Christmas Light Bokeh

For my many non-photography readers, bokeh is "the visual quality of the out-of-focus areas of a photographic image, esp. as rendered by a particular lens."  In other words, is that great blur in the background, or the areas not in focus.  Christmas time is a great time to utilize pretty lights in the background to create a lovely backdrop for your subjects (my subjects are Kayla and Brody obviously.) :)

So after having a pretty crappy Christmas Eve and Christmas, I realized I didn't take any pictures of my kiddos on Brody's first Christmas.  Therefore I spent the next day or two making up for it, and practicing my photo skills.  The lighting and white balance isn't quite right in the photos, but they are 
alright.  I'm still learning. :)

I shouldn't have put them as far away from the tree as I did.  I think if they were closer to the tree, I would still get that cool blurry lights effect, but it would fill more of the background.  You only have so much time to play with an infant and a toddler. :)

Then while they napped, I learned how to create my own custom-shaped bokeh.  It was so cool, and I was pretty excited to try to make custom shapes behind my kiddos when they woke up.




So when they woke up, I tried to get pictures of them with the custom letters behind them...

Overall, I was excited to learn and try something new.  I obviously still have a lot to learn, but it was fun.  And here are a couple outtakes that make me laugh.

Brody was crying so Kayla was shushing him (hence the mouth) and trying to calm him down.  I can't help but laugh at this picture.

Tender Moments

There are so many things I tend to complain about.  I like to think there is a smattering of both good and bad on this blog.  Part of me wishes I could be like my favorite blogger, Kelle Hampton, and focus my blog on all the beautiful things in my life.  But then, I think that the not so pretty parts of life are what make the other parts beautiful.  (Plus, who doesn't like to know that they are not alone?)

Yes, I'm not getting that much sleep.  Yes, searching for a first home is frustrating.  Yes, I wish we made more money.  But today, in the back of the car on our way home from her haircut, Kayla reminded me what's really important.

I looked back and she was holding Brody's hand in his carseat.  He had been crying and she wanted him to be happy.  So she just reached over a held his hand for the rest of the way home.

Granted, when I went to take her picture she quickly let go, but I love that my kids quietly love each other so much.

Who Needs Sleep Part Deux

Good God, I'm tired.  And so very very frustrated.  I'm an honestly doing my damned-est to stay positive through all of this but it's becoming increasingly difficult.  Many of you followed me through my sleep troubles with Kayla, and Brody is turning the same direction.

I'll tell you something, he only eats once a night between 7 and 7-7:30.  This sounds fabulous right?  Until I tell you that he wakes up about 3 times at least besides those times.  And last night, it took 2 hours to get him back to sleep (which is has NEVER taken, since he's been born.)  I'm still staying as positive as possible since today he started rolling from his back to his stomach, so I'm guessing that is part of the problem.  I'm also pretty sure he's getting his bottom teeth.  And I KNOW he has a lot of gas.  

I think the gas is the most frustrating for me because I can tell it's really bothering him.  Especially at about 5:30 am when he's screaming in pain.  Every day.  I think more than staying positive, I'm just trying to enjoy the time when he is little, even if there are some things that are a real pain in the ass.  (I'm really praying that the doctor doesn't tell me to give up breastfeeding next week to help with the gas.  I hope she has a different solution because I'm not quite ready for that.  But I have a whole other post stewing in my brain about sleep and breastfeeding...sort of.) :)

In other, much nicer news:

Over Christmas, friends of ours were in town from Washington DC.  I met E when I was training for my first Team in Training event, the Nation's Triathlon.  She and T had just moved to DC and we clicked right away.  Plus she's an MU grad and from the Chicago area.  We haven't seen each other since her first son's first birthday (he's now 2.5...well almost).  Her son share the same birthday!  How crazy it that.  It was really great to see her and her little family.  I can't wait to see them again!

Here are some pictures I snapped (and she took a few too).  

Kayla loved dancing with Erin to the jukebox tunes. 

Kayla and J loved the light switches.

And the phone.

This is E and T's second son, G.  :)  That's a lot of letters for you.  He's a month older than Brody...but smaller ;).

I'm glad I was able to snap this adorable picture of J.

Almost all of us, minus G who was napping. :) And clearly Kayla needs a nap.

New Year, New Goals

I've never really made New Years resolutions, but I wanted to make some small goals for myself this year.  After our family grew by one this fall, I just felt the need to reprioritize my life and really focus on what I want to get out of it.  I'm going to take a page from my very wise and not very much older sister and try to do a goals check-in every month so I keep my goals at the front of my mind.  

1. Physical health: 

• Eat better:  We are doing really well with weekly meal planning and I'm actually learning to like cooking.  I want to keep this up.
• No more than 1-2 diet pepsi's a week (I have an obsession, and I don't like tea or coffee...and I'm tired a lot.)
• Start back with working out.  I haven't quite decided how I want to go about this one but I'm going to start with Jillian's Michael's 30 day shred this month and I'd love to find some spin classes near me.

2. Emotional health:

• Spend less time watching t.v. and more time making sure my kids, my husband and myself are happy.  This makes it sound like I don't pay attention to my kids which is the opposite of true.  I've just been feeling pretty overwhelmed with everything I want to and need to do.  I think the root of my problem is how much t.v. I like to watch.  I just need to cut back.
• Get out with my husband or alone at least once a week.  This is for my whole family's good.  I will be much more tolerant and tolerable to be around.  (Now I need to find some baby sitters I can call on at a moment's notice.)
• Try to spend more time on my blog.  It's not that I want to be a really popular blogger or anything.  But I do really love my blog for many reasons: a. I get to vent and get my frustrations out and share woes with other mom friends of mine, b. this is where I go back to when I want to remember something specific about Kayla/Brody from the past.  It's like my own personal memory bank and I don't want to slack off on that because I know I will regret it later.  (This is another reason I need to watch less t.v.)

3. Personal goals:

• Photography:  I was going to potentially start the 365 Photo project (still debating whether I can feasible keep up with this.)  I desperately want to take classes and actually earn a photography certificate or something (this is just how I believe I would best learn) but if nothing else, I'd like to try to find 1-2 new techniques each month that I can learn about online and practice.  
• My 101 list.  I've been seriously slacking and I want to bring it to the forefront again.
• Really focus on trying to progress my career in the direction I want it to go.  I know I only work part time, but I love my job and I still want to be able to move forward.

I want to be a whole new Melissa this year - a better mommy, wife, daughter, sister, friend.  I want to set a really good example to my kids.  That's what's important to me.

(Oh I would also like to buy a house with my husband soon.  That'd be great.  Brody would like his own room (a.k.a. Mommy would like Brody in his own room. Not that I don't love cuddle time, but I think he might sleep better.)

Here are some random photos.  Brody seems to like tummy time and Kayla seems to like to do tummy time with Brody.  So I get lots of pictures of them there. :)

P.S. Do you like the new blog look?  Justin actually helped me with this one. :)

Brody Lawrence: 3 Months

Brody turned 3 months old the Friday of the Sandy Hook shooting (talk about a bad reminder but at least everyone will know when that was.)  I'm so blessed to have happy, healthy kids, even if I have to put up with a lot of crap behind the scenes.  :)  Here's a quick update

Weight: I stepped on the scale to weight myself, stepped off the scale, picked up Brody, stepped back on the scale (no? No one knows this reference?  Probably my sister and my husband at least... :)).  Anyways, you get my drift.  He was about 16 pounds based on the bathroom scale but we'll see at his 4 month appointment this month.

Length: No idea.

Head Circumference: Lots of brains...

Physical Milestones:  Brody started rolling over tummy to back intentionally the week of his 3 month birthday.  He has only done it a few times but I'm 100% sure he's doing it on purpose.  I just think he likes to be on his tummy so he doesn't really try to roll over.  He also is trying really hard to scoot during tummy time.  He pulls his knees up under him and pushes as hard as he can.  Too early little man...  He hasn't really tried to roll from back to front yet.  He really doesn't like laying flat too much.  He likes to stand/sit with someone holding him: he's becoming very needy.

Eating:  He's eating about every 3 hours now.  We've been working really hard over the last two weeks to try to get him on a 3 nap schedule, which is hard when he doesn't want to nap more than 40 minutes at a time. 

Sleeping:  Night time sleep took a turn for the worse, exactly like Kayla did at 3.5 months.  Over Christmas week, when we were sick and stressed and overwhelmed, he decided to wake up every 1.5-2 hours all week.  We resorted to swaddling him again which seemed to help for a while but now I'm not sure.  Because he has definitely found his hands and has been working on using them during play time, so swaddling I think really pisses him off at this point.  He's basically only eating once at night between 7 and 7, but sometimes wakes up more than that one time and has to be put back to sleep.

Nap time is progressing in the right direction.  Like I said we are going for a 3 nap routine: naps at 9ish, 12-12:30 and around 3:30 ish.  Some days he is great at this.  Some days he needs four naps because he will only sleep for 40 minutes.  I figured out today that not swaddling and laying him/propping him on his side seems to work.  He really loves sleeping on his side, not his back or stomach.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a baby to STAY on his/her side while sleeping?

We are definitely getting there.  Not gonna lie, I wish we could get there faster, but I'm enjoying my happy go lucky little guy while I can.  We are pretty darn sure that the days he doesn't sleep well, it's because of gas.  This is super frustrating as there isn't much we can do about it.  The main thing that seems to be helping is BioGaia probiotics.  The doctor also suggested 1/2 oz of water in the am and pm, which we've tried but haven't noticed a TON of difference.  I'm pretty sure it isn't my diet since he had terrible gas the day I didn't eat anything because I had the flu.  Babies are a mystery.

Brody also has a hard white shaped object in his mouth.  It appears to be a tooth, but I'm not really sure what's going on with that.  I'll probably see what the doctor says in a week and a half.  It's crazy, but it sure seems like it's a tooth in a molar position.  And man does this kid drool.  

I took 3 month photos 2 separate days.  The first day, Kayla was wanting to be in every photo and Brody wasn't as happy as normal.  The next morning I took some more of Brody while Kayla was still sleeping.   This is clearly the best way to do it.  :)

Kayla in the way...

Christmas socks to correlate the time of year with his monthly photo. :)

He loves watching Kayla and she always makes him smile.  #meltsmyheart

I have a small enormous obsession with his feet/toes.  I have no idea why.  Maybe it's the way he puts the soles of his feet together and clasps his toes like he's praying with his feet.  :)

Trying to get some cute toes shots...

drool...

He's really quite a happy baby.

Funny faces. :)