Tap Out Time With Urijah

This week I had the opportunity to photograph Urijah, his mom, and his brother. We had a great time at the gazebo park where Urijah's parents were married. A special location for a special day :).

Urijah was named after WEC fighter Urijah Faber. We thought his dad would like the above shot!


Just one week old. He was the perfect model. I think he only opened his eyes once - lol!

Glamma, the rose shot is special - just for you!

This is Urijah with his big brother, and what a great big brother he is! He loved the baby and was so gentle with him. (Well, if you overlook Urijah's right arm cutting off his air supply - lol!)


He's his mama's little angel, for sure!


Family time.


Aunt Lindsay gave Urijah this monkey. These shots are for you, Lindsay! I hope you like them!


Urijah and his beautiful mother.

And, yes, this is Gator country! I had a great time with this family. I think when Urijah has a chance to grow a couple more months we just might try this again! Thanks for letting me document your beautiful son's first days!

Week #29, I ♥ Faces at the Beach

The challenge this week at I ♥ Faces is "At the Beach." I immediately thought about a trip we made last summer - my daughter, a friend of hers, and myself. We had a great time and I took a ton of photos. I had a hard decision to make in choosing just one photo to enter today. This is the one I decided on. Even though you can't see water in the background, we were at a beach about an hour from our house. This shot was taken on the boardwalk steps leading down to the beach itself. You can pretty much see a summary of our day etched on those two smiling faces. We had a great time! To see a whole bunch of awesome beach shots, or to join in the fun, head on over to I♥Faces and check them out!

Welcome to the Ranch

It is time for a little update. Last week I showed you some pictures of a piece of property we fell in love with and placed a bid on. Well, the transaction went smoother than we could have ever expected and we closed on Friday.

Kali missed all this because she was in North Carolina at Worldview Academy. We wanted to surprise her when she got home. We closed on Friday morning, and that afternoon Mark went out to the property and mowed the whole thing so it would look awesome when Kali got to see it for the first time the next day. She has wanted a place for horses since forever! Jason moved into town awhile back. I'm not sure what he's going to think about horses. We will have to wait and see.

In case you didn't read that post, the land is completely cleared already. It is totally fenced in and there is a beautiful barn already in place. The barn has five roomy stalls and a enclosed corral. It is a short ten minute drive from the house. It's perfect!

This is how it looks after Mark finished the mowing - 3 1/2 hours on his little John Deere lawn tractor. Our big tractor is at the hunting camp and will be coming home tomorrow to make mowing in the future easier and quicker. We've talked with Jason a bit about the property, but he hasn't see it yet either. Hopefully he will be able to come out later today to get a look and help us make some plans. I'll post more later and show you pictures of Kali's initial response to our surprise :).

Father's Day Drum Line

This came from Heather's blog. Her husband is the second from the right. Heather said they made this song up on their own and put it together for Father's Day at their church. I love it! Great job, guys! (You can check out Heather's awesome photography here - she will be homeschooling this coming up year, too, so you might want to touch base and give her some encouragement :O)).

Fix-It Friday #21 at I ♥ Faces

It's time for Fix-It Friday at I ♥ Faces. They provide us a photo from one of their contributors. We take the photo and edit it any way we wish and post it.

Here is the photo they gave us this week to work with.

This was my first edit. I lightened it up a bit, sharpened it, and worked on the eyes to bring out the color. I used PSCS3 to add a little fun solar flare.

Next, I reversed the image and turned it into a black and white photo.

Lately I've been playing with mcpactions coloring book - the cocoa twist action. In this last photo I was going for more of a dark feeling. Not good for every photo, but I thought it worked here with this particular one. This young man has some great dark eyes that I think really pop in this last edit. To see how others edited this great photo, visit I ♥ Faces.

The Start of Something New

Welcome to the ranch. Mark has been looking at property for sometime. Awhile back I posted some photos of a 10-acre tract we placed a bid on. After two months, the deal has fallen through because the seller couldn't meet the terms. So we went into search mode again. Tomorrow morning we will be closing on the above pictured piece of property.

This 2 1/2 acre lot is just under ten miles from the house. It is pretty much everything we were looking for.

The property is completely fenced, cleared, and ready to go. There is a nice animal-ready barn with five stalls.

There are two stalls on each side and one across the back.

Roomy and spacious.


In front of the barn is an enclosed grassy section where we can turn animals loose while we clean out stalls. The hope is to get two horses to ride and one miniature horse or donkey for me to play with.

This is a side shot of the barn, but you can get an idea of the open grazing area inside the fence, yet outside the barn.

It's got a nice, high metal roof.

The barn is a really nice plus in this piece of property. We figured we would have to build a barn over time, as well as clear land and put up fencing. Thankfully that has already been done. Tomorrow night we will be looking at our first horse. Hopefully in the next few weeks I'll be able to show you some animals on our new land :O).

Lazing By The River

This evening I had the opportunity to go on a photo shoot with some photography friends. The hope was to teach me how to shoot in manual, but we never quite got to that point. I came home, looked at photos, and downloaded ones I want to work on. I really liked this particular photo - probably my favorite from this session. Here I edited it in Picasa 3 and PSCS3. Then I started playing with a new mcpactions.com program I got recently and edited the same photo with Urban Cover Model. I like the way this turned out also. Not sure I could duplicate it, but I like the way it looks :).

I have had a few people comment that when they look at my blog, the right-hand side of my landscape photos is being cut off. Thanks to those who responded here on the blog, or through emails, to help me figure this problem out. The answer is resolution settings. All my photos are saved at the highest resolution in order to get the best quality I can. I keep my computer set at 1280 x 800 pixels. You can find that on your computer under 'control panel' - 'settings'. If you are having trouble viewing my photos, you might check your resolution. A higher setting will make ALL your photos look better - not just mine :). Thanks!

Precious Little Feet @ I ♥ Faces

These little feet belong to Holland and aren't they sweet! I added a little soft focus from Picasa to blur out the edges and bring the focus right down to those little feet resting in his mama's hands. What a treasure! To check out some more awesome feet, head on over to I ♥ Faces and join in the fun! To check out more shots of Holland, go here.

Perpetuum Jazzile Performs "Africa"

What an incredible group! They are called Perpetuum Jazzile. This musical group provides all the instrumentation with their voices. I had to turn my volume all the way up at the beginning of the video, then turned it down as I listened through. Awesome. Listen to it a second time with your eyes closed!

Now listen to this Slovenian choir perform Eres Tu. They do add in a keyboard for this one. Beautiful!

Last one. This one takes me back to my disco days - with a BeeGees medley. They have other YouTube videos if you want to check them out. Perpetuum Jazzile, Slovenia's only jazz choir.

Congratulations, Wesley!

I had the opportunity recently to photograph the graduation of Wesley's high school graduation. He and his family are homeschool friends of ours.

I have always found Wesley to be a Godly young man - absolutely the best 4-H chaplain I ever knew! It was my honor to photograph his big day.

The graduation ceremony took place at Wesley's church. The crosses in the first photo are actually two pictures of the same cross, just different editing jobs. This cross can be found hanging on the wall behind the pulpit in Wesley's church. You will probably see it throughout these pictures.

The service began with some praise and worship songs selected by the graduate. These lyrics just really seem to fit the young man I know.

There were several speakers. They told their impressions of Wesley and they gave him advice for the future based on scripture.

At one point, Wesley gave his testimony, then he played a gorgeous selection on the piano. I didn't even know he played and was totally blown away listening to him. I thought it was cool that his piano teacher was at his graduation :).

Then the awards began and they were many. I know your family was so proud of you, Wesley!





Wesley's diploma was presented by his aunt and a gentleman that I believe is the mayor of Wesley's hometown.

Then we were off to the reception hall for some seriously good food! Wasn't the cake cool?

The ladies went all out on this meal. Is was great!

Wesley's mom making sure everything ran smoothly.

Can you say, "yummo!"

One thing I noticed is that Wesley was surrounded by a big, loving family. Everyone was comfortable with everyone else. It was fun! This is his mom and dad - is she a hoot! or what?

With both parents :). . .

. . . and his brother (who really didn't want his picture taken but was a good sport about it anyway.)


(These are my favorite pictures from the whole day - Wesley with his grandfather.


Not the best shot in the world, but check out the dynamics between the people. Such fun!

Mom and her two sisters.

And now we have this little compilation of photos in case you ever need to know how to orchestrate a family photo - lol! I love Wesley's mom. She is so much fun! Congratulations, Wesley! Thanks for letting me share in your big day!