Ride that horsie

This was one of my favorite moments, EVER.

started innocently

what's going on?

uhhh...Mama?

 ride that horsie!

 about 2 inches off the ground

oooh, is that your shoe?

STTN, my favorite acronym

When you become a Mom, you suddenly learn all of these new acronyms. How the heck do you spell that? Thank goodness for spell check. Anyway, acronyms. LO. (little one?) STTN. (Sleep through the night) LOL (laugh out loud. I did know that one.) You will literally see Facebook posts that say:

My LO went AWOL to get her AIO. Help!

And I'm like wha?

I met a woman this week who told me she had 6 C-sections. I responded: "Umm..I don't know what to say to you."

Anywho, back to my favorite acronym.

STTN. Sleeping through the night.

How did I do it? I don't, for the life of me, know.

What do I know? Not much. I know it is way to late to be starting this blog post.

Shall I finish it?

I will recommend Babywise. The cover says "give your child the gift of night time sleep."

And that we did.

Do I follow it? Yes. EXACTLY? No.

But my baby sleeps. A lot.

That is all.





for now.

These are a few of Lylah's Favorite Things

MIRRORS

AUNT K

EASTER EGGS

LOUNGING WITH HER PACI

THE CAMERA

How to Edit in RAW

Taking pictures in RAW is one of the things I wish I had started doing sooner. After taking the suggestion from a fellow photographer, I started doing it...and I love it. I took a class on it and it helped me so much.


First, open Bridge. If you have Photoshop, you have Bridge. Open the picture. Press command (if you have a mac) then R to open in Raw.

I'll start with one of my daughter, Lylah.

Here she is, on Easter. This was taken in RAW. She is about to fall asleep on her Great-grandma's lap at the Easter Egg hunt. She is great grand kid #20! 

So this is a great picture, Right? Right? Well, we can make it so much better. Here's how. 

1. Command and then R. Click the dropper at the top. Find a nice grey, neutral spot on the picture and click it. Then, I always up the exposure. I like that look. Not everyone does, but I love it.

2. Up the contrast. A little. I like +33.

3. Lower clarity.  I like -7. Up Vibrance. (just a little)

4. If you have skin color issues (not you personally, the subject) then you can up the orange or red on the tab that has the tiny lines. Play with it until you feel comfortable with the image. Here is our image now.

Already looking better, right? 

Now it's time for our vignette. Not everyone is a fan. I like a little vignette.

Go to the tab that says fx. Click where it says Amount and LOWER the number. 

A slight vignette can be pretty great. 

now add your photoshop magic...

That's a whole other post!

Don't forget....Open the image in Photoshop and save as a jpg. 

Eating Solids

I was very hesitant to start solids. For many reasons. One being gross diapers...another being that I love breastfeeding. I didn't want my milk supply to suffer. I didn't want to do extra work. I didn't want to give her the wrong thing. But as I got more and more comfortable doing it, it is actually pretty fun.

I read an awesome book, Super Baby Food. It is a pretty amazing book. This woman has really put together a BIG book. If you can get past her condescending tone, and the fact that she has no formal training, it's pretty awesome. I love the back...you can literally look up each food and it says how old she needs to be, how to cook it, store it, etc.

We started with rice cereal. Organic. My doctor said so, so that's what we did. I follow my doctor's instructions. Not everyone does this. I do.

Then, I started her on oatmeal, which she loved. It is important to introduce a new food every 4-5 days. And not with anything else...purely the new food. I always do it in the morning, just in case she has a reaction. Which she hasn't! (knock on wood) I chose organic foods and nothing processed. I want her to eat as healthy as possible. And if you have seen her you can tell she doesn't miss many meals. Okay, any meals.

I love giving her banana. It is so easy. You mash it, add a little water, and feed it to her. Sweet potatoes are easy, as are avacado. I prefer baking to microwaving, as the microwave can produce hot spots. I don't want to burn her. Duh. I have baked avocado and sweet potato.

I give her water after each meal. She loves it. She would drink water all day if I let her. I give her water from the fridge because it is filtered. I have given her non-filtered water, after I asked my doctor. It's not recommended to give a baby non-filtered...so I prefer giving her filtered, bottled or boiled (then cooled) water.

Barley is another great one. Cereal, oatmeal and barley are easy. You just pour some in a bowl and add water and stir. If there is something she is eating that she doesn't eat well, I might add some oatmeal to it to make her eat more. I want her to be as full as possible! Then she will sleep. :)

Tomorrow she will try mango. Then pears are next.

Newsletter-- 7 months

Dear Lylah,

What a crazy month! We moved. Eek. We made it, though. We lived with Memaw for a bit in Ponca City and then we finally settled into Stillwater, OK. Aka Podunk. Where there is a lot of orange. Which is very hard on this Sooner-lovin' Momma. But you don't care. You're too cute for it to matter right now.

As I say every month, how can you be 7 months? Every morning, as I make coffee, I look up and see this beautiful little girl wanting to eat oatmeal....How did you get so big? And how are you ours? We love you so deeply. We spend the evenings watching you army crawl and laughing at you.

You are such a good girl! Cashiers always comment on how good you are. We just started putting you in the cart instead of your carrier, and you think it is a ride at Disneyworld! You just smile and laugh and wave at people. That's one of your new things...waving. I can't wait till you can say Hi! with your wave. It's coming, I can tell. 

You are always up for a photoshoot. You don't mind it at all. You love being outside, so it's perfect for us both. I snap pictures with you look around, grab rocks and just smile. You are so fun! 

You still love baths and love to talk. You have a new love...HATS!
My Mom, your Mimi took a picture of you in a hat and.... it's so weird...This picture could be from my babybook! CRAZY.

You got your first tooth at the end of March...18th? And your next tooth promptly followed. See below. You haven't bit us yet. But you love to eat, so these teeth help!

Right now you eat three times a day. In the morning you have oatmeal and apple sauce. For lunch you have your veggies. You eat some oatmeal and usually some avocado. Today you are trying winter squash! If I can figure out how to use the food processor. For dinner you have Sweet potatoes, and some barley. You also eat bananas, but just every few days. 

You are definitely a Harms! You sleep 12-14 hours a night! Whoa! The Kellys do not sleep. So you are definitely sleeping like a Harms, which I am very thankful for. You are such a sweet girl. We love you so so so so so much! I have lots of cute Easter pictures, that I will post soon!

Your favorite things: 

1. Hippo squeeky toy

2. watching the puppies or Daddy in the backyard

3. eating

4. being outside

5. meeting people

6. riding in the car

We love you!!

Mom and Dad