I decided to try another picture of Dekker in the bath, this time paying much closer attention to my settings! I also edited with PSE instead of Picasa this time (except for the frame of course).  Turns out straightening is much easier than I thought! Somehow I was making it a lot harder than it needed to be - you basically line up the part you want to use for reference, and voila! Straight! I toyed with some other editing features as well, brightening the photo and trying to add a little more drama.  I see what people mean when they say skin is challenging to work with! I liked some of the effects overall but then his skin started to look splotchy :-/ I was able to tone it down using the blur tool here and there but there's a bit more residual than I'd like.  Anyway, I'm still learning, but excited for the parts that are coming together! :)

*Edit* I meant to add one of his towel pics as well.  I took some liberty/had fun with the editing on this one too (only I used Picasa here, was going for quick and easy).

We absolutely love these chocolate covered raspberry sticks, they don't last long at all in our house!

This morning Cyrus was having fun playing with Dekker's new foam building blocks, and he kept telling me I needed to get pictures of what he was building.  I wish I'd achieved a blurrier background, as I like what I have of Cyrus and his project but the surroundings are too busy. 

Nana bought the boys matching dinosaur pajamas, and I wanted to get a picture of them both wearing them together sitting in front of the Christmas tree.  That's a little easier said than done, especially since my littlest isn't usually allowed in that room and around the tree, so of course as soon as we get in there all he wants to do is explore and check everything out! It was a bit of an adventure.  Also, that room has a vaulted ceiling and isn't especially well-lit, so I decided to give my speed light a go, and normally I avoid using a flash like the plague, so overall this was an interesting experience!  Throw editing in there, and honestly I'm just not thrilled with the results of this photo, I'm still trying to decide if the editing even helped things much.

The way these two were laughing and playing just makes me smile :)  I converted this to black and white because I felt it was too busy in color, but in doing so I ended up with over-bright highlights on Cyrus' cheek (the sun was coming through the sliding glass door).  Seems if it's not one thing then it's another! Oh well, I still like their smiles :) 

I really need to start using my tripod to give myself more range with low light :-/  I took this image several times with various setting tweaks, trying again and again to get the nightlight to provide enough illumination for the bear nearby, but not so much that you couldn't make out the image of Peter Rabbit on the nightlight itself.  Needless to say I wasn't successful.  It was pretty late and the baby was asleep in the same room, so I finally decided to make do with what I had.  I'll have to experiment more another time.

A couple of my favorite pics from those I took on Christmas Day.  First one is my littlest wearing a Santa hat, second is my mom holding my newest little niece :)  

Oh and a note on editing - I'm trying to make myself use Photoshop Elements 12 for my actual editing (other than the frames that I apply in Picasa for consistency there) so that I HAVE to learn how, but I'll admit I'm still having some frustrations.  With these two pics for example, once I finished my editing on the first I went and saved it as "high quality" and suddenly my file size shrank to just over 1MB. >:-/  The second I paid closer attention and cranked it to maximum and my file size was a little over 4MB.  The first time I did that the file size was suddenly like 17MB.  UGH.  I think I'm finally learning to pay attention to that at least when I save it.  Kinda irritating at this point though. 

I decided I may as well get time-and-a-half for working Christmas Eve, and since I didn't get my picture taken earlier in the day I decided to take a picture at work! I liked this ornament on the tree there: 

When I saw this photo on my computer I thought it would make a good Facebook cover photo with the added text of "Merry Christmas" in the open space portion of the picture, but I didn't get around to doing that. :-/ Ah well.  It has also occurred to me that since I'm doing my editing/viewing/etc on my laptop, the exposure of my pictures can appear to vary based on the angle of my screen! So here's hoping they look for you at least close to the same as they look for me!

Anyway, this is probably one of my favorite ornaments.  For a horse lover I have had surprisingly few horse ornaments on my tree up until recently (I think I'm finally up to four?).  This one I purchased last year at an antique store in Georgetown, CO. 

What a trip.  So it's been crazy busy and interesting (or not) lately.  I took pictures of Dekker bundled in his carseat and of the mess of shoes by the front door.  I was supposed to take pictures of the Christmas lights as we drove around and looked at them but that didn't happen.  Then at the end of the night I was sitting tired on the sofa and liked the glow of the tree (even if part of the light strand decided to quit on us) from the front room, so through the mess I snapped this, and I liked it better than the others I had (not great pickings to be honest).  So here's my view from the couch!