My life...just not on the road I expected (but it's still dang good).

Super Nanny failed us.

No, I'm not away on a honeymoon (I wish).  I'm just buried with work and deadlines and my first online class (which is full of the coolest gals ever).

I'm going to be a better blogger though.  Really.  And I should have wedding pictures to share next week.

Had a really unproductive day yesterday.  You know those kind of days where you work all day, but you don't really get much of anything accomplished (I have lots of days like that).  Went to bed last night thinking that I just needed a good nights sleep in order to have a productive day today.

Unfortunately, Annie had other plans for me though.

She usually goes down for bed pretty easily (but not last night).  Josh laid her down and within minutes, we could hear the sound of her little feet scampering down the hallway.

I watch Super Nanny (only because watching it makes me feel like my kids are really well-behaved) so I knew exactly how to handle the situation.

The first time she got out of bed, I said, "Hey Josh, I'll handle this, I watched Super Nanny the other night." and then I took her by the hand and calmly said "It's time for bed now love." and plopped her back down in bed.  And just like it happens on Super Nanny, she was back up within minutes.  So I took her by the hand again, shortened my dialog this time like Super Nanny recommends and said "Bed time."  The third time she got up, I didn't say a word, I just took her back to bed.

And it went on and on like this for about 20 minutes until I walked down the hallway to find her screaming, "But Mommy look, I've got buuuurgers!" while pointing at a stream of snot running halfway down her chin (sorry, too much information, I'm sure).  So I wiped her nose without saying a word and started to lay her back in bed.

And while she was trying to catch her breath from crying and trying to wipe the tears from her eyes she softly said "Mommy, lay with me peez."

And that's precisely the point in the show where Super Nanny stands in the hallway of the bedroom and rolls her eyes for the cameraman as if to say to the audience in her lovely Brittish accent, no wonder this child behaves so poorly!

I crawled in bed with her, stuck my forehead up against hers and whispered in her ear for a few minutes.  And then she said "Peez rock me like a tiny wittle baby." (her new favorite thing is to be called a tiny little baby) and so I did.  And then I just laid there for awhile, loving on her until the mental image of Super Nanny rolling her eyes at me was more than I could bear.

When I got up, she lost her mind and I told Josh he was going to have to take over.

I think she was finally down by 9:00.

I went to bed at 10:00 (to get my good nights sleep) and hadn't been in bed for more than an hour when I heard those little footsteps coming down the hall again.

And the whole thing started over again (except Super Nanny and I were on the same page again and I was determined to make her proud). 

Josh had taken over by midnight and each time he came back to bed, he'd lay down, snuggle right up next to me and start snoring in my ear (which is a very sore subject in our house).

By 1:00am, I was ready to crawl out of my skin.

By 1:30am, Josh had been banned to the couch and and Annie was crying it out for the last time.

Just got everyone off to school and I'm getting ready to start my very productive day (on 4 hours of sleep). 

 

Took this one of Annie showing off her new Baby Legs a couple weeks ago.

Man, I love that girl.

 

Married.

I thought I was going to be a bride with a camera strapped around her neck all day.

Didn't quite work out as I had planned though.

But, I did manage to get this one (back at our hotel room after the reception and after I had taken all the bobbi pins out of my hair)...

Thanks for all the congrats.

My Sister is here...

My Sister and her husband Jesse are in town (from Seattle).

We spent yesterday morning out at my Mom's place.

I think my Sister's favorite  thing about coming to town is the daily iced Kahlua Kicker she gets from Dutch Brothers (a local coffee chain).

The girls were singing Little Bunny Foo-Foo with my Sister.

Once we pried Coley off of the video games, he took off for the creek.

Courtney Lee spent most of the morning on the swing hollering "Look at me!"

And this little one spent most of her morning in Uncle Jesse's lap.

And my Sister with her first "real" camera (I even got to go down to the camera shop to pick it all out for her - a Canon Rebel and a 50mm f1.4). 

I think I'm more excited about the whole thing than she is though.

And...I have strict orders from my Sister that starting today at 3pm, I am officially OFF of work for the rest of the week (the wedding is on Thursday).

I'd better get busy (lots to accomplish before 3pm).

Just found these ones...

It's funny, if I don't post pictures right away, I forget about them.

Stumbled across these this morning though and was so happy to see them.

Annie and I went downtown a couple of weeks ago just to get out of the house for awhile (rare that it is just the two of us).

Just a few minutes into our little adventure, she spotted a baby in the toy store window.

And I couldn't say no (it came in that little basket which opens up like a bassinet).

Oh, and she insisted on putting her own shoes on (the wrong feet of course).

And (not the best photo ever) as soon as we got home, she had to call her Daddy to tell him about her new baby.

And I owe it all to one man...

Jason Radley (my best friend Jill's husband); who single-handedly brow-beat me for years until I finally agreed to start shooting RAW.

I had been shooting JPEGs since I got my first digital camera and I was quite happy  with the results I was getting.

Most cameras come from the camera shop, set to take JPEGs.  They also come from the camera shop set to automatically sharpen your photos and increase their contrast & saturation.  All intended to give you great looking photos straight out of the camera.

So, when you take a JPEG, your camera first increases the sharpness, contrast and saturation of your photo, deletes any file information it deems insignificant and then compresses/flattens the file in order to fit more photos on a card.  And viola, you've got a JPEG.

Unfortunately, when your camera deletes this "insignificant" information, it is deleting information that is vital to anyone who does much photo editing.

Shooting RAW prevents your camera from deleting any file information, which results in huge files, but allows the most control in photo editing.  When you set your camera to capture RAW images, there is NO in camera sharpening, contrast or saturation boosts, which means that straight out of the camera RAW photos look worse than JPEGs (this was really hard for me to get used to after shooting JPEGs for so many years).

You have to have a special program to read RAW files (I have Adobe Camera Raw which is part of Adobe Photoshop CS3).  So, I download my RAW files and open them in Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) where I do some general adjustments to all of my photos (you can select multiple photos to edit simultaneously).  Once I have done those adjustments, I save all of the edited RAW files as JPEGs.  Then, in Photoshop, I select my favorite photos and do some further editing.  Usually using actions (my favorite combination is from Totally Rad Actions; 10% Derelicte, 25+% Oh Snap, 20% Boutwell's Magic Glasses and 20+% vignette and blur).

And then I save an edited version of my photo.

So here's what that process looks like:

The first photo is what my unedited RAW file looked like straight out of the camera (remember, RAW files usually look worse than JPEGs because they have not undergone any in-camera sharpening, contrast or saturation boosts).

The second photo is what my RAW file looked like after I edited it in Adobe Camera RAW.

The last photo is what my RAW file looked like after I converted it to a JPEG and applied a few actions to it.

All that said, shooting RAW is definitely not for everyone.  JPEGs are ready to print as soon as you download them, no photo editing required (unless you want to).  RAW files require conversion and need editing.  Therefore, shooting RAW is really for people who consider photo editing a part of their regular workflow.

Now that I shoot RAW, I wouldn't go back to shooting JPEGs (but again, I was quite happy with my photos prior to shooting RAW).  I take a ton of photos, so sometimes, the photo editing side of things can start to feel a little daunting.  But overall, the time I invest feels well worth it as shooting RAW has really helped me to grow as a photographer (so thanks for pestering me into doing it Jason Radley).

Photo editing is not currently a part of the Photographers' Workshop.  It's a big subject that really deserves its own seperate class (not sure if I'll ever be up for the challenge of teaching a class like that, although for now, I'm not ruling it out).

Have a great day.

Cabaret

Ross and his friend Ashley performed at the High School last night.

Cole and Courtney went with me (although Courtney was asleep by the fifth song).

Ross and I have been having a bit of a tough time lately, but watching him up there last night kind of put things back in perspective.  He makes raising a teenager so easy on me and I need to remember to cut him a break on the little stuff in return.

And answering a few questions:

1. Annie's polka dot leggings from yesterday's post are called Baby Legs.  You can find them in a ton of colors (for boys and girls) online or in baby boutiques.  She loves them.

2. I used a variety of lenses in yesterday's post.  All of the baseball stuff was shot with a Canon 200mm.  It's a nice lens, but for the occasions when I need a long lens (primarily sports) I would rather have something more versatile (like a zoom lens with a wide maximum aperture), so I don't recommend that particular lens.  The pictures of Courtney and Annie were shot with a Canon 85mm.  It's a really nice portrait lens, but it feels too "close-up" for everyday shooting.  Josh shot the pictures of me on Mother's Day morning with a Canon 24mm.  It's a great lens when you want a wider view of things.  Everything else was shot with my 50mm (my favorite lens ever).  Canon makes three versions of it's 50mm lens (f1.8 for about 90 bucks, f1.4 for about 300 bucks and the f1.2 for about 1300 bucks).

3. I use preset auto focus points to make sure my images are sharp (which we'll be covering in the Photographers' Workshop).

4. I will try to do a little before/after post-processing post this week on Coley's baseball pictures.

5. Pajamas are my all day, everyday work attire (I must own 12+ pairs).

6. I sent out emails to all of the students currently registered for the June, July and September Photographers' Workshop.  If you paid/registered, but did not receive one, please email me at karen@snapshotsofagoodlife.com.

7. The waiting list for the Photographers' Workshop is really long, so I won't be taking anymore people on the waiting list.  I am hoping to offer more classes in 2009 though and will send out information via my newsletter (you can sign up for it or double-check that you are already signed up for it in the upper right hand corner of my blog).

Have a great day.

The weekend.

Lots of photos to share from the weekend.

Coley's baseball game on Saturday.

And some goofing off with the girls.

And a great Mother's Day morning.

Coley gave me a packet of tea and a hand-made card (he wraps himself up in that pumpkin blanket every single morning - glad to have a picture of it).

Courtney Lee gave me her favorite coloring book.

Annie gave me egg-crate flowers she made at school.

And Ross gave me a note with an I.O.U. in it (2 free hours worth of packing class kits for me).

And those empty frames in the background...they've been empty for 4 years (it's too big of a decision for me to commit to).

That's more of my Mother's Day loot (ergonomic wrist supports for my photography/typing induced tendinitis, the movie P.S. I love you, popcorn, red licorice  and a bunch of love notes).

And then we spent the afternoon at my Mom's (where I managed to fill a 4G compact flash card with nothing but photos of Annie).

Annie and my Mom.

Annie and G.G.

Annie and Papa.

Annie and Grandma Jo.

Annie and Grandma Bev.

Annie and Josh.

And another one of Annie and her Papa.

Happy Mother's Day

   

I love you Mom.

And for all you other mom's...

The Mom Song

Random Annie stuff.

I'm still alive & kickin (just busy).

I had a few random things rattling around in my head about Annie though and wanted to jot them down.

1. She's really into sunglasses right now (those ones are from Gymboree).

2. She's just a tiny, little 27 lb. pipsqueak (and at least a couple of those pounds are in her cheeks).

3. She and Josh have a new game called Dude or Chick.  Josh names a friend or family member and she shouts out whether they are a "Dude" or a "Chick" (it's crazy-funny).

4. My Mom told her she couldn't have anymore strawberries the other night but when my Mom turned her back, she got up on a stool, grabbed a sharp knife and started cutting her own strawberries.

5. Her pediatrician thinks she is having night terrors.  She wakes up screaming every night about 3 hours after we put her bed shouting things like No, it's mine or Let me be.  We're going to try waking her up for a week or so, about 20 minutes before she normally has them to see if we can't change her sleeping pattern.  Poor little thing.

6. She's really hard to get a good picture of lately.

7. She has to go to bed every night with her zebra (which I brought home from London), her caterpillar (that Grandma Jo got for her) and a baby.

8. If I say Annie, you're being a pill, or Annie, you're a little stinker, she says I yar not, I yar a tiny baby.

9. When I woke her up this morning she asked for a bottle (she hasn't had a bottle in over a year).

All things considered...

All things considered, registration went pretty well yesterday.

It certainly was not error-free and I apologize for that.  I don't think I have ever heard of a website launching without errors though, so I was kind of expecting it.

I am still trying to wade through a sea of email, invoices, etc. and trying to get everything cross-referenced for accuracy.

One of the biggest problems I have come across is that I am receiving emails through both my personal email address and the new business email address I have set up through the website which has created a bit of a tracking and cross-referencing nightmare.  Several times now, I have sent an email to someone from one account only to find that in the meantime, I had received another email from them in my other account (which made the content of the email I just sent them outdated).

I don't know if that even made sense, but the bottom line is... I am still trying to get caught up on all of the email correspondence that began yesterday (I'm guessing it will take most of today to get through).  If you have more than one email in to me, I could easily be responding to an older email of yours in my personal account before even noticing a more current email from you in my business account.  So please bare with me if I appear to not be up to speed (I will eventually get up to speed).

If you have already emailed me and are waiting for a response, I will be sure to have it to you by the end of the day.

I will also continue to work on class rosters and any necessary refunds today and am going to hold off on taking any more names on the waiting list, as it is already too big and I don't want to get anyone's hopes up.

Thanks for all the encouragement and patience yesterday.