves to bounce to the beat, it’s too funny, I got to get it on film.

Here are a few pics from most recent jobs I’ve had, I finally got my watermark worked out, let me know what you guys think.

Southern Bell shoot

Maya came up with this idea after seeing a cute little parasol out in the Michael’s Arts and Crafts store. Michael’s has the best props sometimes and great prices for fames and mats. We got the parasol and some other stuff and she told me she wanted to take pictures in a pretty dress with white shoes on. I was very impressed with her ability to put together a look after seeing just one element of it. Here goes, Maya as Southern Bell.

Constructive Feedback

Here is my original

I took this with f/5.6, ISO1600 (WOW, surprised myself). Focal length 105mm shutter speed 1/320sec camera Canon 50D, edited with CS4.

Here is the edit

I used Rita’s Coffee Shop Vivid in CS4, brightened the eyes, channel mixed the color.

Thank you in advance for your comments.

Maya’s Birthday Pics, Halloween Costume and Photoshop/Elements Tutorial

Ok, we have been so busy lately, I’ve been taking a very interesting photo class with a world famous American photographer Christopher Verene. It’s been very challenging for me, as his style is not like anything I’d ever do, well never say never I guess. This guy certainly has a lot to give, so I’m all open to whatever he thinks I need to learn to do. First I want to share some new pictures of Maya and say that she is doing great, her speech is pretty much at 100% intelligibility and she is loving school, although she is in an inclusion class (as a model student, make little sense to me why) there are 36 kids in her class, 2 teachers special ed. and regular ed. and 1 aid. Other therapists/teachers come in and out for kids with special needs. She loves her school, loves her teachers, so far we are doing great!

Here are the pics, this year’s Halloween costume, we think. Subject to change without notice.  

 

 

Here are some pics from our back yard a few days ago.

She is getting into this modeling for me thing now, although she likes to take pictures much better, I’m getting her a camera for her b-day, one of those kid digital ones.

Now down to business, many people want to know how to make the eyes pop in your pictures, well there are a million ways of getting it done, but I have a very simple way of doing it that I’ve worked out after seeing many tutorials. Blue eyes are easier to work with than brown, if you are working with very dark brown eyes, what my husband calls “olive” eyes where you can’t even see the pupil, leave them alone, or if you really want to you can burn the iris with the burn tool and dodge the whites around it with the dodge tool, or you can paint the whites with a brush set to white on 20% opacity with a soft light mode. I’m using Photoshop for this tutorial, but all these can be done in elements as well.

For light eyes you can do this;

I never work on the original, always make a copy of your background layer, if you don’t like what you got, you can always delete the layer. So, go to layer and make a duplicate layer.

Next, zoom in nice and close, make sure your color is set to white with black background, and using your dodge tool, go around the pupil and dodge at a setting of your chose, always use a feathered brush, I’m using 52% exposure, dodging shadows

Next, go to burn tool, select the size you need and the exposure you like, I’m using 37% and burn around the most outer part of the iris.

Next, you’d need to define the pupil a little bit, so use the burn tool again, set the size you need to cover the entire area of the pupil and burn it until it is dark enough to your liking.

Some people like to recreate pupils, I don’t I think it looks more natural to just darken what you have with the burning tool.

Last step is to use the sponge tool to saturate the iris. Just click and hold on your burn tool, select sponge, select the correct size and flow to taste and sponge the eye, make sure you are set to saturate mode.

Of course these example is very extreme, I use large values to really make an impact, in reality you won’t need this much intensity, but this example carries my point across quite well, I think.

My beautiful friend Anna

This is from a shoot we did in NYC for my friend Anna who is a musician and currently a musical director on Broadway (Jersey Boys). I am so proud of her!

  Annastasia Victory

Maya in the City

My Goodness, it sure is hard to keep up with posting in the summer time. Well, all is good here. Odessa turned 1, we are still working on her big birthday bash planning, will probably do two in one at the gym, huge jumping castle, sports, face painting, balloon animals, etc. We’ll do it closer to Maya’s birthday. Rob started a new job, we are very excited, hope this one turns out to be the one he stays at till retirement. Maya is doing great with her tubes, so far only one ear infection and her hearing has definitely improved, her speech is much better too, although, still not age appropriate in my opinion. I just hope no one gives her a hard time at school this year, there were some issues in camp, not a big deal I guess. One of her friends told her she was not a big kid because she doesn’t talk like one, she was very upset. She has improved since then though. We’ve been going to the city a lot, to visit my parents and to hang out. Turns out Maya’s favorite place is F.A.O. Schwarz she can’t get enough of that place, they have story time with music and singing (real singing, trust me these people can sing, they must be working nights on Broadway) plus central park across the street, the horses and everything else, she is loving it. Here are some pics of Maya in the city.

 

Looking up at Manhattan sky still makes me cry, I lived in Manhattan during the attack of 9/11, I doubt I’ll ever be over it.

That’s peacock face paint, after a day of smudging.

Subway chill out.

Bronx Zoo

 

I know it’s a total picture overload, but who knows when I’ll get a chance to post again. Here are some pics of the baby’s birthday shoot, continued.

Not the best lighting in my dining room but we both tried to make the best of it.

Pondering life…

There really is enough hair to clip a bow to!

Odessa’s first birthday

Odessa turned one today! Here are some pics of my baby and one of her little cakes. There will be more tomorrow, we got another little cake and a cute outfit to try on. The party will be in a few weeks.

I asked the baby what she wanted for her birthday, just playing obviously, she can’t talk, and Maya answered, “Hair!”

How very nice, she is my comedian.

Here is a pic I edited recently, it’s from a birthday party of a friend’s son.

My new challenge

Before I forget, I’m on Facebook now, come be my friend!!!

So, I’ve set up a new challenge for myself. I wanted to be able to take studio quality pictures outside, with a relatively simple portable setup and no necessary editing after the fact. I tried some things like a tripod with a sheet draped over it and that was cool, but didn’t give me enough background coverage, I needed to edit to get it to look good. Well, I discovered something every photographer should have for a prop. It’s a bamboo rug!

It’s the best thing since sliced bread people! I use two of these rugs 5x8, I lay one down and stand one up on top of the other one in a semi-circle! I drape the fabric of my choice over it and ta-da! Unless there is a strong wind out this setup is very reliable, but I still have someone stand behind it just in case it starts to wobbled, which it doesn’t usually. The kids love it, they find it very interesting, like a tent or something. Here is the final result, please let me know what you guys think.

This one was taken inside, so not so much of a challenge, the outside shots are a lot trickier, the sunlight is stronger and all little things become visible on the image. It’s also a little edited.

This one was taken outside, no editing.

Just for kicks, here is a fun edit of this pic.

Here is one I liked, outside, some editing. Unlike the indoors picture, this one really showed all the wrinkles on the sheet. So, it was either iron the sheet and roll it to avoid wrinkling it or use a heavier fabric, like upholstery fabric, which can be purchased in a fabric store, sometimes for a few dollars a yard, I get 3 yards, it’s plenty.

Here is one with upholstery fabric, outside, very minimal editing.

Here is another image, same set up, only a different F stop, to give the image more depth of field, I was not sure which one is better, I might like the one on top better, although studio pictures generally have a pretty big depth of field.

This was taken on different days, different time of the day, different type of sun, same equipment, notice how yellow the background looks on this picture.

I am not taking any classes this session, so I’m trying to school myself by coming up with these challenges. Now, I need your input, would you bring your kid to my outdoors studio? Want to try to set up your own? Make sure you put your setup in the shade, direct sun will create too much shadows and your kid will squint.

Here are some cool antique edits.

We got tubes

Maya had her post op appointment yesterday, her tubes are looking great, I got to see them with the help of the little magnifying tool docs use. Very cool, everything looked very clean and neat in there, the little tube is right in there, looks like it belongs. Anyhow, I’m happy she can hear better, but I don’t see much of a speech improvement. We’ll keep praying and have her evaluated again next school year, provided there are no improvements until then. Odessa’s birthday is coming up, August 4th she’ll be 1. I am so excited, my baby is getting so big and beautiful. Here are some pics and there are a lot more on my photo website, check them out www.realmemoriesreallife.com

And here is one more fairy from my back yard.

We have an understanding

This is going to sound crazy, but here I go anyway. I have some new pets or maybe neighbors, I am not entirely sure what this arrangement is, but one thing is for sure, we have an understanding and it is as follows;

I don’t destroy their home and they don’t sting any of us. Ok, it’s just a small nest that some yellow jackets have built in one of my decorative shells on my porch. I can just see everyone’s expression reading this post right now, call me crazy, but it’s working out great so far.

Here is the picture of the shell they call their home.

Sometimes the shell gets knocked over by the wind, I guess, and they are all swarming around all confused and upset (ok, I’m crazy, we’ve covered that part) so I’ll pick it back up for them and they get back in there right away all happy and cheery. Ok, I’m not afraid of them, maybe it’s because I’m not allergic, I don’t know, but I’m telling you, they know me!

How else would you explain that I am able to turn the shell over, photograph them inside and put it back down without any issues. They don’t even move when I touch the shell!!!

How cool are they and it’s not even a zoom lens! It’s 100mm f2.8! They totally love me. Mutual respect, works every time!

Here is a cool picture of my fairy princess.

How’s everyone’s summer going?

My apologies for my horrible tardiness in posting lately, but I have been so busy with the business picking up and Maya being out of school and in her little camp for only 2.5 hours a day. My Mom has been away too, so not as much free time as I’d like, plus it’s so nice out, we try to do a lot of outdoorsy things too.

Here is the round up, Maya got her tubes!!!!

The whole procedure took 30 seconds, she only had the nitrous oxide for the anesthetic. She came out of it fine, it took her about 15 minutes to get up and walk out of the hospital talking about getting a new toy. So far I don’t see a huge improvement in her speech, but we have all the time in world to work on it. She is doing great, making new friends at camp, having lot’s of play dates, etc. I feel things are coming along great.

The baby is now taking the bottle! How cool is that? I can have someone other than me feed her now and it only took 11 months :). She is getting bigger and stronger, still not eating much though. She can stand while holding on to something, but doesn’t try to walk. She is very curious and there is definitely nothing wrong with her hearing, so far, knock on wood, she turns her head to the slightest noises and tries to investigate, scooting closer on her butt.

I shot a beautiful Baptism the other day and designed an album all by myself, here are some of the layouts I really loved.

 

 

 

 

 

They are such a beautiful family, I hope they have lots and lots of babies! There are hundreds more pictures and a lot more collage layouts. It was so much fun, I can’t begin to tell you. I might be doing another Baptism soon, this one is for a little boy and I have two weddings coming up too, very excited. I always did what I loved, for work, that is, but this is on my terms and it makes so much of a difference, I can’t begin to tell you. If any of you guys are interested in learning how to make these let me know, I’ll do a short tutorial, most of this can be done in elements.

My hot pursuit of Free Photoshop CS4

As I mentioned earlier I recently started a photography class at a near by College. It’s a summer session class, so lots of the people who take it are kids from other schools who just need to pick up some cheep transfer credits from random subjects, most often than not they care very little about the class or about their grade, all they need is a C- to transfer the credits. There are a few mature students like myself, who are there for fun and profit as well. I was talking to a few of the younger kids and they were all like, “ I got Photoshop CS4 for free of the rapidshare site, you can get anything there…..”

I don’t have a full version of Photoshop cs4, and it is a requirement for my class, they supply it at the school, but it helps to have it at home and since I don’t, it’s a bit of a problem with homework assignments. I’m feeling all blue about it because there is no way I can afford it right now, even the student version, still too much money. So, I - the old fool, decide to look into this rapidshare thing and basically it’s shady to say the least, but that doesn’t stop me, so I try to get the cheap membership and see if I can get Photoshop for free, I get all happy. I give them my credit card info and they decline it. I was surprised initially, but happy in retrospect, thinking, “ Why did I even want to go that route? Oh, yeah, free Photoshop.” Anyway, minutes later my blackberry is blowing up with new e-mails, from crazy vendors I’ve never heard of, confirming my memberships to places I never signed up for and thanking me for my fist monthly payment!!!!

Oh, no! I start calling them, but it’s late at night, no one is available anywhere. I was so upset, now I have this huge debit card problem, I’m all freaked out, I call my bank and inform them of this development, they freeze my account and file fraud claims, they also suspend my existing debit card and give me a new one. Now I’m feeling happy, because I’ve solved my big debit card problem, still no Photoshop, but now I’m happy without it, crazy ain’t it? The best way to solve a small problem, apparently, is to create an even bigger one and overcome it, then in all the relief and excitement the small problem will seem completely inconsequential.

A few minutes later I get an e-mail from a friend who informs me that she found a great site where you can get a Photoshop cs4 download for $100 bucks. I laughed and wrote her back about this whole thing I had just been through, she writes back assuring me this sight is legit and very helpful. Finally, I give in and check it out, it really says $99.90 for Photoshop cs4 extended download. I was pretty stunned and very skeptical, but I went for it, and I am glad I did, I now have perfectly functioning cs4 extended and I didn’t use a shady site to get it. It was not free, but it was a lot more affordable. I still don’t have a debit card though, but it should be here in 7-10 business days,lol.

If you are interested, the site address is http://sun-oem.com

Here my very first Photoshop cs4 extended edit.

Lazy Round up

Back a few months ago Tami did this Lazy round up post and other people linked up, that was a neat idea, so I’m doing it today, although I’m not linking up. I guess it’s not really lazy it’s more of overtired, sleep deprived, emotionally drained, disappointed and somehow still functioning round up, lol.

To begin with Maya’s IEP was taken away, which means she will not be getting speech therapy anymore, it also means that if we want her to get it we will have to get her reevaluated and go through all of the processes all over again, fun!

Maya will be getting tubes put in her ears on the 17th of June, hopefully it will solve her hearing problems and help with speech as well. Her last hearing test showed mild conductive hearing loss in one ear only. I am not sure that’s the cause of her speech problems, thought her speech has gotten much better lately, I have to admit, but still not 100% intelligible. The committee meeting was a joke, they knew from the start they were going to deny her, why they held the meeting - I don’t know. They provided me with a parent advocate, whom I have met several times at social functions, she was completely useless, she said nothing the whole meeting and at the end when I was about to tell them all to go you know where, she decided to tell me to be happy with their decision because they know what they are doing! Ha! What a way to advocate!

Everyone was supportive of us, the speech pathologist, the pediatrician, Maya’s teacher and the audiologist, and we got nothing, because her scores were age appropriate and that is all they cared about.

I am trying to stay positive and think and pray that by the beginning of Kindergarten she is all set and 100% intelligible. I will try to work with her myself, but it’s not the same when a parent does it.

The baby is doing better, eating better, sleeping a little better and she cut her first tooth a few days ago, my little busy bee. We go to the gym and she stays in the nursery while I work out and Maya takes her swim lessons, the baby never gives them any problems, I think this will be good practice for nursery school, I’ll be putting her in when she is 3, we have a free program at the public school.

I started my photo class, it’s really great, I am learning so very much. I am able to work in manual camera settings, I understand how everything works, almost and I’ve taken some great pics lately which I‘ll share at the end of this post.

My Mom and my aunt are still having a really hard time, they are going through my grandmother’s things and cleaning out her house, it’s been really hard on them. I can’t imagine what that feels like. I can’t be very helpful to them because I am here with the kids and when I bring my kids with me than I’m there with my kids and too busy taking care of them to help. That makes me feel useless.

My website is looking good, a lot of positive feedback and a lot of customer form submissions, very encouraging. www.realmemoriesreallife.com

Here are the latest pics, hope you like.

The Results are in

Let's see, ahhhhh......

Thank you all for celebrating my Mom's birthday with me! I will quickly post the results and than I'm off to school, first day of my summer session class today, yay! Then I have my special education committee meeting about Maya's speech therapy, say a prayer for us please!

Here we go:

The winner of the $25 Gift card to Target is Kiesha from 30 something and still finding my way.

The winner of the photo album is Melissa from Home is where your story begins.

And finally, the winner of the picture frame is Alicia from Kaylyn, you are my sunshine.

Ladies please e-mail me at tanyamytil@hotmail.com so that I can send you your prizes!

Thank you all for playing, I'm off to school now, will post again soon.

Give away, give away, give away!

I decided to host a give away this week, I’m thinking it will cheer us up a bit. My Mom’s birthday was yesterday and I want to celebrate by having a give away here.

The rules are

1. If you are a follower, leave me a comment or two or as many as you wish, don’t forget to wish my Mom a happy birthday! Mention which prize you’d like to get.

2. Mention this give away on your blog.

3. And don’t forget to check back in on Tuesday 5.26 morning next week.

If you are not a follower, become one and then follow steps 1-3.

And the prizes are:

1. A picture frame for your child’s spots activity, includes a picture of your child and a picture of the team.

2. A beautiful 16 page 12x12 photo album/scrap book with magnetic pages.

 

3. And, of course, the prize of all prizes a $25 gift card to Target.

I’m sure we all have seen one, but here is a picture anyway.

Good Luck everyone!

Picture on the water

I am starting to come out of my coma little by little, today I’m keeping Maya home from school and we are taking a short day trip to a nature reserve by our house, I’m also trying to fit in a small shoot in that trip, will see it mashes well with the customer’s plans. It’s a beautiful day out and I’ve been thinking about my grandmother nonstop since her passing on Saturday morning. She is free now, free of her pain and of everything else, everything that clutters your mind and doesn’t let you see the forest for the trees. She is free and I am trying my best to rejoice in that, but thoughts of my childhood with her keep coming up, the pink flowers on her windows, her cooking, the way she said my name….. It’s just so hard to let go of all that, of her…..

I wanted to share these pictures with you guys, they are from the past two weeks. When we went to the park, the river beach and fishing with Maya’s big cousin Mike.

 

No fish or frogs were hurt in the making of these pictures.

Just a short update

I've been very busy lately and had no time for posting. I'll be back eventually, but right now things are still a bit crazy, my Grandmother passed away on Saturday morning. Because I live about an hour away and because my parents were sick with what resembled the swine flu and I was afraid to bring my kids over and prier to that for a number of other ridiculous reasons I did not go to see my Grandma at the hospital the last time she was there. My mother kept me posted as Grandma's health continued to deteriorate, she became very weak and slept a lot, she was not in any pain towards the end and we are so grateful for that. She is finally at peace, she is with Jesus and with all of her loved ones that she missed so much all these years. We are all hurting, but we take comfort in our faith that she is the happiest now in the arms of the Lord.

Thank you all for the support you have shown us during this difficult time.

The kids are doing well, Maya is almost done with school, she had her trip to kindergarten last week, she was very excited about her new school. We've been taking lots of new pictures, but I don't feel like posting them today. I finished my real photography website, it has a gallery with lots of new photos, please visit if you get a chance. www.realmemoriesreallife.com
I'll be back in full action in a little while, please bear with me.

It’s Communion time

This is the time of the year when many little 8 year old boys and girls have their first communions and it’s such a special this for a kid and their family. I had the pleasure of shooting another communion this weekend. This one was for my beautiful little niece, she is such a gentile soul with the most expressive big brown eyes. Here are some pictures. Her wonderful parents arranged for a very generous celebration, it was a lot of fun and a huge privilege to be their guest and to be their photographer.

   

God Bless you sweetheart!

 

Maya had her ENT appointment and we are in the process of scheduling her tubes surgery sometime in the next few weeks, I am told it will be quick and that she will not be intubated for this. She will get the gas mask and will only be out for a few minutes. Pray the everything goes smoothly.

When I was at the ENT with Maya, I asked the doctor to look at my ear because it was acting funny, turned out I had an ear infection. He cleaned it out and gave me a prescription which I could not fill because it required a pre-authorization. I’ve never heard of that before, got to call him later today, oh well, they better think of something because my ear needs the help! It’s no big deal really. We saw our new pediatrician this week too and I was not impressed, think I’ll keep shopping around. Please say a prayer for Maya’s surgery to go without any issues.

I was very sad to hear and passing of Kayleigh Ann Freeman, I am praying for her family and I take comfort in the fact that her pain is over and that she is with God enjoying his complete, eternal and infallible Love.

My First photography job

This Saturday was my first official photography job. I took pictures of my niece’s first communion. It was a pretty easy job because I was shooting a beautiful girl and her big loving family, during the most amazing experience of her life, not to mention her parents are the coolest people in the world, so all that made my job very much enjoyable. And Kim, if you are reading this, thank you for letting me take part in your celebration! Here are some pictures from Saturday, all comments are welcome.

 

This one is her photo album cover, I love it. God Bless you baby! This was a blast I had a great time shooting this and putting everything together, plus I was very generously rewarded!

In other news, Maya had her audiologist appointment and we found out that she still has fluid behind the eardrums, her hearing is at about 90% in the left ear and about 50% in the right ear. We’ll be seeing the ENT next week, we’ll see what he has to say about the tubes.

Kiesha’s blog now has a button, I just added it to my side bar, it’s way cute!

I did mine too, so grab my button before you leave!

Fix it Friday

Here is my edit for this Fix it Friday using Photoshop Elements 7, I got the CS4, but I am so attached to the Elements, can’t stop using it.

Original

Edited

Now, it’s your turn, head over to I ♥ Faces and give it a try.

My new award and….

This award was presented to me by Carrey from '>Life in the carpool lane for respecting Mother Earth and as Maya would say “recircling”. Thank you Carrey for the award and for blogging about green living, you rock!

…. my new photography blog/site is officially open, lol, click here to visit.

I ♥ Faces - reflection

Here is my reflection picture for the I ♥ Faces submission. Maya waiting for Daddy to get home.

Oh, yeah, Spring/Summer is here

I wasn’t sure what season it was this weekend, because I went from sleeping with the heat on to sleeping with the windows open. Seriously weird stuff!

Anyhow, we had a really nice weekend. Maya had a birthday party at a local private sports club and after visiting I’ve decided to join on monthly basis. I know Rob really needs this out of all of us, he works so hard and never gets to play :(

It’s also great for the kids, they have an amazing nursery and a great activity room, a hot tub, a huge pool with all the kid stuff, all kinds of lessons for kids including yoga, they do parties of several themes, amongst them wet and wild, which would be awesome for Maya’s b-day in October. And somewhere amidst all this fun, Mama can loose 10 lb or so for herself. So, I’m doing it!

Here are some pics from the party.

There are more great shots, but I’m trying to avoid posting pics of other people’s kids. There were several classmates of Maya’s at this party, the b-day girl included. I made all of them personalized CDs with their pictures, they are all so cute! She had a blast there, imagine how much she will love coming there a few times a week, plus the pool. It’s cheaper than any camp I can find and the pool is an indoor pool, so no worries about sunburn and sunscreen, I hate using that stuff, once you know what goes in it, oh well, it’s better than skin cancer. So, today, Sunday, that is, we played in the back yard and here are some pics of Maya, I will take some pictures of the baby too when she wakes up from her nap, I’ve been waiting to take some pictures of her outside in the grass. I’ll add them to this post later. Also, Maya’s special education committee meeting is scheduled for May 26th, same day my photography class starts at the Community College, that should be a fun day.

  

I know this is a total picture overload, I am sorry, but I’m just loving this weather and all the greenery! None of these pics are edited, I know they can be much better with a little TLC, but no time right now.

Here are some pics of the baby in her beautiful pink outfit, thanks aunt Marina!

It’s too sunny here!

Way too sunny!

Hello? Too sunny!

Thank you, finally, I only had to say it 5 times.

ok, come here, let’s play!

Hope everyone had a nice weekend!

Fix it Friday

Here is another project from I ♥ Faces.

The original photo of the most precious cooing baby.

I miss this so much already, even thought it was only a few months ago that my baby was this small.

Here are my numerous edits, ‘cause you know I can’t do just one, lol.

1.

2.

3.

What  a beautiful face!

Now, it’s your turn, head over to I ♥ Faces and give it a try.

The topic of Prayer

MckMama posted recently about prayer, if God already has a plan, what is the point of prayer? Although God’s plan may not be the same as yours it is important to remember that God’s plan is the perfect plan and your plan is not, our simple minds can not fathom the greatness of God’s plan. God is aware of everything, past, present and future, God has computed all possible outcomes for all things and came up with this. This is what we are living and even if we may be suffering today, if things don’t seem to go our way, it is still for the best, God wants it this way because anything else would be worse. God is Love we were created with so much love, God is abundantly generous with His Blessings, He loves us and plans our lives to be victorious, full of joy and happiness. Think about it, the ones you love, do you not want them to be happy? Sure you do! There is pain in our lives, but when it comes we have to remember that we are meant for glory, for love, for happiness, we are Blessed, our Heavenly Father wants us to be happy, is doing all possible to make us happy, we just have to TRUST IN HIM, in His Love. God hears our prayers, it’s important that we pray it’s our only way of speaking to God, He hears our prayers and answers them in His own way, regardless of what you ask for, God will give you more, it’s already in the plan. We don’t know what is possible in our lives until God shows us. God’s ways are not our ways, we may be praying for health insurance, but instead God will cure us of our ailments. We can not always understand God’s ways, but if we trust them our suffering will subside. God wants us to pray to let him know we have surrendered to his will, to tell him what we want to see happen in our lives and in lives of others, God rejoices when we speak Blessings over our children, our family and friends. And with that in mind I want to ask everyone to pray for:

My dear friend Kiesha who has lost the use of her legs recently, pray for healing. Pray for her children and her family.

Baby Stellan who is fighting heart disease at the age of 5 months and for his family.

Baby Kayliegh and her family.

Baby Veiyah and her family.

And anyone else who needs you prayers, love and support.

Also, please say a prayer for my grandmother who is in really bad shape and is in the nursing home once again.

God Bless

Praying for Kayleigh

I don’t know what else to say other than I am shocked and saddened beyond all reason about the current development in Kayleigh’s condition. If you are not familiar with Kayleigh’s story click here to read the update and if you are familiar with Kayleigh’s story, please pray for her and her family with all you got. If you like you can copy this picture and put it in your praying for Kayleigh post, she needs all the prayers she can get, let everyone know she needs them.

Thank you

This post is part of "Laughter Lives! Tuesday" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check our their blog to read everyone else's "Laughter Lives!" posts.





Maya has been very fresh lately, I attribute this behavior to her being very tired and not feeling well for so long, she's been sick with ear infections, viruses ans strep infection all in the past month. Still, the attitude problem had to be addressed and Rob was going to take care of it this time around. Maya was refusing to get dressed to go outside, Rob threatened her with a time out, she was mad, but said fine, she'd get dressed. She put on her coat and zipped up all by herself, she became very excited because this was the first time she was able to zip up this coat. When we got to the car, Rob felt it was too warm in there and unzipped her coat, Oh, no!

She was livid! She told him, "Shame on you, Daddy! Don't unzip me, that's not nice!" I said to her," Don't speak to your father like that, I will not allow it, he is looking out for you!" But she was too mad, crying and saying, "Shame on Daddy". Finally I told her she would get in big trouble, no TV, early bed time blah blah blah, and she quited down some, then in a very low voice I heard her say,"Shame on Mommy, I need a new one!" We couldn't keep from laughing, which irritated her even more. She sure has a temper this kid.

Round-up

I am joining Tami in her lazy round-up meme today. The reason why I’m doing it is because much like many other bloggers I know, I just can’t get as many post out as I’d like lately, so here goes.

1. Odessa’s tear duct is officially open, no more pus, no more swelling or dry skin around the eye. She is growing up so fast, I took her for a walk around the block and people were coming up to me saying, “That’s not a baby, that’s a big girl!” Kind of makes me want another baby, well, not really. Here is my big girl’s picture

2. Maya is doing great at school and her hearing seems to have improved, I’m going by my own observations, not an audiological exam. We’ll be going in for one on Maya 5th. Maya is having a lot of attitude issues with us, so time out time is here big time! She told me she wants to take ballet classes again which is great ‘cause I really think she needs to do some sort of dance, she’s got rhythm. We are looking at camps for her right now, so far we have two choices, her old preschool and a summer program for classified kids, we do have to get classified first, pray that we do.

3. I started buying props for my photo business, even though I feel ridiculously unmotivated lately, I need to get a job, I say there is something in the air. Anyway, I got this fur rug, it looks like a bear skin rug, only it’s beige. Here are some pics I took using it for a background.

   

4. I finally got my workout videos, Core Rhythms very cool stuff, I did a little today and loved it, Maya loved it too. My goal is to drop 10lb, which should put me at about 150lb, I’m 5’10”, so that would put me at size 6, I’ll be happy with that in the summer. I’m sure my father will hate it, he feels the more of a woman there is the better, his words, not mine. I grew up in a Dominican neighborhood, anything under a size 14 is just not worth looking at to the guys over there. I like being able to squeeze into the largest size  available at Guess jeans, I know it’s a funny mark, but that’s how I do it.

5. The CVS people finally got back to me with an apology, but no coupons lol. I wasn’t really expecting any, but a friend of mine told me she got some when she had a problem there.

6. In conclusion, this weekend I hung out with my beautiful little cousin and we did a little photo shoot, tell me this girl is not the hottest thing out there!

So, if you are like me and can’t seem to post often enough, join in the fun at Tami’s blog and start keeping up.

Photoshop Elements 7 tutorial #2

This is a very simple trick that I wanted to share with everyone. Often times your over all picture looks great, but one important detail, like someone’s face is too dark and you just want to lighten it up a bit, here is how.

We start with the original

Let’s say we want to lighten up Maya’s face.

We go to brush tool

Select these settings

The size of the brush is up to you, but you do want to set mode to overlay or soft light, or even hard light, depends on the effect you are after. I just want to lighten up her face, my opacity is at 22% in this case. You al so want to make sure that you selected the right color to use with your brush, I like white and sometimes yellowish-white if I’m trying to make it look sunny.

Next I start to paint over her face with my brush tool till I’m happy with the results.

Here is the before and after.

Hope you’ll find this helpful. 

Thanks to I ♥ Faces

I am just so overjoyed with the results of my participation in constructive feedback on I ♥ Faces , I had to share my new edit with you guys and even though I might have gone a bit overboard with this one, I have learned tons!

Here is the picture

 

I am loving this portrait now, thanks so much everyone, can we do this again next week?

Here are some of the pictures I took today, we had a little shoot for my girls, I decided we needed some together pictures, so here goes.

    

I used a function called vivid  from the Coffee Shop to edit these pictures. I got a lot of functions that I use everyday from this phenomenally talented woman and I highly recommend you checkout her blog and her work.

Here is the picture of my 8 months old Odessa - Princessa.

Original

Edited

I took it in my bedroom where there isn’t a lot of light. My settings were f/5.4 1/100 sec ISO 1000 135 mm, I think, not really sure about 1/100 sec part. I edited this picture with elements 7. I like this picture, but I’m dying to know how I could make it better. Thanks so much.

Click here to see everyone else’s work at .

Inspired

I am going through a bit of writer’s block lately. Well, not just writers block, but an over all creativity block, since I have been sleeping less and less lately. Odessa is up a lot at night and her naps are getting shorter everyday too. She has a cold and I’m sure the teething is getting worse too. She wakes up at night and stays up for 1-3 hours before falling asleep again. She used to wake up to eat and go back to sleep which was not so bad, now she just stays up, food or no food. I tried putting her in my bed, she was even more miserable there, Maya was the sane way, sleeping with us never worked for her, till she was about 3. I’m doing Easter this year, for the first time ever, usually we go out to my sister in law’s house, but this year she is not doing it, so we decided to do it. I am very excited, I’ll be making leg of Lamb. I’ll take pictures and post them later.

I’ve been kind of down lately, very tired, very busy and just out of it. I felt like I had no goals and it’s hard for someone like me to not be working towards a goal. Of course, my kids and family obligations are goals, get them fed, dressed, exercised, played with, bathed and tucked in those are my everyday goals. They are very important goals but I felt like I needed something else, maybe something for myself, so I decided that I would take a class at the local college, a digital photography class. Very exciting news for me. I’m planning to go back to graduate school too(not for photography), when Odessa gets a little older, but right now I’m starting out small, one class twice a week, summer semester session 1. Once I’m done with the class (possibly several classes), I’ll really start a photography business. I was thinking to do just a few days a week, 2 or 3 at the most, if I’m shooting a wedding, just one day that week. Really slow start. I’ll assist another photographer a few times next month to learn in practice. That’s the plan so far.

Maya is on spring vacation all this week, so lots of fun for her. She loves candles, I never burn candles in the house, my cats like to brush against them and set themselves on fire, true story, both cats have done that. So, now we don’t do candles, but she begged me the other night and we lit up one of my decorative candles, she was fascinated with it, here is a picture of her, it’s very Rembrandt he-he. 

  

Happy Easter everyone!

Odessa is 8 months old

Today is Odessa’s 8 months birthday. My baby is getting so big, she can sit now and eat bitter biscuits all by herself! If you think about it she is 8 months chronologically, according to her birth, but factor in the fact that she was born 5 weeks early and developmentally she should only be 6 months and 3 weeks old. She is doing so well, thank God! Her entrance into this world was a rough one, but being Blessed as she is, she has overcome all the challenges. My only remaining request of her is to start eating solids the way she should, she still eats very little. Here are a few pictures of the birthday girl.

 

Happy birthday little one, Mama loves you!

Fix it Friday

Here is this week's original

Here are a few of my edits using Photoshop Elements 7

1.

2.

3.

Adding one more, last one, promise!

 

This was a really fun edit, hence the tree versions.

Now, it’s your turn, head over to I ♥ Faces and give it a try.

Just another Tuesday/ total picture overload

Odessa is teething, she stopped eating solids almost entirely and only nurses now. She is really miserable and only takes one nap a day, it’s a long one, but it’s only one. I would love to post a picture of her, but she’s been so unhappy, I’m afraid it’ll be a really sad picture, plus the flash makes her extra crabby. She does still enjoy her baths though.

Maya is doing great! I had a parent teacher conference this afternoon and apparently she is doing very well in school. Hearing that made me very happy, even though she can’t hear well she is still keeping up! It seems that everyone is on the same page with her disability status. The speech pathologist will recommend more therapy and the teacher is in agreement as well. The committee meeting will be held in May sometime, God willing, she’ll get to keep her classification and get therapy next year. Apparently, I need to demonstrate that she will regress when without therapy, if I want her to get the services during the summer. I have no idea how to do that!

After the conference we played in the yard a little and I took these pictures of her on the tire swing. Remember when you were a kid and were able to completely disconnect from everything while on the swing? Like if you had homework and you didn’t know how to get it done, or if someone was mean to you, or if there was something you wanted but couldn’t have. Once you got on the swings it would all disappear, because you were having so much fun? Ok, maybe it’s just me, but you still got to love these pictures.

    

And here is one more from the other day, titled “Why not, Mommy?”

She looks so much like her big cousin in this one, let’s call this cousin Sporty spice, as I don’t have her parent’s permission to post about her, but here is a “faceless” picture of her.

She is a real good kid, we should be so lucky with Maya down the road.

I gonna pee-pee in the cup!

That’s exactly what Maya announced to a diner full of people while holding up her biohazard bag with an empty cup in it. 

We had a doctors appointment and they suspected a UTI, but later changed their mind after checking her ears and seeing the horrible ear infection. However, Maya was not about to let the bag go, she liked it too much, so she took it home and when we stopped to pick something up at the diner, she shared her excitement with about 30 unsuspecting people. I was mortified, we were there for 10 minutes waiting for the pick up order and the whole time people didn’t stop laughing. Maya got her antibiotics and is feeling much better now, poor thing had an ear infection and strep.

For those of you interested in the hula-hoop I use, it does exist, and it does work quite well, but don’t get the really heavy one right away, get the recommended for your weight or lighter.

 These hoops are the coolest thing ever, they just melt the fat around your waist while you are having fun.

I’ve been tagged

I was tagged by Kiesha from 30 Something and Still Finding My Way and by Carey from Life in the Carpool Lane. These two amazing ladies have been faithful followers of my blog and are very encouraging and supportive of my photography efforts and ambitions.

Here are the rules of this tag:
I need to link to the persons that tagged me.
I need to share 7 things people may not know about me.
I need to tag 7 people to share 7 things and link to them.
I need to let them know they've been tagged.

My seven things:

1. I hate to work out, it’s a very taboo thing to admit to, almost not PC, but it’s true. So, to stay in shape or to appear that way, I dance and do the 5lb hula-hoop.

2. I hate amusement parks, I only go to watch my kids have fun and take pictures. I hate rough rides, especially water ones and rollercoasters. I’d rather go to the beach and swim.

3. I was an art student before someone important convinced me that a life of a starving artist was not for me and I switched to science. Let me tell you, there is not that much more money in science and a whole lot less freedom.

4. I love to cook but I don’t like to eat my cooking, I’m not a bad cook, this kind of goes with everything I make. I don’t like to wear the cloths make (sweaters mostly), I put it on once and give it away.

5. I don’t like it when my foods touch on the plate, it’s just not very pleasant looking when your green beans have mashed potatoes all over them. I know I’m a basket case.

6. I am an only child and swore I’d have more than 1 kid myself. I knew I’d have two daughters before I met Rob. When we designed my ring I put 2 pink sapphires on either side of the diamond for each of my girls.

7. I didn’t start driving till I was 27, no need for a car in NYC.

Ok. now it's my turn to tag people.
Kat from My Turbulent Twentys.

MiMi from He and Me + 3.

Kristi from My Three Sons.

Erin from Erin, Ben and 4 Little Men.

Stephanie from Baseballs and Tutus.

Lauren from The Murchison Family
Muma Meee from Muma Mee blog

I was not planing to do a not me Monday this week because I've been so busy, and I just found out about poor baby Stellan's troubles. I know there are thousands of prayers being said for him all over the world right now and ours are among them,

Praying for healing for baby Stellan!

You gonna miss this moment

 

I’m joining in kind of late, there is a lot going on around here lately. My favorite moment was when I left my computer on with Photoshop elements left open. Maya got in my chair and she wanted to “make colors”. So I told her to go ahead and surprisingly she was able to do some really cute things. I filmed her with my cell phone. Here is the video, don’t mind the mess on my desk. I call it “I’m a PC and I’m 4 years old”

When watching this video, turn off my music player on the sidebar in order to hear the video, you might need to turn up the sound a bit, it’s a cell phone video.

Yesterday I took some pictures of Maya playing with her cousins, it’s so cute, her cousin is almost 6 and he is such a little man. He was holding doors for us and helping Maya climb up rocks, it was sweet.

Sneaking up on geese together.

And his big sister took care of Odessa, she loves babies and she is so good with Odessa.

It was a really beautiful day out yesterday, much cooler today, brrr.

It's my first carnival, Photoshop Elements 7 tutorial for antique look

I am so excited! I decided to make this post into a meme. Here we go, I'm pumped, alrighty than :)

If you like this picture style and you have photoshop elements 7, then use one of your own pictures to make it antique using this tutorial, make a post and show off your new creation then link up to me with the Mr. Linky at the end of this post to let me know you are playing. If you don't have Photoshop Elements 7 go to the Adobe website and download the trial software, you'll be able to use it for 30 days for free, then you can either pay for it, or let it go. There is a third option, but my husband has very strong feelings about me posting it, so I'll respect his wishes today and not post about it.

Here is my button, unfortunately I don't know how to put the scroll down window with code in my post, or anywhere in my blog for that matter, so please just post a link to my blog the old fashioned way. By copying and pasting this

Welcome to Weekly Edits! This blog carnival was created by Tanya. You can visit her blog Maya and Odessa to see what she and everyone else has been editing.

Thanks so much and sorry for the inconvenience. And if someone can teach me how to put the scroll down code window in I'll be forever grateful. I hope it's not a paid service provided by Mr Linky tho.

Here are the antique picture I created.

The truth is I am not good enough to tutor anyone and the reason why I have several versions of this picture is because I was trying to figure out how to do this myself!

I learned that there are many ways to get this effect, so here is the fastest simplest one.

Start with your original,

Next, click on create adjustment layer and choose Hue/Saturation

Next, adjust Hue to the color you’d like your picture to be tinted with, in my case it’s a yellowish-green tone. My hue setting is at 55, on Master color setting.

Next I adjust the saturation, till only a tint of color remains.

Next, I will use the eraser tool to erase the hue/saturation layer from Maya’s coat. Make sure you have the hue/saturation layer selected,

and click on the eraser tool, on the left sidebar.

Select a fuzzy stroke in the top left corner by clicking on the stroke box below the pse sign and the little house.

Begin to erase the hue/saturation layer from the coat

until you achieve the desired effect.

That’s about it. Hope this helps, like I said there are a lot of ways to achieve this effect, but in my opinion this is the easiest.

Wordful Wednesday

Here is a video of my baby trying to feed her self as she tells me what she really thinks about my feeding job. She usually hates to eat, I never realized she wanted control of the spoon!

Introducing Lili

I’ve not been very diligent about posting lately, I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed with everything, but I’m feeling better now. It is possible that we will have medical coverage as early as next week! I spoke with the enrollment rep. yesterday and she told me everything was in order and that I would be receiving my letter and cards in a week. I am very excited, tough skeptical, hoping nothing happens between now and next week, keeping my prayers going. Thank you all for your support and prayers.

The girls are feeling better, Odessa is eating again, she was refusing solids for a few days, living on breast milk alone, so I was loading up on all kinds of nutritious foods and vitamins, hoping to give her everything she needs. She is doing great, I on the other hand, have gained 5 lb. Wonderful arrangement!

Maya and I went to church today when it was completely empty, it’s so nice to do that sometimes, so peaceful. We lit candles, wrote prayer requests and prayed for Grandma. I took some pictures too.

   A long time ago I had a picture editing software which had an action called antique photo, I have since forgotten which software it was, but if one of you guys knows, please tell me, I love that particular antique photo function. I threw this together in elements, it’s not as good as it could be. I couldn’t find a set function for this in elements, again, if I missed something, let me know, I need all the help I can get :)

Here is the original

I am going to photograph two first communions in May, I’m very excited. They are for my two nieces which is even more exciting. I finished their invitations last night, haven’t gotten any feedback yet, I hope they like it. Here is one of them in the sample form.

 

I’ve actually created a lot of cards lately, it’s so much fun!

I don’t think I’ve ever introduced you guys to my fuzzy babies. Their names are Lili and Lulu and today I’ll introduce you to Lili. She is a fluffy fuzzy mutt and we love her. Here she is cleaning her face.

 

The last picture is done up a bit, but she didn’t even need that, she is so beautiful!

You’re gonna miss this moment.

I have some really cute moments this week. I took Odessa with me to a store while Maya was at school, on the way back Odessa fell asleep, I felt bad taking her out of the car seat, because unlike Maya, Odessa wakes up easily while being moved. So, I let her sleep while we were in my driveway, we had an hour to wait to pickup Maya from the bus, so I turned off the car, it was really warm out, and we just sat there. I had my camera and I saw some really cute little birds flying around the bird feeder in my neighbor’s yard, so I took a few pictures. These guys wouldn’t let me get too close, so the pictures are not as good as they could be, but still cute.

I love these little guys. I really enjoyed that hour while my baby slept so peacefully and the birds kept posing for me :)

My Grandmother is feeling much better, she is not on dialysis anymore, she being treated for this virus they think she has, her pain is more manageable, we are hoping she can come home sometime soon instead of going to a rehab facility for the aged. The girls are sick with colds again, I am praying we don’t need to go to the doctor again, we already owe them too much money, having no insurance since January. Today I got a letter in the mail, they want some additional information in order to make a decision of our qualification for the insurance we applied for. I got really worried at first, I was thinking, “Why do they need this stuff, I gave them enough info, what’s going on, is this going to drag out the process, is this their way of turning me down?” But now I’m starting to realize that it’s really out of my control, I can only pray on it and jump through whatever hoops they put in front of me. The bottom line is God is in control and He has never forsaken me, every time I asked I got more than I could have hoped for. It didn’t always come the way I wanted it to come, but it always came without a fail, so I am faithful that we will be okay. Please keep praying for us. Thank you.

In conclusion, the vote are in and the poll is closed, #2 is the official winner, coincidental it is also the picture I used in the template, so you can see the exact card at the end of last post. Thank you all for playing.

And now that you've shared my moments with me won't you please go over to Pam's blog and join in the fun!

Help me pick

I am in the process of designing Odessa’s Baptism invitations. I got the image I like, but I need help picking the edit. Here are the finalists, please help me pick one. I’ll also post the card template with one of the pictures. I’ll make a poll and put it in the side bar, please vote and leave me a comment about which one you liked and why. Thanx so much!

#1

#2

#3

#4

Here is the template

Serious.Life Magazine

The March issue of Serious.Life Magazine came out a few days ago if you are not familiar with the magazine click here to check it out.

Wordful Wednesday

I have been so out of it lately, can’t even gather my thoughts to make a real post. Too much going on right now, but I guess everybody has a story, right? Anyway, I will just share my most concerning issues, my grandma is feeling better she was extubated yesterday and breathing just fine, the kidney function is still bad, but we hope will improve soon.

After the latest ear infection and cold Maya’s hearing has become terrible. I think she has lost all hearing on one side. Having a conversation with her is close to impossible, I have to repeat myself constantly and sometimes she still doesn’t get it. I can only imagine how difficult it is for her to play with other kids. She must be dealing with a lot of rejection. The good news is that once she gets the tubes it will all be over, the bad news is we still don’t have medical insurance, we should hear something by the end of the month, please pray we get the coverage.

And now the wordful Wednesday Photoshop theme. If you want to join, click the button above.

Here is a picture of a view from the park in NYC, this is the park by where I grew up, it’s a very beautiful and unique place. I bring my girls there as often as I can. It may not look like it was edited a lot, but trust me it really was!

Here is a picture I took to use for thank you cards. When I have a lot of thank yous to write I make my own cards. I also do this for party invites and other things.

Here is the card I made with this picture, I an in the process of getting these printed now, having some computer problems it seems.

Next is a picture of a little birdie, when I started working with this image the bird was hardly visible, I had the camera set to a different setting, but saw an opportunity to get this shot and took it.

Here is a picture of my beautiful sister in law and her husband with my baby, also may not look very edited, but it really was.

I like to use my Photoshop to bring out the best of what is already in the picture, but is not visible yet, if that makes sense.

Lastly here is my big princess and her very first big girl necklace, other than her Baptism cross which she is not allowed to play with. This necklace was given to her by our dear neighbors who are also the owners of the bird feeder posted above. Originally the chain is gold and the turtle has a green stone for a shell, but I like this deep blue. If you guys are interested there is a really cool blog where you can get free actions for your photoshop and elements, here is the link http://coffeeteaphotography.blogspot.com/. I got a whole bunch of stuff from this wonderful lady and use it all the time.

You gonna miss this moment

This week my moments are all in pictures. We finally made it out to the park today and here are all my moments that I did not miss.

Maya loves the swings, she knows how to swing on her own, but hates to watch me standing around doing nothing, so she she lets me push her :)

I call this one “face to face with the beast”.

Rob was throwing her up in the air, but it looks more like a scene reenactment from the Lion King :) Yet another new hat, I ended up making 5.

That’s my great moments this weekend.

Unfortunately I have a sad moment as well, I lost the only pictures of my Grandmother holding Odessa when I reformatted my hard drive and now I don’t know if I’ll ever get another picture of them together. I pray that I do.

And now that you've shared my moments with me won't you please go over to Pam's blog and join in the fun!

Our news, prayers needed!

I wanted to post again today to ask you guys for your prayers for my Grandmother. She is in the ICU, she is intubated and on dialysis. Her blood pressure is out of control and they have asked us how we feel about keeping her on life support should she need it. They seem to think that this is all a result of a virus which they can treat and she could recover, there is that chance. Please say a prayer for her and for my mother and my aunt as they are in a lot of pain watching their mother suffer like this. Thank you all for your support.

In other news today, Maya had her ears pierced last night. She asked me repeatedly to have it done and last night I finally gave in. She didn’t cry, she was about to, but excitement outweighed the pain and she stopped herself from crying. She picked out little heart earrings, not what I would have picked out, but it’s her ears, this much freedom I allow her.

While the girl was piercing her ears she saw Maya’s birth mark, inside her ear. It’s a cross, like a Catholic cross, the girl looked at me funny and said, “Did you do that?” I thought to myself, “Did I tattoo my kid’s ear? Well, I think piercing should come first!” I said: “No, God did that.”

And Last, but not least here is Odessa in her new hat.

Fix it Friday

This is my second week participating in fix it Fridays. This is a picture of a precious little boy. Here is the original

 

Here is my edit

And here is my edit using Photoshop Elements 7. This picture I didn’t want to make into a creation type of thing, just wanted to get the most out of the photo without making it look like a painting or a print. I used Level adjustment on the boy only, lightened the face, used blur tool to even out the skin tone, sharpened the eyes, lips and hair, made sky bluer using the soft light layer, created a mild illusion of reflection by adjusting levels around the face and blurring out the edges with a fuzzy clone stamp, enhanced the color of the eye. I cropped the picture as well. I am very sorry to say that I was not able to use all of the actions I downloaded to my Photoshop elements, I can see them, but I can’t use them, very disappointed. So, I’m making do with the bare minimums here :)

So, now is your turn, head over to I ♥ Faces and give it a try.

Since we are on the photo topic today I wanted to ask everyone’s opinion. I’ve been taking pictures with a decent camera and using Photoshop elements for editing only a short time. A friend of mine who’s been self employed as a professional photographer for about 10 years tells me I’m good enough to assist him on some jobs and that he would even let me do some editing. I need the money!   I am excited, but skeptical, here are some pictures I took and edited recently, I would like your honest opinions, please, do you think I could hack it?  I love my pictures because I love everyone in them and they always look beautiful, but that is a very biased opinion :)

      

Thanks guys

We participate in "Pray for Me... Pray for Others" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check out their blog to add your prayer request. Join a community of friends who care about you, and hope you will care about them.

Wordful Wednesday

This carnival is right up my alley. I love to post pictures and talk about them. If you do too, click the button above and join in the wordful fun!

Here is a picture of Maya carefully positioning her sister in the center of her play scene.



You might be wondering what kind of a game she is getting ready to play, well, it's a very exciting game, it makes Maya supper happy.




The game is called find the baby and here is how you play it.

In Maya's own words, "we need to put a small baby in the toy room and surround the baby with stuffed animals, then we walk in the room and say, "Where is the baby?" And she has to make a sound, and then we look for her."

In closing, my baby is seven months old today and here is her picture in one of her new hats. She just learned to take them off, so they don't stay on longer than 10 minutes, but it's long enough to take a picture.

If you guys are not using Windows Live Writer to make your post you must try it. Tho it is entirely possible that the entire civilized blogging world uses it and I just found out about it today, either way it is way better for picture posting, there are size options, tilts even cropping and exposure settings. I edited this post using it just now, wow! You just download it to your computer and write your posts in it, that's it! It has lots of other options too.

More kids for us?

Well, it seems like it would not be such a bad idea, seeing how great my girls are, financially, would be very difficult, but for the most part it would be somewhat dangerous for the baby. I would be running a risk of delivering very early. With Maya I had pre-term labor at 30 weeks. I did not deliver her, but I did have to endure 36 hours of a magnesium sulfate drip. It's Epsom salt, diluted, injected into your veins, for some people it's manageable, for me it was torture. I was in pain, I couldn't breath and I felt like I was burning from the inside, spontaneously combusting. My chest felt so heavy I had to fight for every breath. The doctors decided to give me something to help me sleep, could you sleep if you though you would stop breathing during the night? My body was convinced I would stop breathing, so it fought sleep, I say my body, because I was on complete autopilot. So I stayed up all night fighting sleep while on sleeping pills. I never dropped acid like all my friends did back in the day. Let's just say I had different interests, hallucinogens were not my thing, but I sure did catch up with this experience. Apparently when you don't go to sleep while on sleeping aid, you start to hallucinate, A LOT!
The curtains were crawling around, the walls had eyes and my 12 year old (not a hallucination she looked 12) doctor had snakes for hair. She came in and asked why I was not asleep, I told her I was too busy tripping. That was a horrific experience. Yet, they let me go home, I was 2 cm dilated till 40 weeks and 2 day at which time I delivered Maya.
With Odessa I had pre-term labor at 32 weeks, I was treated with terbutaline sulfate, a much friendlier drug, they gave it to me to take at home. I didn't have any real contractions, but at 35 weeks my water just broke, I was not dilated at all, I gave birth to Odessa the next day, I gotta say it was a completely painless delivery, she was 5lb and 6oz. The pain came later when we were sitting in the NICU watching her struggling to breathe and digest breast milk, pulling out all her tubes just to be forced to have them put back in, screaming from pain when they tried to put in an IV and couldn't get a vein on her poor little hands. My poor baby! She did great tho, really, she was there for only a week, but it was the worst week of our lives. I would hate to see this happen again with another baby. I guess you can say I have difficult pregnancies, also poor reproductive health runs in my family, full hysterectomies at fairly early ages, so I guess that's a lot of strikes against us.
As of this morning I can be sure that I am not pregnant, after 15 months of staying away, aunt Flow is back! We are not going to plan any more pregnancies, if it happens without our planing, that's God's will, can't mess with that! As of today tho, it's two girls for me and I am Blessed to have them.

I got tagged

I got tagged by Nikki B from Life as we know it and now I have to share 6 weird things about myself. And in the end I have to tag 6 other people and hope they play.

1. I like raw foods, not just sushi, there are specialty restaurants for completely raw meals, all sorts of meats. Some people think it's healthy, I just like the taste.

2. I can stand on the roof of a sky scraper and be completely calm, but ask my to get on the step stool and I freak out, I guess it's called a fear of small heights?

3. I refuse to get a blog make over for the fear of not being 100% in love with it and wanting to change it over, so I keep it as is, painfully simple and self made.

4. I keep my Christmas tree up for 3 months.

5. I like milk with my pizza, I know, that's really weird! I also like flat Ginger ale better than carbonated.
6. When people I don't want to talk to call the house I put on a very strong Russian accent and tell them how bad my English is and that I don't understand anything they are saying. Believe it or not saying, "I don't speak English." doesn't work for telemarketers or credit card protection plan people, they need proof!

Ok. now it's my turn to tag people.

Kat from My Turbulent Twenty.
Carey from Life in the carpool lane.
Alicia from Kaylyn... You are my Sunshine.
Alicia from More than words.
Tarah from Eyeglasses and End zones.
Brittne from Our life's journey

Hope you guys want to play!

Not Me Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.
Here we go again, somehow week after week I never run out of silly things I didn't do.

I absolutely did not stay up half the night last night crocheting fancy hats for Odessa. I saw some really cute ones for sale on line for crazy money, so I did not pull out what little yarn I have in storage and crochet 3 fancy hats. I also will not be making the last one today as the snow falls because I have better things to do and she doesn't need that many hats!

I did not cook and eat chicken for four days straight because I really like this recipe and can't get it out of my head, it also doesn't mean that I might be pregnant, this thought has never crossed my mind. Rob and the kids did have some variety during this time, it was just me on the chicken diet.

I am not planing to fry dough again today with Maya. I am not going to start taking out the kid's spring cloths ad getting them ready to wear this week, because it's way too early to do that and because I don't have an overwhelming fear of procrastination and because I don't have it, I have not started a list of things my children need this spring and summer, like sandals and swim shoes. It might be a short list, because I think we are set with everything else.

I love faces

I decided to give Silly girl a try at an edit. She is so sweet, I fell in love with her little face, staring at it for 10 minutes straight, oh, so precious!

Ok, here is the original

And here is my edit, oh she melts my heart. My Odessa is about the same age.

Here is my rundown;

I used Photoshop elements 7

1.Remove scratches and blemish from the shoulder with healing brush.

2.Auto Contrast

3.Level Adjustment to lighten up the face.

4.Sharpen the eyes, eyebrows and mouth, by using Lasso tool -Enhance-Unsharp Mask, settings Amount 50, radius 3.5 pixels.

5.Adjusted Saturation to mellow out the redness in the cheeks.

6.Used blur tool to smooth out the redness of the face and the shine on the forehead

7.Used burn tool to mellow out the sharpness of the flash in the iris of the eye.

8.Added background as an extra layer by overlay, used eraser to clean that layer off the baby, used the fuzzy stroke on eraser tool to soften the transition from baby to background.

9.Used smart brush tool and more detail function to make the face pop a little more.

So, now is your turn, head over to I ♥ Faces and give it a try.

You gonna miss this moment

I wanted to get an early start today on my favorite carnival.
I have so many moments I want to talk about, once I missed and once I did not miss, but it's all good!
To kick things off, I am very happy that I didn't miss the pharmacy's mistake in giving my kid ear drops to use in her eyes. That was some moment!
Next I am so glad that I found Andrea. She's been super helpful with her Photoshop elements tutorial and taught me how to go from this

To this
Andrea was also very helpful with some tips for Maya's speech therapy continuation.
Tammi and Courtney were also very helpful in this matter, I can't thank you guys enough for your input. Maya is in dire need of help where speech is concerned, not so much on paper (testing wise) as in practice which makes it much more difficult to keep her services going.
And finally the funny moment!
I was done giving Maya a bath, the water was draining and I was ready to rinse her off with the hand held shower. I felt the water and it was warm enough, so I started to rinse her off, and she started to play the Diego game. This game goes like this, she is the animal that needs help and I or Rob are Diego, she screams, "Help me Diego!" And we have to help her. The onset of this game can be sudden and unpredictable, it can happen in the supermarket, in the car or in her bed. This time it happened in the bathtub, she starts screaming;

Maya: "Help me Diego!"

Me: "I'm right here, what kind of animal are you?"

Maya: "Help me please, stop the water!"

Me: "Ok, almost done, what kind of animal are you?"

Maya: "A cold one, the water is too cold, help me!"

Apparently, the water got colder as I was showering her, it sometimes happens in our house. She cracks me up with her Diego stuff!

And now that you've shared my moments with me won't you please go over to Pam's blog and join in the fun!

Cheese Cakes

This is my Grandmother's recipe, it's an old Ukrainian breakfast food. We eat it as often as pancakes, I simply love it. I make this at least once a week, Maya loves it and so does Rob.

1lb Cottage Cheese
4tbsp Flour
4tsp Sugar (Vanilla sugar if you have it)
1tsp baking powder
1/2 cup raisins
Pinch of salt

Mix all ingredients til uniform in a appropriate size container.
Shape cheese cakes any shape you like, coat with flour, use flour to prevent sticking to hands.
Fry in oil of your choice on high-mid flame till golden brown.
Serve with whipped cream or as customary in Ukraine, sour cream. Enjoy!
It may not be the healthiest dish by today's standards, but I'm sure it's fine in moderation, you can use low fat ingredients and substitute sugars.

In other news today, I was supposed to get a phone call from the regional manager of CVS and so far no phone calls, I'll wait a week and follow up, I'm not letting this go. This morning a neighbor of mine told me that they messed up his kids prescription too, gave her an adult dose of the meds instead of children's, they caught it and now go to the pharmacy in the local hospital, I'll be going there too from now on. The girls are feeling much better, sleeping better too. Thank God.

We participate in "Pray for Me... Pray for Others" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check out their blog to add your prayer request. Join a community of friends who care about you, and hope you will care about them.

Read any prescriptions lately? The CVS pharmacy story

So a few weeks ago I go to my local CVS to fill two prescriptions one for Maya and one for Odessa. Maya was supposed to get Nasonex and Odessa was supposed to get Bacitracin for the eye. Well, they switched the labels on the drugs, so that the Nasonex was labeled Bacitracin and had Odessa's name on it. So, I caught that, sure I know who gets Nasonex, but my Mom for instance would not know, nevertheless, I didn't make a big deal and didn't even call them, next time I was there I mentioned it to the girl who filled them and she said she fixed it in the computer. Whatever! When I came back to get refills another girl saw the empty containers with wrong labels and thought it was FUNNY. She gave me my refills and I left, never once did I hear anyone express any regret!
Today, after our doctor's appointment, which went well, they are both sick with a virus and Odessa had a fever when we were there, so no shots, they did give me prescriptions to fill for each child. I went to the CVS pharmacy, filled the prescriptions and went home. When I got there I decided to read what the labels said, just in case. Actually, I frequently read the labels, I am not a pharmacist, but I am a chemist and do have an faint interest in pharmaceuticals, not to mention my children's safety. So, what do I see, they gave Maya the drops for the ears and instructed me to put them in her eyes!!!!!!!
She was supposed to get the eye drops for her infected eyes, they gave me ear drops. So, I called them and they say, " oh, it was just a clerical error, bring it back we'll exchange it, don't put it in her eyes"
My Goodness how kind of you! Were they sorry? Not particularly, twice they nearly harmed my kids and no regrets! I called corporate and let them know everything, I have no idea what will come out of it, but I'm looking for a new pharmacy. Thank you Lord for guiding me in the right direction and preventing me from administering the meds! I was so shaken up, I had the bottle open and ready to go, thank God I read the label!

Moving Along

We've been having a tough couple of weeks here, the kids have been sick with little stuff, cold, eye infections, I think the croup lingers too. The baby is up at night coughing, but not really during the day. Got my mortgage statement and it's going up $100 a month, can't wait to see where this mortgage bill goes on the 4th of March, the Congress is looking at it, but I don't believe the guide lines have been determined, maybe we'll fit them once they are. Anyhow, we have a doctor's appointment today for the both of them to see what can be done about the eye infection. I can't believe it just spread like this, the baby had it since she was born due to blocked tear duct, but it never, until now, spread to her other eye or to Maya or me, well I am still fine, I think. So, we are going in today at 2:00.


Maya's teacher told me she would support Maya's speech therapy, but that she would probably loose her preschooler with disability status, which is fine as long as she gets the help she needs. The meeting is going to be scheduled in the next few weeks, so we'll see what happens. Took some cute pics yesterday of the baby and Rob playing his guitar,

Here is one of the baby relaxing on the bed.

I know how blessed I am with a loving husband and my beautiful daughters, but I've been really down lately, because of all the financial difficulties we are having and the absence of medical coverage. I chose to stop working and now it seems I couldn't find a job even if I wanted to, which I do not, since there is no way we can manage without me at home. If I did full time daycare for the both of them it would be disastrously expensive not to mention hard on the kids and if Rob worked any more than he already does, we would never see him. I am really concerned, but I'm sure we'll be ok, no choice in the matter. God willing, we'll be ok.

Thanx for listening or reading rather :)

Not Me Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.
I did not let my 4 year old watch the Oscars last night and she is not still asleep. She has to be out of the house by 9:30 the latest to make the bus, and it's 9:00 now, I could drive her in by 10:00, but I don't have to think about that because none of it is happening. When I was trying to take a picture of Maya yesterday she was very cooperative and did not make this face.




Maya loves to be photographed, especially when I'm the one doing it, here is more proof of that.

She still looks so cute even with the attitude which she does not have.

BTW, we did make it to school, I drove her in, but I meant to anyway, because I had to talk to the teacher about Maya's speech therapy, which the teacher will support, yay!

It seems I can't finish this post today, lots of stuff going on. My grandmother is getting really out of control, she is not well at all and the aid can't handle her. My mother and my aunt are so upset and so am I, but I am sure it's worse for them, I don't know what to do to help, there really isn't anything I can do. I think Grandma will have to go back to the nursing home and I know she doesn't want to, but at this point ....

I know not me Mondays are about fun things, but I am so frustrated and just had to get this off my chest. Another thing I wanted to get off my chest is this, apparently I offended this really sweet woman by a comment I made on her blog and it was really not my intention, I never mean any harm, and I am truly sorry if caused her any grief. I commented on her blog to let her know, I hope it helps.

Back to not me Monday, I did not get unreasonably upset with Rob because he removed the baby's car seat and her little kick frog mirror from my car and didn't put it back in the next day. I didn't then apologize and make him his favorite dinner. What kind of message would that send?

The school nurse did not call the house earlier today and tell me that Maya's eye looks pusy, she probably did not catch this from the baby, the baby has this thing because of the blocked tear duct, I am so calling the eye doctor!

That's all for me, so if you have something you did not do, and you want to share it with everyone, you can head over to MckMama blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

This week Maya told me for the first time that I am the best Mom ever and there was no candy involved, she just sat next to me, hugged me and said it.
Odessa is getting more and more vocal and I swear she said momma at least 2 times, but I know it's not a conscious thing. It's still really neat to hear it. There was no school this week, so we were home and inside the entire time, the weather was terrible, so I am getting cabin fever a little bit. I was taking a lot of pictures and here is a picture of a moment I am glad not to have missed this week. This is Maya looking out of the living room window, asking me if she could marry the boy across the street. He is 9, so I guess she likes older men :).

I had to add to this post because I remembered something absolutely hilarious that happened this week. I was at the library with Maya and Maya had a t-shirt on that read "Ukrainian Princess". An older woman came up to me and said, "Why do you dress your Italian child in Ukrainian cloths?"

I was blown away, before I could come to my senses and answer she was called on by her grandchild and walked away. I called my Mom and told here about it, she laughed, so I started seeing the humor in that, but at first I was like, my "Italian" child?

I'm playing Grilling Goodness

1. What is your favorite family activity?
This is going to sound insane, but with the new baby teething, my favorite family activity is sleeping! Although, when the weather improves it will be trips to the Zoo, Museum of natural history, all sorts of Parks, not the Safari, last time we went Maya got so wrung out she kept saying, "Please, no more animals, let's go home!" But you know you can't just leave till you go through the whole park. Ok, that was a little off the subject, sorry.
2. Do you know how to play poker?
Yes, I stink, tho. Never play for money, I have no poker face, can't lie.
3. Have you ever been to a chiropractor? Regularly?
No. I know it would be a good idea, but no.
4. Have you ever slopped pigs or milked cows?
No.
5. How are you doing with the goals you made for the New Year?
I didn't make any, well maybe weight loss, I guess I'm doing ok, about 10lb left to go, it's baby weight should come off when I stop nursing.
6. Is there something you dread doing every day?
Brushing Maya's hair, she screams bloody murder.
7. What room in your home would you most like to buy new furniture for?
It would have to be my bathrooms, not really new furniture, but they need a make over, seriously.
8. If I had a dollar for every time someone said where are you from, you have an interesting accent, what is it, Brooklyn? I'd be able to go Back to Ukraine for a very luxurious vacation.
(not a question, I know, but it's my game!)

This post is part of "Hi/Lo Thursday" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check out their blog to read everyone else's "Hi/Lo" posts and for a chance to win $100.
Our high was and continues to be that we are all healthy and happy, praying to stay that way. Also I was elated to see Abby come home from the Hospital and baby V doing so well after her surgeries.

Our Low was my Grandmother's condition. She is not doing well, it seems she is getting shingles again and her mind is not what it used to be, please say a prayer for her.

Plumbing made so easy a 4 year old can do it!

Today a friend of mine came over and complained about her toilet, I called Rob and he told us what to do, we fixed her toilet as Maya says "all by ourselth". So, I thought it would be a good idea to share. Ok, it's not that simple, maybe my 4 year old needed to be walked through it, but it is easy and might save you some money! If you have a noisy toilet that runs all the time, or if you have high water bills and suspiciously quite toilets, here is what you can do to diagnose a problem and fix it without calling a plumber.

All you need is food dye,

Take one food dye container, pick your favorite color :). We used blue, if the water in your toilet is already blue, use red or yellow. Remove the top of your toilet tank and drop some food dye in the tank.

Close the tank and do not use this toilet for 1-2 hours. When the time is up check the water in your toilet and if it looks like this,That means you have a leaky toilet and you are wasting water and paying for it. Your toilet doesn't have to make a lot of noise to be running, it can be a very quite leak. If in fact you water turned a different color, you would need to replace this thing,

This plug-like thing is called a flapper and you can get it at Home Depot or any hardware store. Now isn't that easy? I'll post more about plumbing in the future, Rob tells me there are lots of easy things you can do at home to prevent calling a plumber.

And in closing, SPRING IS HERE!!! I took a picture of this guy growing in my back yard, isn't he cute?

Having fun and Thank you

Just wanted to post some pictures I was having fun with today, I have so little time to do this and I enjoy it so much. Kids grow up so fast, before you know it they are in High School, I just want to capture every moment of these stages, kinda obsessive, I know, but I'm just so enamored with them.

My beautiful girl. The caption in the corner reads "Through the eyes of the child, lives the world" Here is my beautiful baby, not having a great time during tummy time.

I hope you guys like these.

I just wanted to tell you all that when I started this blog less than 2 months ago I thought this would be a cool way to stay in touch with friends and family. I thought I would post some pictures once in a while and maybe write a few lines about the holidays we've had. I am so glad that it's so much more than I though it would be. I am so happy to have blog met each and every one of you, it's so great to be in the company of such wonderful people, thank you all for coming here and spending time with me and my family, thank you for praying for us, thank for all your encouragement and for signing up to follow my little blog.

We participate in "Pray for Me... Pray for Others" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check out their blog to add your prayer request. Join a community of friends who care about you, and hope you will care about them.

This week I am asking everyone to please pray for Veiyah's speedy recovery, this little baby needs to come home to her family and her toy cowbra :). My love and prayers go out to her and her family.

This post is part of "Laughter Lives! Tuesday" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check our their blog to read everyone else's "Laughter Lives!" posts.


It's open season on Laughter lives Tuesday!


A few days ago Maya begged me to let her hold the baby, when I agreed she asked me to put the baby on her chest as she was laying down on the couch, I was right there (and so was my Canon) so I agreed. I warned her that the baby might try to teeth on her cloths, I didn't think she would go for her face. I posted a similar picture earlier, but this one is particularly funny, the baby went to town on her nose. Maya was laughing so I took a few pictures before I pulled the baby off of her. Here goes,




If I think of anything else I'll add it to this post, but right now I'm coming up blank and I'm really tired. Good night everyone.

I love faces

I saw this contest posted on Mimi's blog and decided to enter my babies, the theme is Wonder this week. To check out the contest click the button above. Here are the pics I chose.

This is a great theme for Maya because she is such a space cadet!

I'm entering two pictures of each kid, I hope that's allowed, I couldn't find the rules of the contest, I must be very tired. Averaging 4 hr of sleep a night for the last few days.

I know Odessa is wondering what's on her head.

In the moment

I've read a lot of blogs recently of people struggling to survive, loosing work, not finding work, going through foreclosures and all that, of course, pales in comparison with loosing a child or watching a loved one suffer, but it still a horrific experience to live through. When my baby had an accident and I feared for her life, I forgot all about the bills and rejoiced at every little thing that indicated that she would be ok. As we became more and more confident in her being fine, the fears and the "stress" came back. Sure, it's no fun being without health insurance and living on half of what we had 6 months ago, but that's the reality of my family today and there are ways I can help myself and I am working on it, the question is how do you stay calm and be happy in these circumstances? I just have to, I can't or I refuse to live waiting for something to happen to give me a reason to be happy, like my tax refund to come in or a consulting gig to come my way or Rob's business to take off and take over the county :). I can't be a donkey with a carrot on the stick suspended just out of his reach two inches from his mouth. I can't wait and fool myself into believing that happiness will be induced by a paid off debt. We do this our whole lives, in College you just need to get a boyfriend and you'll be happy, than you get one and you are not as happy as you though because he is not what you expected, but it's ok, he'll change when you get married, you get married and oops, he is no different, well maybe we should have a baby and then he'll change, so you have a baby and oops, no improvement. He has not changed, so you figure maybe you should change, so you take a self improvement class and shave your head and stop eating meat, but you are still not happy, so you tell him you want a divorce and he is devastated, he says, "No, I'll change!" But you don't want that anymore, you've convinced yourself that the carrot you are after is divorce, divorce will make you happy. You got a divorce and now you are a single mother with a shaved head and what do you need to be happy? Of course, you need a boyfriend and the cycle repeats...
I am just exaggerating, I certainly hope I didn't offend anyone, but I think you get the gist of what I'm saying. We need to be happy now in this moment, bills, imperfect mates (who is perfect?) and everything. God made you in his image with so much love, so much potential, such glory planned for your life, what you ask God for when you pray is not even half of what he has in store for you. God will give you every opportunity to be happy, the question is; will you? All you need is faith and determination to stay faithful and not let your circumstances get the better of you. That's my approach.

Strike a pose

We took some pictures yesterday and I didn't get a chance to take a look at them till right now, a friend of mine took a few frames of Maya, they were playing model. She did tell me the pictures were good, but I didn't pay much attention, sometimes people are just being nice about your kids. So, I looked at the pictures and wow, she did do good, not that she looks cute, but she followed direction! She never does that with me! I am not much for child modeling, but I think this was a very good picture. She told Maya to show her stubborn. Check this out. My baby sure brought the NYC attitude to NYC, just kidding, she is my sweet little girl who happens to be a pretty good actress. I had no idea.

Not Me Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.
To start with I did not make Maya eggs three time this week for dinner, because that's all she wanted to eat. That would be too much breakfast for dinner and I should have forced her to eat chicken and rice like the rest of us did, but I am just not that good at the forcing thing. I absolutely did not loose Rob's debit card. I'll say nothing more about that because it did not happen. I did not drive to the CVS with a princess crown on my head because I forgot that Maya has placed it there during our princessing this morning. I did not get an extra 2 GB of memory for my PC just to store pictures. I did not eat a pound of chocolate during this weekend of celebration of love and chocolate. That 8 lb I lost will not be back with a vengeance any minute now.

Miracle Eggs

Maya hates eggs, I could never get her to eat them in any shape. Until I discovered this

She didn't like them over easy because they were "hard" on the outside and still not firm enough on the inside. I know, fussy, picky kid. Anyhow, this is very simple, cover the pan with a lid as soon as the eggs hit the pan and the top of the egg steam cooks to perfection. Here it is dissected.

She is liking these a whole lot, ate 2 eggs the other day and was very happy to do it.

Here is my happy customer.

Veiyah is back from surgery and doing well.

We are rejoicing in Veiyah's miraculous improvement, God Is Good! Thank you all for your support and your prayers.

Please PRAY FOR VEIYAH

Please pray for this little baby she is so sick and need us all right now.

Click here to read their blog and twitter entries. We are praying wholeheartedly for Veiyah's health to be restored, for her to come out of surgery soon and for her recovery to be a full and speedy one. In Jesus Name Amen.

My Tribute to Rob

How do I love him let me count the ways.

1. He never forgets an occasion.

2. He always has a sentimental gift ready even if he found it on the street, he still sees meaning in everything no matter how small.

3. He notices every little thing I change about myself, eyebrows, lipstick shade, new shoes, everything.

4. He cooks. (he doesn't have to do it, but it's nice to know he can)

5. He cleans.(he doesn't have to do it, but it's nice to know he can) :)

6. He makes up the best bedtime stories.

7. He surprises me with gifts even when it's not for an occasion.

"I saw it in the magazine and thought it would look nice on you."

8. He is the nicest plumber in the world, he does repairs for little old ladies pro bono.

9. He loves our pain in the neck cats.

10. He rocks babies to sleep.

11. He says "I love you" on the phone.

12. He supports my every decision regarding career or education, even if that means a lesser income.

13. Throught all his struggles he is a believer and I love him for it.

14. He is the best and funnest husband, father and uncle.

15. He is the hardest working person I've ever known, he works half days but he doesn't care which 12 hours he does it! Just a little blue color comedy for you from Larry, the cable guy.

But on the serious note, he works more than 12 hours a day some days and in this economy, I don't have to tell you guys how difficult it is to support a family on one income. He does it!

16. He is always optimistic, even when he is not, he'll make me feel we are ok.

17. He keeps the cleanest cars.

18. He comes from a great family and I love them all with all my heart. (Hi MiMi!)

19. He plays guitar and it's very romantic sometimes.

20. He loves me unconditionally and I know it's not easy sometimes, but he still does it and tells me he'll never stop.

And Now from Maya

Daddy is handsome.

Daddy play monsties with me.

Daddy chase me and take me on the sled in the snow.

Daddy do rock and roll with me.

Daddy got me Tom and Jerry and Little Rascals.

Daddy takes me to the movies and MiMi's house and Auntie DiDi and Rachel and Raymond.

Daddy does letters with me.

Daddy takes me to play with the boys.

I love my Daddy soooooooooo much!

And Now from Odessa

She can't speak yet, so here is a beautiful picture of our Rose, she wrapped herself in my robe didn't need any help to strike this pose.

Bon Appetite Daddy, here's your heart shaped chicken parm and a whole lot of brown rise, just like you like it.

You Gonna Miss this Moment

I just love this carnival!

Ok, this week I'm glad I didn't miss Maya's first Valentine's day card exchange with her classmates. It was too cute, a little boy from her class gave her 2 cards because she is "special" to what her father "the sceptic" said, "What is he trying to say?" That 4.5 year old boy, I'm sure he had something despicable on his mind when he made her an extra card. Anyway, I felt it was adorable, of course, Maya paid no attention to the whole "special" thing. I asked her if she said thank you and she said, "No, but don't worry Mom, I'll tell him after the break."

Here is a picture I'm glad to have captured. I entitled it "ready for solid foods!"

Here is another one I'm glad I caught, I call it "Why must I eat fish?"
There sure is a lot of drama in my house, Rob says he trips over drama every morning when he gets out of bed. Maya is such a drama queen! Not me, of course :).
Here is a pic of my little Valentine she is so sweet!

Happy Valentine's day everyone!

With Much Love, from all of us.

Happy little hands and feet

Here are some pictures of cute little hands and feet and all they can do.

Sweet sisterly loveBallerinaHard at work I got you Mom!

This post is part of "Hi/Lo Thursday" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check out their blog to read everyone else's "Hi/Lo" posts and for a chance to win $100.



Our High this week was Maya's great report card and Odessa's great check up at the nutritionist. We are ecstatic about the progress Maya has made this year in speech therapy.



Our Low this week, we are very blessed, so it's really not our own low, but the entire world's. We are very saddened by the recent bushfires in Australia, we are praying for all to be restored soon. We are saddened by the recent decision of the governor of NY to cut teaching positions in NYC, THAT IS THE LAST PLACE CUTBACKS SHOULD BE MADE!

We participate in "Pray for Me... Pray for Others" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check out their blog to add your prayer request.

I would like to ask everyone to pray for my children, we recently lost health insurance and applied for Children's medicaid, it will be about 2 months before we hear anything from them, please pray that my children get coverage, my oldest needs a lot of ENT care and possibly another surgical procedure, please pray that they get coverage as soon as possible.

I would also like to ask everyone to pray for my little cousin who is at a crossroads in her life, please pray that she makes the right decision in her career.

Report Card

Maya got her first report card, she was graded on 60 different aspects of her performance in pre-K. She did great, 21 Bs and 29 As. That's about all I can keep count of, next year I'll need to create a spread sheet to keep track of this stuff. She was very proud of herself, jumping around in excitement, hard to believe she only got a B in jumping.

This post is part of "Laughter Lives! Tuesday" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check our their blog to read everyone else's "Laughter Lives!" posts.







I don't have access to a whole lot of funny pictures, but here is one I thought was hilarious, I was looking through my last effort to capture the true Maya and oops, what was that? Oh no, this girl did not just roll her eyes at me did she? Four going on fourteen, I got to do something about this!



Here is another one, I was trying to take a picture of Odessa, but Maya couldn't stop fooling around. That's her upside down face in the upper left corner of the shot.

Not me

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.
I want everyone to know that I did not feed my 4-year-old the organic baby food that the baby didn't want and tell her it's apple sauce! It was really great stuff and tasted phenomenal, she liked it too. I did not catch the Croup from Maya, adults DO NOT get this junk!
I absolutely did not encourage the mermaid mania that went on in my home for a few days now even though I thought it was really cute. I did not fry dough everyday, ever since my mother in law showed me how to do it, because it was so much fun for all of us. And I did not gain 4 lb from eating massive amounts of fried dough which Maya could not finish. I had absolutely nothing to do with my computer busting up on me. It now needs a brain transplant aka a new hard drive. I do not miss my photoshop on the desktop I can't use, because I am perfectly fine posting and otherwise distributing unedited pictures.
I am not obsessed with Odessa's feet and hands and did not take 150 frames of the both. And attached below is not one of those pictures.

Winter wonderland

On Saturday we were out in the backyard, Odessa was enjoying her first time on the swings. We have a bucket swing seat which was perfect for my bundled up little bug and Maya was having a great time pushing her. It was getting really warm out and the snow was melting slowly, perfect snowman weather! Of course, since Maya was busy pushing the swing, I had to make the snowman all by myself, though she did find sticks for his arms and rocks for the eyes.

Later she told me he was a prince and she was going to kiss him to bring him to life.
I figured if it works we could have him shovel the driveway, but to my surprise it did not!

New York, NY

I think people often have the wrong idea about New York, well maybe not "wrong" but simplified and stereotypical, for sure. Most people think of New York as the concrete jungle and there is that component present in the complex jigsaw puzzle that is New York, but that's not all there is. I was out in upper Manhattan today just taking the baby for a walk in the park near where I grew up and I had my camera with me, so naturally I used it. I got a lot of interesting pictures and I wanted to post a few of them just to show everyone what I was observing today and how multifaceted just one neighborhood of New York can be.

To support the popular opinion there is some of this present in New York

and some of this
If you are taking the subway you might see thisand if you are out after dark, some of this

and if you are driving over a bridge after dark and happen to be stuck in some traffic, there would be this
However, you might also run across some of that
and if you look up you might see some of that
If you look down you might see some of that

And if you look straight ahead you might see some of that

Although, my baby and her stroller won't still be there, you might see that

And on the personal note, you might come across one of these

and because she is running out of ways to drive her mother crazy, she might be doing something like that in her non waterproof new boots
Oh well, we were not that far from grandma's house, all was restored, wet feet, socks and boots.
That's the New York I grew up in, love and visit often.

Daughters

When I was pregnant with Maya, my now 4-year-old, I for some unbeknown to me reason thought I was caring a boy, so much for that motherly intuition. When I found out I was having a girl, I was surprised, not disappointed or upset by any means, just caught off guard. I was going to have a daughter. I thought about all the things we can do together before she is 15 and smarter than life, you know before the teenage stuff kicks in and Mom is not cool anymore. I thought about cooking together, painting, going shopping, doing her hair, going to the movies, out to lunch, getting our nails done, it's a really long list! However for the first four years of her life all she wanted to do was Rob's chores, sometimes she would grab a Swiffer mop when I was cleaning or try to help me unload the dishwasher and fold laundry, but her favorite chore was washing the truck, she would do that anytime and you didn't have to ask her twice. She would walk around looking for tools to fix her little minivan from the happy family doll house, she wouldn't really play with the dolls or the house, but the "minivan needs repairs" was the game of the year for at least 2 years. Well, it looks like the girly stuff is starting to kick in lately and I couldn't be happier. She told me yesterday that she was a mermaid and that she will no longer walk, but wiggle on the floor from one room to the next. I agreed with scepticism, how would she get up the stairs? But hey, as long as she is not batman and flying upstairs we can deal. So, mermaids apparently like to sit on the rocks and dry their hair in the sun, since our house is deficient in rocks she figured siting on the dining room table with her legs hanging down was sufficient, and the hair drying could also be down under the flood lights instead of the sun. Incidentally the flood lights in our house are conveniently located directly above the dining room tabe, she was all set. And that's how she spent most of the afternoon,

Today, however, the mermaid mania has subsided dramatically, and we decided to make some fried dough, Maya was in charge of dough "roughing up" you'll see exactly what I mean in a moment. I had so much fun doing this with her today and she seemed to like it too, I was very tempted to ask if washing the truck is just as much fun for her, but I held back. I don't think I can handle hearing a "yes" answer to that question, just kidding!
Here is my Little Baker,


It's hard to imagine that after all that abuse, the final product looked like this,

Fried dough with powder sugar and chocolate syrup drizzle, so delectable!

You're gonna miss this moment, moment of the week

Ok, my first time playing this game. I guess my anniversary this Thursday was a very special moment that I wouldn't want to have missed. It's rear that we get a chance to have a proper dinner all together, but to celebrate our eight year anniversary was extra awesome.
Now on the funny note there was another moment that I wouldn't have wanted to miss. I caught my cat stealing olives off the appetizer plate after we were done eating (not before!). At first I thought to shoo her away, but then I said let me not miss this moment and I took some pictures.
Here is one of Lili and her stolen olive.

Sisterly Love

I took a whole bunch of pictures over these past few day, just trying to learn to use this camera, it's a lot of fun and I'm taking more and more ok looking pictures. Unfortunately, I can't fix them right now because my photoshop is not installed on my laptop and the desktop needs some TLC, but here they are anyway, hope you like,

This was taken yesterday in my bed, of course, we didn't know about the Croup yet, although we were told later that babies are unlikely to get the Croup. Matching pjs are a courtesy of Aunt Heidi (much love).




You better not try anything I'm watching you, you baby!

Smells like banana!

Got your nose sis!

The Croup continues

We the Croup is still with us, on the bright side, school no longer is, well, not this week anyway. No school is definitely something to celebrate, though, Maya is not very exited about that yet, we'll see what happens in a few years. Here are some pics from this morning she looks very bored. Hopefully she'll miss school this much when she is in High School.


We have to restore our main computer today and she can't play her Noggin games, very disappointed about that. So, am I actually, not about Noggin, but about having to back everything up and reinstalling all my stuff, though it is a nice way to refresh the machine and reevaluate the necessity of some software. Right now we are using our supper slow little laptop. Everything takes half an hour to happen, but it's better than nothing. Can't wait to have my desk top back.

We got the Croup

This post is part of "Hi/Lo Thursday" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check our their blog to read everyone else's "Hi/Lo" posts.

Our High was our eight year anniversary, today, Maya and I are cooking up a storm, we are making a nice cold antipasto fish with asparagus, brown rice on the side, a nice salad and a banana cream pie for desert, of course Maya is most interested in the desert part of the whole thing.

Our Low was last night at 3am when Maya woke up with a barking cough and whizzing saying to me,"Mom I'm real real sick", than she asked for water, I brought her some, she drank it and said, I'm all better, two seconds later she coughed again and said, "No, still sick!"
I was really freaked out, we gave her some Benedryl and Rob asked her if she would like to watch some TV, which they did till she fell asleep around 4am. I took her to the pediatrician in the morning, he asked me a few questions looked at her for 2 minutes, listened to her lungs looked in her mouth and told me she had the Croup. He told me to give her Benedryl before bed and if she gets another attack at night to have Rob take her outside and the cold air will make her feel better. Then came the most unpleasant part, we don't have medical insurance right now, so I had to pay cash for the visit, ouch! But, I was so relieved to find out Maya was fine, I was glad to pay and get out of there.
Here is our "I got the Croup picture",


My poor boo-boo.

More on diaper rash ointments, my snow angel/Tinkerbell and Odessa's 1/2 birthday!

To respond to a comment I got in reference to the diaper rash ointments review post, I just want to say that yes I am aware that methylparaben is used to preserve Desitin original and as I've mentioned in that post parabens are a controversial ingredient. That being said, Desitin original only has a trivial amount of methylparaben, while other ointments carry a combination of several parabens and a lot less zinc oxide, which means longer healing time, which means more applications of the product, which means a higher exposure to a package of parabens. Of course, none is better than a little bit in this case, but none is not an option, so out of what we have on the market today Desitine original is the best bet.

Here are some pics of Maya making a snow angel, we enjoyed a quick play in the snow today as it was very very cold out, we wished we could stay out longer.

The original Tinkerbell

Last but by no means the least, my baby is six months old today! She celebrated by eating an ounce of mashed banana. Here she is in all her glory,

Happy 1/2 birthday my Love!

We participate in "Pray for Me... Pray for Others" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check out their blog to add your prayer request.

I would like to ask everyone to pray for my kids, pray that Odessa continues to do well after her fall and pray that Maya's speech and hearing improves so that she no longer requires any surgeries or therapies.

I would also like to request prayers for mu friend Sal who is looking for work and has been in and out of temp. assignments for a long time now. He needs a good permanent job.

Diaper rash ointments review

A friend of mine suggested that I post my review here for everyone to read. She came to me with a question and it kind of turned into a review of all products we both had in our homes.
First and foremost she wanted me to explain to her what to look for on the ingredient label. Ok, first would be the active ingredients and their concentrations. In case of a common diaper rash ointment that would be zinc oxide. Zinc oxide is perfectly safe and very effective in creating a waterproof barrier for your baby's bottom. Most diaper rashes are a result of prolonged exposure to moisture and toxins from urine and unfortunately the diaper itself, of course there are fungal rashes too and those should be treated with antibiotics, but that's another story. When dealing with a common diaper rash you want to create a waterproof barrier which allows the skin to heal. Zinc oxide is very effective in this function, it also happens to be a great sunscreen, but it really doesn't matter here because we are applying it where the sun don't shine :).
So, we want there to be a whole lot of zinc oxide and with any luck some other safe and pleasant inactive ingredients.
Hands down, your best choice is Desitin Original, here is a quote from the manufacturer J&J.

DESITIN® Original Ointment is formulated with 40% zinc oxide, in a base of cod liver oil (rich in Vitamins A and D), lanolin, and petrolatum. Its rich, thick formula stands up to diaper rash, providing long lasting protection against wetness and irritants. DESITIN® is so effective, in fact, in a clinical study, 90% of babies with diaper rash had noticeable relief within 12 hours with use of DESITIN® Original.
I could not agree with them more, it really is good stuff. It stinks and it's kind of hard to get out of the tube (I use a jar), but that's just technical difficulties.

Next on our list is Desitin Creamy.

DESITIN® Creamy is a light 10% zinc oxide formula that helps heal and protect your baby's skin by forming a soothing barrier that helps seal out the wetness and irritants that can cause diaper rash. A clinical study has shown that DESITIN® Creamy is as effective at treating diaper rash as DESITIN® Original ointment. Like DESITIN® Original, 9 out of 10 babies treated with DESITIN® Creamy realized noticeable relief in just 12 hours.

Ok, maybe it does help, but if you read the list of inactive ingredients you will see that it contains a considerable amount of cyclomethicone and dimethicone, those are silicones and in the case of cyclomethicone it is most likely not very good for you or your baby, in fact the industry has been in search of an alternative ingredient for some time now, it is suspected to cause liver and reproductive problems in females. Not the best choice!`

Next up is Desitine Clear.

DESITIN® CLEAR™ is the first multipurpose DESITIN® formula that goes on clear. Enriched with vitamins A and D, it helps relieve and prevent not only diaper rash, but a multitude of baby skin problems such as flaky foreheads, chafed elbows, irritated noses, chapped cheeks and dry little feet and toes. It even temporarily protects minor cuts, scrapes and burns. When it comes to baby’s tender skin, DESITIN® CLEAR™ Multi-Purpose Ointment can help relieve it all. In one convenient tube.

Ladies, it is no more effective than petrolatum aka Vaseline, it has additives, yes, some good once some bad ones, really, there is no need for this product and it's not an ointment it is a preventive measure. I can't go into major detail because I don't have a list of ingredients in front of me, but I'd bet my 401K there is silicone in that one too. You see, silicone improves sensory factors of the formulation, it looks better, it feels softer and smoother, but it's not effective in treatment of your problem and it's likely to do more harm than good!

Next is Balmex,

Ingredients:ACTIVE INGREDIENT: Zinc Oxide (11.3%)ALSO CONTAINS: beeswax, benzoic acid, dimethicone, fragrance, glycine soja (soybean) oil, magnesium aspartate, methylparaben, microcrystalline wax, mineral oil, oenothera biennis (evening primrose) seed extract, olea europaea (olive) leaf extract, panthenol, potassium aspartate, potassium hydroxide, propylene glycol, propylparaben, sarcosine, sodium cocoyl amino acids, sorbitan sesquioleate, synthetic beeswax, tocopherol, water

To begin with it has a lot less Zinc Oxide than Desitin Original, which might be enough to tackle and average diaper rash, probably not as effectively, but eventually. However, all the red stuff above your baby doesn't need to be exposed to. Parabens are a family of preservatives found to be carcinogenic. Dimethicones are not as bad as cyclomethicones, but they are also not necessary to treat the problem at hand.

Boudreaux's Butt Paste.
All ingredients are very safe, but there is only 16% zinc oxide, I'm sure it's still quite effective.

Triple Paste.
It seems fine until you see that there is water listed in inactive ingredients, I am sure it's a trivial amount and of no consequence to the treatment, however, if there is water present the formulation it has to be preserved, but there is no preservatives listed, probably because the concentration is very low, I would still like to know what they are! Also, zinc oxide concentration is 12.8%.

That is all the products my friend and I looked at. When I was working I used to make my own ointment, I used zinc oxide, petrolatum, aloe gel, and a nice oil of berries very popular in Russia, called sea buck thorn berry oil. That stuff was great, but now I am a stay at home Mom and I use Desitin Original.

I hope this helps.

This post is part of "Laughter Lives! Tuesday" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check our their blog to read everyone else's "Laughter Lives!" posts.







Here comes the flower girl

When my best friend and Maya's Godmother was getting married, Maya was summoned to be the flower girl. Maya looked adorable.

Unfortunately, the wedding was not going according to plan, the parlor lost electricity and had no generators. It was the end of June, pretty hot and humid outside yet still better than inside without air conditioning. We waited a few hours and then decided to proceed by candlelight. The brides maids and grooms men had made their way down the isle and it was Maya's turn. She walked in the chapel and said very loudly,

" Mom, I'm hot and I can't see anything! I can not throw petals down because I can't see where I have to go!" It was said in the manner of "I can't work like this". The whole room shook from people holding it in trying not to laugh. I put her on the path down the isle and she said, "Ok, that's better"I gestured to her to be quite and the rest of her performance was flawless. The electricity came back on shortly and a good time was had by all.

Congratulations Michael!

During the reception after my nephew's conformation Maya felt compelled to make a speech. She looked like a little angel once more;

Maya insisted on using the microphone and positioning herself in the middle of the dance floor. I expected that she would get shy once she got there, but I was wrong. Maya was very comfortable, she took the microphone and put it to her lips and proceeded to whisper incoherently. I tried to couch her to say, "Congratulations Michael, we love you", but she continues to whisper. Now I was the one getting shy in the middle of the dance floor, trying to pry the microphone out of her little hands. Finally she gave it up and as everyone applauded she suddenly screamed from the top of her lungs, "Happy Birthday Michael, we love you!" She was a big hit at that party.

These next two fiascoes didn't take place at a family event, but I'm posting them anyway.

It's a bird, it's a plane, no it's....

When Odessa first came home she weight in at under 5lb, she was tiny and very yellow. A visiting nurse came the next day to check on her. The nurse put down her things and set next to me. Odessa needed a diaper change, so I laid her down on the couch where I had a changing pad, coincidentally that was also where the nurse had set down her purse. As I was changing her diaper Odessa sneezed and a big load of florescent, yellow, stringy, breast fed poop flew out of her butt and landed right on and in the nurse's purse. I was mortified, the nurse thought it was funny.

In the shower

It was a snow day and my husband was staying home from work, school was cancelled, so all of us were home enjoying family time. Maya was very excited about playing in the snow.
I was cleaning the kids bathroom and Rob was taking a late shower, in our bathroom. My cell phone rang and Maya picked it up. It was my auntie, she asked Maya if I was home.
Maya, "Yes"
Auntie, "Can you give her the phone please?"
Maya, "No, she is in the shower."
Auntie, "What about your Dad?"
Maya, "He is in the shower too"
Auntie, (I hope with disbelieve) "What are you doing?"
Maya, "I'm going to play in the snow!"
By then I heard her on the phone and came downstairs to see who was on the line, my aunt was very amused.

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

This is my first time participating in the Not Me! Monday! I am very excited!

I want to say that I did not almost miss my daughter's bus this afternoon, again! For some reason the bus was late and traveling on a different route.

I did not drive way out of my way to my mother's house yesterday just to get a memory card for my new camera, so that I could start taking beautiful pictures ASAP, NOT ME!

I did not forget to put some money aside for the much anticipated Home Depot bill. And when confronted about it by Rob, I did not come up with perfectly sound explanation and recovery plan short of nothing but a power point presentation. And when walking away from me Rob didn't say: "You forgot all about it didn't you?", no he didn't.

Guess what my new Canon can do

Here are some awesome pictures we took yesterday while visiting my friends and family in the big city. A great time was had by all.

"Grandpa, look, I got Maya's face."

"Got your hand Grandpa"

"Look at me, I can sit!"

I love my Great Auntie

Watch me dance!

Maya, Venus and Jose




Fun in the cadge


My beautiful friend

This post is part of "Hi/Lo Thursday" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check our their blog to read everyone else's "Hi/Lo" posts.

Our high for this week would have to be how great Odessa is doing since her fall, the e-mail I got from Maya's teacher saying how great Maya is doing, the fact that my grandmother continues to get better, the very fun day we had yesterday staying inside while it rained and snowed, the new Canon my husband got for me and all the blessings in my life which are absorbed by every day's rat race and generally taken for granted. Here is to never taking anything for granted!

Our low for this week and it has been a really blessed week for us, must be not getting the message from Maya's school about class cancellation and bundling everyone up, sliding on thick ice down the steps and across the driveway, warming up the car, driving to the bus stop, sitting there for 20 minutes before saying to myself, something must be going on. Duhh! Checked my messages and what do you know? There is no school! I hope we never have anything worse happen to us ever :-).

Inspired

We participate in "Pray for Me... Pray for Others" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check out their blog to add your prayer request.

I wanted to request prayers for my children, for their health and general well-being. I also wanted to request prayers for Kayliegh Ann Freeman, many of you know of her story, here is a link for those who do not http://www.kayleighannefreeman.blogspot.com/. Thank you all.


I wanted to share something with everyone after reading today's post on the Riggs family blog, we are praying for little Abby everyday.
I came across this poem the other day. It's really a loose translation of the work of a very famous "Russian" poet and song writer. For those of you who are familiar with the original material, please forgive the liberties I am taking in this translation, unlike academic translations, mine are mean to transform the feeling of the work rather than the precision of the meaning of each word.
Here goes,


While the Earth is still moving,
While the sunshine can fall
Jesus, please give to everyone
Wherever they need to be whole.

To a smart one give an opportunity,
Let the generous put his missions on hold,
To the lost return purity,
And please don't leave me out in the cold.

While the earth is till moving
Jesus, the power is yours,
Please give to everyone,
Whatever each one deserves.

To the lonely give friendship,
To the happy give some gold for the glee,
To the cruel give compassion,
And please don't forget about me.

I know you can do anything,
I trust your eternal advice,
Like a fallen solder believes
That he is brought to Paradise.
Like every ear listens
To the quite words that you speak,
Like all of us sinners believe,
Not knowing what we seek.

Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior,
Your name we engrave in gold,
While the earth is still moving
And fears to come to a halt,
While it is still possible
For the sun to shine till brisk night,
Please give to everyone
And don't leave me out of your sight.

I couldn't resist posting this picture, say, "cheese face".

This post is part of "Laughter Lives! Tuesday" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check our their blog to read everyone else's "Laughter Lives!" posts.

Our 4 - year old daughter Maya loves to hug her little sister Odessa who is 6 months old. She hugs her and says, " Oh, my baby, my sweet cuddly baby, I missed you so much. You are so good, like Lili."
Lili is our cat and to Maya Lili is paramount to all other beings sweet and cuddly regardless of what species they are.

Learn to code anyone?

Ok, so I was trying to code before and it really didn't work but practice makes perfect and I am almost done with my new and improved 3 column blog. I am still working out some things, like the title picture and such. In this process I figured out how to give myself more room in the two columns that I have, to widen the post column and the sidebar. Interested?
Here goes:

Go to Customize, then to Edit HTML and scroll down in the Edit Template box til you find this;

/* Header----------------------------------------------- */
#header-wrapper
{
width:820px;
margin:0 auto 10px;
border:1px solid $bordercolor;
}

Of course the font will be different but the point is to find that 820px, that is the width of your header, change it to whatever you see fit, lets say 950px

/* Header----------------------------------------------- */
#header-wrapper
{
width:950px;
margin:0 auto 10px;
border:1px solid $bordercolor;
}

Next, scroll down more to find the following (this is going to get scary now, but have no fear, I have absolutely no technical background when it comes to coding, yet I figured this out, so you can too!)

Outer-Wrapper means the width of the entire blog, posts and sidebars included, make it same as the header 950px.

/* Outer-Wrapper----------------------------------------------- */
#outer-wrapper {
width: 950px;
margin:0 auto;
padding:10px;
text-align:$startSide;
font: $bodyfont;
}

Main-wrapper means the width of the posts, change it to whatever you like, but remember the width of the post and width of the sidebar have to be equal to or smaller than the width of the header. If you overshoot you will run your sidebar off the page, in which case you can just make it smaller and it'll come back.

#main-wrapper {
width: 550px;
float: $startSide;
word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */ overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */
}

#sidebar-wrapper{
width: 250px;
float: $endSide;
word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */ overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float

The numbers I picked here are just random numbers you can choose your own, but basically that's how you can get yourself some extra room on your page, get a custom made look and do it all on your own. Sure, you can pay someone to do that and then some, but where's the fun in that?