Good Morning

My favourite time of day is the early morning. The time when the sun is just starting to rise and the light peeking in the windows is slowly brightening. About this time is when I pull Sawyer into bed with me and he has his morning feed and then falls back asleep. 

I can just stare at this little bean forever, in complete awe of this life that I created - from scratch! I watch him breath and I watch him dream. It's the sweetest feeling snuggling next to him, knowing he is safe and healthy and perfect, and my heart is just full of gratitude and love.

Sawyer enjoys his morning sleeping in, and I meander out of bed and slowly start my day. I take my time knowing that he'll sleep a while and allow me to get a few things done. I turn on some soft music and make my coffee. I soak in the light of the morning and drink in the quiet.

It doesn't matter where I am, who I'm with or what what the day is bringing. I will always have this time. Morning will always come.

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Our First Christmas (married with children!)

What an amazing holiday it has been! I'm definitely still in vacation mode. Our tree is still up and shining every night and I have no intention of taking it down until February.

We kicked off the holiday spirit with a girls Christmas party at Cait's house on the 23rd. A couple days prior I confided in my sweet bestie about my growing addiction to chocolate since Sawyer was born, and this girl had a full on chocolate lovers spread awaiting us as we all arrived at her humble abode.. Amazing. This was my first night out and away from my babe since before I got pregnant at the beginning of the year! It was exciting and a little scary all at once. Brave Danny spent all night with Sawyer and let me sleep in the next morning. I couldn't wait to snuggle the little bird once I got up, it was so tempting to wake him.

The rest of the holiday was spent passing Sawyer around for Grandma & Grandpa and Aunty & Uncles snuggles everywhere we went. Delicious food and lovely warm company. And though not included in any of my photos, many many episodes of Lost.

This Christmas was a completely different experience than any Christmas I've ever had before. Even though Sawyer is too young to have any idea what was going on, the holiday still felt so much more joyful. Waking up beside him every morning and being able to share him with our friends and family and see the smiles on their faces when soaking in his baby cuddles and cute little expressions makes me feel so blessed and so grateful for this little life we created.

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Giving Your Photos the Matte-Look

If you ever use VSCO CAM or Afterlight on your iPhone, you're likely familiar with the fade adjustment or the matte look you can achieve using some of the preset filters.

I use this edit a lot on my iPhone photos and it's perfect for when I want to keep the dynamic look of a higher contrast shot, but without the stark edginess between the the high and low lights. It also seems to take the saturation down just a touch, giving a bit of a washed out feel.

There are likely tons of different way of achieving this look in photoshop, but I've found the following method to be efficient and versatile enough for my own editing style and I haven't had to go looking for any other more in depth or complicated steps.

So I open up the photo I'm going to edit in PS and my first step is to enhance and increase the contrast. I duplicate the background layer (Layer > Duplicate Layer or Command J) and I set the blending mode to Overlay.

Then I change the Opacity to about 35%. Next I go down to my "create new fill or adjustment layer" button and choose Solid Color...

I pick a nice dark grey (#616161) and hit OK. Then I change the blending mode of that layer to Lighten.

Now here is where you choose how much "fade" you want your photo to have by adjusting the Opacity to your liking. For this photo I'm going with a nice subtle 50%.

Then complete your editing to your liking and you're done! I lightened the photo just a touch by using a Curves adjustment layer and then brightened up my models face just a smidgen.

C'est fin!

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