Notice the temporary header change? I made this “Celebrate Tori” header the same day I made the other one and have been saving it in anticipation for today! Today is unoffical official severance day!!! I say unofficial because techncially severance occurs at the adoption hearing but as far as legal recourse goes…all the timeframes have expired. Sometimes it takes a little bit to get all that worked out so we have been anxiously anticipating the arrival of this day. I did not expect there to be an issue in this situation but having this done with is still cause for CELEBRATION!!!!! So for a little bit, I am going to slight the boys a tad and celebrate my daughter in the diary header. (I’ll bring them back soon enough LOL). The formal adoption should occur sometime in May or June. Looking forward to that day (though I feel so much better that there is no longer anything in our way). Thanking the Lord for His great mercy with this!
And Susie…yes I know that you want to see her Easter dress but I haven’t had time to play with those pictures yet. Maybe tomorrow I can work on it?
I am so mad at myself tonight because I have to totally recreate my layout above because I accidentally saved the original version in web size! Ahhhhh!!!! Makes me so mad to have to duplicate work. I need the original because I am doing these digi scraps for my DVD albums, displaying them on the web is actually my secondary purpose (though, I must admit…quite fun right now)! For all you Photoshop lovers, here is a little tip for you…that background was so fun and easy. If you use the single column marquee tool on your image and then transform and stretch it clear right and then clear left, you actually stretch the pixels of your image into a very colorful stripe that will obviously blend well with your picture. Of course you have to do this in layers so you can put your original image on top. If you create another layer and then stretch vertically and then change the blend mode to overlay and play with your opacity…you can make a nice plaid. In the above example I put a horizontal stripe behind one picture, vertical behind the other and plaid at the bottom. This picture had enough colors in it to make a very soft and pleasing color spread I thought. I realize that is a pretty shotty PS tutorial but if you work with PS often that will (hopefully) make sense to you. Heidi?
Tanner
Yesterday when we were at Grandma’s, Grandma commented on Tori being a tad fussy at one point. Tanner looked at her and said “No she isn’t fussy right now. Her fussy time is at 7:00 PM and it’s only 1:30 PM“. Serious as could be. 🙂 He is soooo adorable. He is such a vigilent guardian of her schedule. I walked in the door from grocery shopping tonight and asked Jim when her last feeding was. Before he could reply Tanner says “7:30”. He keeps track of every feeding. What six year old does that? You should just see him with her…he dotes on her BIG TIME. He is constantly kissing her and stroking her hands and trying to comfort and cuddle her. It’s like he has all this bottled up affection and it’s pouring out on his baby sister. It’s also wonderful for me because as long as I have Tori in my arms, Tanner is cuddled up to me! Love it! He has been so happy since we brought Tori home. She just really lights Tanner up. Everyone who has been witness to it has commented. In fact, some of the pictures I took Sunday will serve as evidence to this because you can see Tanner smiling on in the background in so many pictures. I’ll have to do a little collage of that. I read back through diaries of when we brought Ty home recently and was reminded that Tanner, at two years of age, was the same way with Ty. He really loves babies.
Ty
Oh my adorable Ty…my boy who has been in to everything. He keeps asking me to read Curious George books to him and I am so not surprised that he appreciates this curious little creature. 🙂 Tonight he was so precious. I was wearing a black nightgown and Ty said “Mommy why aren’t you wearing your bear jammies? Take that off and go put them on!” I told him I didn’t really feel like it and I was happy with what I was wearing. He then says “For me? Will you put them on for me? Then I can cuddle you?” Like I could actually resist that. I had those bear jammies on in about three seconds. 🙂 I need to take a picture of me holding Ty in those fleece jammies. Precious memory for sure.
Tori
Tori and I watched her first girl movie together this weekend. Finally saw Enchanted. I got to watch a Princess movie with my daughter. (The boys actually liked it too). What an adorable movie! Made me write mental lists of girl movies I will need now. I already have (in mommy’s collection) Sleeping Beauty, Little Mermaid, Mulan, and Beauty and the Beast, Peter Pan and Aladdin but what more will I need? Hmmmm….. Never really loved Snow White but I do need Cinderella. Does Ever After count? That is my favorite version of Cinderella. 🙂 Any suggestions on the best girl movies?
She is sleeping a tad better now. Most of the time she sleeps from 11:00 PM to 3:00 and then wakes up again at 6:00 AM and then again at 9:00 AM so it’s 4 hours, 3 hours, 3 hours. What was difficult was that she wasn’t always going back to sleep after these feedings but in the last several days she has finally started to go right back to sleep. We have had her for 6 weeks tomorrow and today was my first nap! I’d say that is pretty good! I tried so hard to stay awake but while Tanner and I were reading his book for school, I just couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. It catches up with you eventually. So what in the heck am I doing blogging at midnight then? I just got her to bed about half an hour ago and I wanted some mommy time. Other than that nap, I hardly had a moment to myself all day and I am the personality type that really requires some quiet personal time. I am rambling about mindless details now and I should be sleeping so signing off.
9 responses to “Celebrating”
I know nothing about Photoshop… (disclaimer), but the bottom plaid part of that layout looks like a baby blanket/burp rag texture which goes well with baby pictures.
Don’t you just LOVE Enchanted? I took Nora and Ryann to see it in the theater and I smiled through the whole movie. I am NOT a princess movie person, but this one is just wonderful! I bought it for them (and me) this weekend – a must have!
Other girl movies: Mary Poppins, Annie, Princess Diaries – if I think of more I’ll let you know:)
i ‘get’ your instructions. 🙂 LOVE that plaid and will use your ideas.
Everything sounds like it is moving along in the right direction!! I took my girls to see Enchanted when it first came out, and I have to agree with you. It is one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. Logan and I just went and saw Drillbit Taylor this past weekend and it was also a great movie. More of a father and son movie though. It did have a little more cussing than I like, but it is a must see. I would wait until the edited version comes where some of the words are cleaned up, but it is worth the watch.
And YES, I am looking forward to see that little Easter Angel of yours, getting the extra time is understandable, but I will be checking.
Sounds like Tanner is going to be a great big brother and very protective at that, guess that sweet nature of his is paying off.
Ty??!! Hmmm, could he be any more bold. I absolutely love that kid. He knows what he wants and when he wants it, and he has a sweet way of charming people to do what he wants them to do. (example- my cell phone) All he has to do is come up to me bat those big eye lashes at me and I melt like butter. He is sneaky though, like when he asked me for a piece of gum and I asked him if he was allowed. He said “yes I’m allowed” with no hesitation and I gave it to him, only to find out he was NOT allowed to have it. Oh, I miss both the boys.
One more thing. Photo shop. I have a couple of different versions downloaded of the program and I do not get any of it, I swear I will need a collage course to understand most of it. So until I am sitting next to you and you have the time to walk me through it, I will stay at a distance and enjoy all our your cute pictures you create..
Susie it actually took me a long time to really learn it to. It isn’t a “walk through” kind of program – there is too much to it for that. You were right in saying that you almost need a “course” in it – whether it is self directed through internet and book studies (my method) or an actual class. I started playing with Photoshop back in around 1999 or 2000 and I remember feeling frustrated just not catching on to working with the layers – wasn’t making sense to me. Over the course of time, I played enough and did quite a lot of tutorials and it all fell into place. Now it is my favorite past time. I have CS3 now – Jim bought that for me for my birthday and I am so happy with it. Note to Heidi: In Adobe Bridge I can edit all the metadata (file authors etc.) at ONCE! That means I can mark all those freebie files with the author and site very quickly and easily! That was a good find this week!
I just had to write and tell you what a fabulous blog you have! The pictures are all so precious! And your stories of how you became a mommy are truly inspiring.
The children are all beautiful!!
I also had a micropreemie and saw that you got an award from another blogger… just so you know.
-Patty
Abby and Josiah’s mom
*cool on the authors thing!
susie – i’m right on with doni about photoshop. my first editing of photos started VERY safe and easy about 5 years ago (just before seth was born)… it a couple years before photoshop elements was something i was willing to take on… it took a couple more years before i felt like the full version was more necessary for some projects – but i can make due with elements even now… though the full version would be nice at some point, it’s just not absolutely necessary – just fun! but you have to be able to have the time to just play, follow some simple tutorials that come with the program (since you have less time i’d start with elements – a few less features but for a beginner with limited time, it won’t be quite as much to sift through)… a few tutorials for insignificant projects help to get the begining pieces to make sense. little by little you build onto your knowledge…
ok – have got to go finish reading the post! i got half way through and then distracted and then read comments but not the whole post! 😉
i’m just in love with those boys! they both now how to get to mama and it seems that in the process your love tank (and affection tank too!) is getting filled right up!!! GOOD BOYS! and that tori… well, does anything really need to be said? can words actually suffice? 😉
ever after DOES indeed count. 🙂 i’m thinking for when she gets older the jane austen movies like pride & prejudice and sense & sensibility and emma… perfect girl movies. i bet she’ll love joe vs the volcano too. 🙂 oh – i know one little girl who LOVED… oh what was it calleD! something ballerina – a mouse ballerina maybe? something that rhymed with ballerina – short cartoon series on dvd… looked very cute.
I am heading off to bed, but after a crazy day I wanted to take one more look at your precious little girl. She is sure to bring smiles and boundless joy.