New pics and a freebie!

I was finally able to get a fairly good picture of the brothersbad together today. Yay!! So now the header to this blog is no longer outdated. Thank goodness for that. My munchkins love to be difficult when it comes to me taking their pictures. Today I was lucky enough that Daddy was home to help and Gatlin was more interested in his movie than me photographing him.

Here are some pics from a few weeks ago when both boys were mad at me. They were not in the mood for me to be taking the pictures but I did it anyway. I absolutely love these pictures. they show so much personality.

I love photographing my boys! Well on that note I would also like to add a freebie here for you. This one is a set of two actions that I created in Photoshop CS5. These are my go to actions for resizing images for facebook. I created two actions, one for horizontal pics and one for vertical pics. I did it this way so that I can just select the appropriate one and it resizes automatically without opening up any dialog boxes. These will resize your photos so that they are 500 pixels on the longest side at 72 ppi. I hope you find them useful. Click here to download.

Getting ladled

It's always sheer craziness around here and today was no exception. First off we needed to head to the grocery store for groceries. Those trips are always fun as we caravan through the aisles with separate carts for each of the boys. Generally all of the food or anything else that can be easily destroyed goes in Draiman's cart so that it is safe from Gatlin. Well today we learned that things are not much safer with Draiman either. Today he decided that he must pull things out of the cart and chew labels off or throw things out of the cart as we headed down the aisle. Lots of fun!

After hitting both grocery stores it was nap time for the boys. Luckily for us they both fell asleep in the car on the ride home. The good news here is that we were able to unload the van and put away the groceries with out any fuss. Then after the boys woke up and dinner was over, I decided to make a peanut butter cake. I've never had peanut butter cake before but a photographer friend gave me the recipe (yes we share more than just photography tips) so I thought I would give it a try. Of course during the prep of the cake Gatlin started freaking out because he wanted the rubber spatula. My boys are always stealing my kitchen utensils!

After I got the cake in the oven I washed off the spatula so that Gatty could play with it. Yes I let him play with my stuff because it keeps him entertained and I plan to teach my boys to cook one day anyway so the sooner he gets used to the utensils the better. As it stands one of Gatty's favorite movies right now is Ratatouille and he loves to act like he's cooking. So all was going well, Gatty was playing with the spatula and Draiman had a ladle, then the next thing I know BAM I get smacked upside the head with the ladle. It did hurt but man did my husband and I get a laugh out of that one. John told me I "got ladled!" So I sit here typing this with a mild headache from Draiman "ladling me" but I wouldn't change my life for anything in the world.

Stand up baby

It never ceases to amaze me how fast children grow. I swear it seems like just yesterday I worried that we were going to have to deliver Draiman early at 29 weeks due to pre-eclampsia issues and now my little guy is all over the place. You can't even keep him in one room any more. He's crawling all over the house and now he's all about standing too. He constantly wants to stand and he will pull himself up where ever he can. Unfortunately for him hard wood floors don't make for very nice tumbles but no matter what he still keeps getting back up.

We purchased a big play mat in the hopes that it would help cushion his falls but it doesn't work very well when the little guy won't stay on it. He seems to want to play every other place but there. Even if I put most of the toys on the mat he still has to move elsewhere. I must say that I admire how resilient children are. No matter how many tumbles he takes he just continues on.

Missed you.

 Oh how I've missed you. Lately I have been so caught up in family stuff, reunion stuff, and photography stuff that I have completely neglected this blog. I need to balance my time better. There's so much I want to say and it seems I never get to typing it out. Some how this has got to change. This blog is important to me and for that reason I need to make a better effort of posting here.

I don't have many followers and I don't really know how many of you are reading this but it's still important to ME. I enjoy writing about my boys and everything that I post is just more documentation of their lives. Time passes by so fast and I know that I will enjoy looking back through these posts later. So it's just like everything else in life. I need to prioritize and schedule things better.

In just the time that I have neglected to post my babies have grown so much. Gatlin is looking more like a little boy and less like my little toddler. He seems to have calmed down some and now he's not near as uncomfortable with new people as he used to be. Draiman is all over the place now. You can't keep that little guy still for anything. He's crawling all over the house and trying to get into everything. Now he's all about standing up. He still can't stand all by himself but it's only a matter of time before he will. It's just crazy how fast they grow.

Hold the Green Beans

Today I attempted to feed Draiman some green beans baby food. Yeah well that didn't go over very well at all. This was even worse then the day I tried to feed him squash. He started off making the weird faces and then turning his face away from me when I tried to feed him. Then next thing I know he's all fussy and mad because he wants to eat but does NOT want those green beans. So in the end I had to throw out the green beans and feed him some rice cereal with apple juice. Usually he's not picky but he just was not having those green beans today.

Messy Boy

Here's my messy boy. I just caught him right after he finished eating lunch. When I say caught him I mean it. He was running around and shaking his head so that I couldn't get his picture. This time I won the battle though. I managed to capture this messy shot of my handsome boy. It's definitely a keeper if you ask me.

Draiman Baby

Mama's little baby is growning up so fast. Just looking at these pics you can see how quickly he's growing and changing. As I've said numerous times before I just can not believe how fast time flies by. It seem like just yesterday he was my tiny little newborn and now he's rolling all over the place and starting to crawl! I can't keep him still for anything. He's always been a mover and shaker but now that he can actually roll around and move where he wants for the most part there isn't much stopping him. I anticipate that it will only be a short time before he's officially crawling everywhere. Look out world, here he comes!