Stoneyville: January 2011

yay no shots!

Addison had her 9 month well visit today. She as a little cold but otherwise she is doing great.
Weight: 23.4 lbs 97th%
Height: 28.5 inches 80th%
Head: 18.4 inches 97th%
She is staying about the same as far as percentage for weight and head, but her height dropped. Looks like she got my body shape, poor poor child!

Showing off her mad standing skills and trying to grab the camera all at one time!
Yes we are still cloth diapering, they were just in the wash so we had to pull out the sposies.
Speaking of skills, just last night she finally figured out how to pull herself forward instead of pushing back when she is on her tummy, just inching forward. Well today she is pulling herself forward like a mad woman and even pulling herself onto her knees. I mean I don't even get a day to process or prepare, man this little boogers learn fast!

Also we have entered the I Heart Faces, best Jan face. If you would like to vote for us (please?) go here and we are number 145! Voting in open from tue to thur night, THANKS everyone!

I Heart Faces, best of Jan 2011

This is from Addison's 9 month photo shoot, it is my favorite photo of her from January 2011.

I am submitting it for I Heart Faces Favorite face of January 2011!

We are #145 if you would like to vote for us!

S&E week 4 original ~ red

So here is my picture for "red". I was sitting on the floor playing with Addison and she lost one of her balls and it rolled over to where I was sitting. So I decided to snap a picture of it. I probably should have lowered the shutter speed a little but I had just been taking pictures of a moving target so it was set on 1/100.

SOOC:
Canon Rebel XTi with 50mm f/1.8 lens
f/1.8 1/100 ISO 400

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

Ir's that day of the week again, Sunday Scavenger Hunt day. Hope you enjoy my perspective and for more Scavenger Hunts click on the link at the bottom.

Buttons ~ pretty self explanatory, our remote.

Fog ~ This one is out of the archives, it is from our honeymoon in TN. We don't get a lot of fog at all living on the coast so it is pretty rare to capture any. This is actually the only fog I have ever photographed I am pretty sure.

Seventies ~ Action for Pioneer Women, however I think that shirt could possibly pass of for a shirt from the 70s? Maybe?

Beverage ~ COFFEE, my favorite beverage ever, I thought I would change the perspective and put it in a highball glass.

Texture ~ This is a two fold texture, I love the texture of this dogs coat and then I layered 2 textures from Kim Klassen to compliment the colors in his hair. (she has great textures and a lot of them are free!)

Dinner time

Addison loves to go pretty much anywhere, but she especially loves to go out to eat. She likes the attention she gets. She likes sitting in the big girl highchairs, and eating food, and watching and making faces at all the people that walk by.

She loves the fact that she gets her own menu to choose from. She spends a lot of time trying to find the perfect meal that includes at least one veggie (that is mom's rule for eating out).

She also can use it as a substitute for food if they take to long to make her meal.

She also spends some of the time she is waiting to text all of her friends, she has gotten pretty fast with the typing now that she can coordinate both hands.

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

After she is done eating the waiter usually brings her a big balloon that she can squeeze and hug and squeal at.

and beat herself in the head with.
We don't get to go out nearly as much now that we have Addison. One, it is so darn expensive, plus we have to go out super early since she goes to bed by 7 every night. When Carlton is working I always cook since he doesn't get home until Addison is in bed, there is no way around that. I do love to get out and have someone else to everything and just get to sit back and enjoy my food without having to think about prep, clean up or any of that, it is just a fairly rare treat these days.

9 months

Happy 9 months little boogie!
I know I usually say you are growing so fast but I think technically you have actually slowed down on your growing this month, which is good since you are always in the 99th percent.
You are however developing a big personality. Not that you didn't have one before but now, you let it all hang out. You demand what you want when you want it and sadly enough most of the time you get it. Maybe that is why you are still not really any closer to moving, if you want something you just scream and whine enough and I get it for you because I get tired of hearing the whines. Boy are you good at whining!
You also excel at eating, anything and everything we give you. All solid food that you try you like and you get very mad if we don't offer you some of what we are having. You are finally getting the hang of puffs and we found one sippy cup you will actually drink out of. Of course it is a pink one with a Disney princess on it, a shower gift that Mommy thought was sorta ugly. We tried probably 10 others and this is the only one you will drink out of. Stubborn you are!
This month you have developed a LOVE of standing. You want us to sit in front of you and let you pull up and stand holding on to our fingers all the time. If we don't you get very mad and whine. You also like to bounce up and down and "dance, dance" while holding on. Every one in a while you will let go and fall on your butt, you actually seem to like the falling part, and you do it multiple times. It's good I guess, teaching you how to fall once you are up.
You got 2 teeth this month! The last one actually came through today. You haven't had any real teething symptoms like Mommy hears others complaining about, maybe it is the amber teething necklace that you wear all the time. Mommy was a little sceptical at first about it but it seems to really help.
You are babbling more than ever. You love to "talk" to anything, you call for the dogs in the morning and you scream at them on a regular basis to get their attention. Your new favorite thing is to say Dadadada over and over in different pitches and lengths. I'm not 100% sure we should consider that your first word but you do say it an awful lot. You also learned to wave hi and bye this month. You actually did it for the first time at a dog that walks in our neighborhood. Now you wave at everyone.
You love to be social but you can also get a little shy and hide your head in our shoulder if you are unsure, it is super cute!
You are such a great baby and we love you to pieces!
Love Mommy and Daddy

Oh and also since it is your 9 month birthday Mommy decided to bring out the dreaded EVIL purple dog to see if you had gotten over your fear of her.

NOPE.

S&E week 3 part 2: the edit

So this was my original photo, very very dark. I was a little scared for this week. I always seem to have problems making my dark pictures turn out okay.

So for the edit I followed pretty much 99.9% Ashley's prompts. I opened my picture in PSE9 but as a RAW file (which I had never done, why oh why had I never done this, it makes a TON of difference when fixing the picture!). I adjusted the heck out of it in RAW and then I decided to send it through Noiseware that I downloaded for free after I saw the link to it on Paper Heart Carmera last week. It is great, and free, you can't beat that! Then I took it back to PSE9 and did a high pass filter and tweaked the levels, contrast and brightness and all that jazz. I then used the correct color cast (another thing I had never used before) and then I tried adjusting for skin tone but I didn't like how it turned out. So like I said I pretty much followed Ashley's prompts. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. I am always a little scared to make it to bright/light. I never seem to know how light to go without going overboard.

I'm learning so much about editing with this and it is only week 3, YAY!!!!

playdate

Our neighbor has a little girl I who is about 3 weeks younger than Addison. Before the girls were born we were friendly with each other but never really friends if you know what I mean. We both didn't find out the other was expecting until we were both like 6 or 7 months along. After that we started talking and visiting (southern for going over and sitting on each others front porch) more. Then once the girls were born we actually became good friends. We now have weekly play dates for the girls. It is so fun to watch them interact and now that they are older they actually enjoy it.

I think Addison is much more intrigued by I than I is with her. She always spends the first part of the play date just watching I's every move.

This week they came over to our house (our houses are next door, literally). I is moving like crazy, crawling and pulling up so Addison spends a lot of the time watching her since she is not moving yet.

They both kept copying one another, it was really funny. One would get a toy and the other would want the same toy or one would make a certain sound and the other would copy her. It is really neat to see two babies around the same age and developmental levels interact.

Addison is a little more vocal than I and I is defiantly more mobile that Addison, we are hoping they will teach each other the things they are good at. It's great being able to let them play even though we are both stay at home moms. I think it is very important that Addison get out and see other babies her age.

Oh and Addison tries to "stop" I from moving around by grabbing her and holding on. I mean if you can't join em stop em right?

So much fun to be had!!!!

Parenthood

This weeks theme over at 2babycakes for Perceptive Perspective is Parenthood. Wow, that is a tough, broad subject to take or pick a picture of. Parenthood is so many things, love, patience, understanding, joy, hurt, pain, and the most precious thing I have ever done in my life, hands down! There are so many things that say parenthood to me but this is one of the pictures I kept going back to. Simply taking the time to BE with your child, that is parenthood in a nutshell for me.

click here to join

I Heart Faces: Innocent Wonder

So many of you have seen this picture before but it is one of my favorites!! I am entering it in I Heart Faces: Innocent Wonder. I think it fits perfectly. What says innocent wonder better than my little one playing in her hamper. I mean she gets so much enjoyment just sitting in it and watching the light and shadows move over her hands as she waves them around. She literally sat in the hamper for 30 minutes and was fully entertained. That is a wonder to me!!!

Happy OALAYWI day!

So today is officially Addison's "out as long as she was in" day. And yes I made that name up 100%. What that means is she was "cooking" for the same amount of time that she has now been an official member of planet earth.

Today Jan 24th. 38 weeks 6 days post arrival.

Born April 27th after 38 weeks 6 days "cooking"

Her first ultrasound, okay not exactly at the moment of conception but I don't have a picture of that (I mean really?) this is the closest I could get to it.

Strangely enough today is also the 1 year anniversary of what would have been my due date with our first baby, Peanut. He (I always thought of Peanut as a he) would have been one today (well if I had carried him full term) and I don't think it is a coincidence at all. He is Addison's angel watching over her. So today is a special day.
Happy out as long as you were in day little one!!!

Shoot & Edit week 3: Good Night

Every night was have almost the same routine. We get a bath (well every other night for that) then we get in out pjs, we pick out a book and we sit in the rocking chair in Addison's room and read her book and rock for 15 minutes before it is time to get zipped up in her sleep blanket and go to bed. Nothing says good night to me more than this. Especially now that she is more interested in the books and has learned to turn the pages.

SOOC:
Canon Rebel XTi with EFS 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II
f/3.5 1/50 ISO 800

I was suppose to have my new lens (50mm f/1.8) by now, but the company I ordered it from sent me an email telling me it was shipped and then when I looked on their website the day it was suppose to be delivered it had been changed to back ordered and I had not gotten notification. So I canceled that order and ordered it directly from the manufacturer so it should be here this week. Annoyed does not even describe it, I want my lens!! Patience is not one of my best virtues. I just thought I would throw that in to explain why the picture is so dark. Plus it is night and Addison's room is really dark and we don't have a good lamp in there, (it helps her sleep). Otherwise I really like the picture, it defiantly captures our night.

Best friends

As you know we have 3 dogs and 2 cats in our house, plus a baby. Yes we are crazy. Out of all the animals we have Addison and our American Bulldog Showtime get along the best. The cats stay away from her if at all possible, the French Bulldog is just scared of her (and very very slow....mentally), and the Jack Russell is too cool to have anything to do with her (and she is a bit of a jerk so we try to keep them apart).

Overlay from Pioneer woman

So it is just Showtime and Addison that play together. Showtime is the kind of dog that just wants to please you and get attention, perfect for a baby!