Welcoming myself back!

Look who is back?!!  That's right it's me!  Balancing work, family, school and a blog is some serious business but I need a sharing outlet!!!  I love photography and editing so I am getting back in the creative groove! 

As you can see my babies are getting much bigger!  Time seems to have flown by.......

They are all in school now, in fact Kindergarten graduation is coming up next month for my two babies!  Next thing I will know is they will all be in high school, so very crazy!

In the last two years our family has survived a deployment:

This is a picture of the DVD he sent home reading a bedtime story for the little kids.

Took a trip to see my best friend in Texas to take my mind off my husband being gone

Once he came back home we underwent major basement remodeling to add two more bedrooms to our house.  Before:

 After:

Then in a freak four wheeler rolling accident my husband managed to break his leg:

it may have been a clean break but the fact that it broke through the skin meant crazy metal rods holding him together!  6 months later and he was walking again.

As you can see in this picture he is having to use a walker to get around.... It is also the last picture that I have of my grandmother, the following november she passed....  as well as the last picture of my uncles girlfriend who passed about a month later than grandma....

All this and it was football season!!! Showing some 12's pride even without the super bowl win but did support my team and my coffee habit while attending classes at Western Kentucky University

 While my sister was having my newest niece I got to babysit this little man:

Despite earlier accidents daddy got right back up on that horse so to speak:

Now here it is post tax season and with work at a slow down, summer classes are not due to start until May 18th and a whole and healthy family.....We are blessed!


So in ending here is one more picture just because my niece is beautiful

Grief overshadowing the holidays this year

I haven't done well on my blogging last few months, I accepted a new job position with H&R Block as an office manager and my time has been so consumed by training and children when I am home that this blog has taken a back burner to all that.

This time of year is usually a fun filled time of happiness with lots of family get togethers.  This year has been so strangely different.  The weather although colder hasn't been what I call winter Christmas season weather (don't get me wrong I love for work and travel reasons that it hasn't snowed) and for some strange reason it just hasn't gotten me in the same spirit of the season. Then last Monday (December 19th) I read in the evening that my sister had little ones at home with the flu on her Facebook so I made sure to keep checking her status updates hoping that everyone would be doing better.  By Tuesday she had written that one of her kids it was hitting harder than all the rest and so she had to take him to the Dr where he had given the baby anti-nausea pills and sent back home. Wednesday December 21 I was at work trying to get some cleaning done at the office when I read that Josiah had to be taken by ambulance and I remember posting that its always scary when its a little one I hope he gets better.  What I didn't know at the time was that he hadn't gotten any better with the meds given by the Dr the night before and as they were preparing to take him back to the Dr he had suddenly quit breathing.  He was with Jesus before the ambulance even got to their house and so they were unable to revive him.  I broke down in tears at work I still am having a hard time not crying at the thought of a child 4 years old being taken so early in his life. (you can read my sisters story on her blog: Duckygirl's recipe for happiness)
I have a shaky relationship with my sister but felt the call so deep inside and so strong that I needed to be with her so I made preparations for the 7 hour trip there.  Friday I made my way with my husband to Illinois to be with her leaving my 4 with other family and to hopefully spend Christmas happy if not with me.  I didn't arrive up there until after midnight so Saturday morning I went to her house.  From 10-4 I was visiting with my sister something that we hadn't done together in over 7 years.  We hugged alot and shared stories of kids.  She has such an unbelievable awesome support system up there to where someone is there for household chores and someone is assigned meal drop offs and I am relieved that she is so well taken care of in this time.  I had planned on staying however long I was needed for but was told that it added additional stress to an already bad situation so I left but had done what I felt was needed of me.  I told her she was loved and gave her so many hugs and got to be there for her even if it was only for 6 hours.  I still wish I was there but feel that pushing the issue might make more harm than good in our relationship but also felt if I had sat at home and not gone that it would have been seen as more unfeeling and caused harm so the trip was good for us.
We pushed home that night and made it in about midnight again, Christmas morning we were up and heading out once again to pick up my children when 30 minutes away from home my van lost all connection to the transmission.  Had to get someone to rescue us (thanks to my husbands mother) and changed vehicles to his truck.  We had a beautiful time with my family and the kids, good food, lots of visiting and presents but my thoughts were still with my sister in Illinois.  We had to come home and visit with my husbands family that evening so more food, visiting, and presents and when we had all our family at home we just collapsed exhausted.
Today Monday December 26th my nephew that I never got to meet will be laid to rest and I am crying so hard today thinking of my sister and how hard today will be on her... Please keep that family in your prayers today! 
My husband is spending the day collecting our van and seeing what can be done to fix it.  I hope that I am able to be on here more but starting January 2nd I will be working 6 days a week.  I may help put my mind to something else than thinking of the little boy in heaven now and the birthday he was to have January 3rd

edit me week 17

Well its that time again to post my edit me contribution.  This weeks photo is from Jill over at jill samter photography:

As per usual I edited with Adobe Photo Shop Elements 7
I did alot of little steps to this photo starting with adjusting the levels and then the S-curve.
I straightened the photo and cropped it, added a photo filter to the sky to make it more blue after adjusting the color to make it a faded look.  I added Coffee Shops frame and Bam! Here is my edit:

check out other edits on Branson's page:

I know I am behind on posting my edit-me submission but I TOTALLY spaced it Wednesday and with working Tuesday and Thursdays this was my first chance to join in! So here goes: The photo this week is submitted by Stephanie from behind the camera and dreaming
I did A TON of steps to this photo but mostly I didn't want to blow out the red on the baby so I adjusted the levels first once regularly and the next time just lowered the red channel.  I then ran a CoffeeShop action called baby powder room to further reduce the redness on the babies skin and make it look more soft and the S-curve action to make the colors POP just a bit more.  I used a Pure action called Soft Summer and masked off the baby so the background was softened and then used an Everyday action called vignette and sharpen to further sharpen just the baby and soften the edges of the photo. I finally cropped the image to a 5x7 size and here are my results:

my goal was to make the child sort of glow in light while the background is softer and darker to place more emphasis on the child.... I think it works for this picture and makes for a nice clean edit

check out other edit-me's at Branson's blog:

Edit Me participation!

I have to make this a quick post as I have a class to teach today for work but here is another lovely adorable even picture from Jamie given to us to put our edit magic to work!

and this is my final edit:

I did several things to the photo in Elements 7.  I adjusted the levels and made curves pop with Coffee Shop action curves.  I also used Coffee Shops action called baby powder room on the skin of the girls and the Urban Grit action 25% on the rocks.  I also used a Pure action called Pure soft summer to give it a little Glow effect.  I hope that hits on everything I did LOL... I was going for a nice color edit that showed off all the wonderful color in the photo and the fun relationship between the girls!
check out more Edit Me's at Bransons blog:

Many changes this week.....

I have been absent from the blog more than usual and am soooo very late in my opinion to linking up with the edit me challenge but here goes:
This is the original photo given to work with from Amy

and then of course this is my interpretation

 I started by adjusting the layers (in photoshop elements 7.0)
I also used a couple CoffeeShop actions... first s-curve and then urban grit on the boat.
I ran a couple Pioneer Woman actions as well edge burn and changed the color to blue and then lovely and ethreal and did the lighten layer over the dock.
I then used a copy layer of the background with an artistic twist opacity about 50%
finally I added a Kim Klassen texture called canvas love in lighten mode

So whatcha think?
Check out other edit me submissions here:

Now onto the changes in my life! Goodness the biggest change is that my boss at work quit and moved thus leaving her position open for the taking. So I am now officially the Office Manager! wow and yikes all in one. Assuming this role at this time of year means lots of catching up cause I have a class to teach to get new tax preparers in the office and all this is new to me. And I bought myself a laptop... first thing I did was install Elements LOL Well life is gonna get just a bit crazier and I'm still trying to not have that change my blogging world too much!

Edit Me week 13

After a week of guest judging I am glad to be able to participate in the editing part of this fun link-up!
Here is a photo taken by Amber from Amber's Articles

it is a very moody storm chasing picture and this is my interpretation:

lets see if I can remember my steps now LOL
first thing I did was adjust the levels that seems to be a favorite to do first for me.
then I also did a layer of levels with everything but the ship masked off so that I could lighten just the boat some
I ran a Pioneer Woman action called Lovely and ethreal and used the lighten layer on just the sea
I added a photo filter of blue to tint the color some
I next cropped the photo
I ran another Pioneer Woman action called Edge Burn and adjusted the height of it so that it didnt darken the photo back up and put it on about 45% opacity
I ran a Coffee Shop action called S-curve to pop up the color just a tad more
Finally I ran a Coffee Shop action called Sun Kissed to put the lens flare on it.  I put the flare on the edge of the cloud peaking out and then removed the orange tones layer and contrast bump layer.  I also played with the opacity on the lens flare layer itself.
I think that it added a sense of optimism to a dark and moody picture and the crop style I used more like a panoramic view cause I can see it framed and on the wall in the long style like that.
and of course if you would like to see more edits of this lovely photo please stop by Branson's blog and check them all out!