2.10.17

The day was a whirlwind.  Miles was up at 7. We needed to leave by 9:35.  That didn't happen.  It was so hectic.  Miles wouldn't nap unless it was on me so then he only napped 5 minutes if that.  I had to wake Ella up. She was slow at getting ready then wanted this or that and was just so slow getting into the car.

The start of the set-up

We were only leaving a few minutes late.     We got to the Community Center for a meetup I organized with Sarah. We set things up and set up the photo booth. We weren't quite set up by the time it started.  I was halfway there when I realized I forgot my good camera! I can't believe I didn't put it back in the car.  Dave saved the day and brought it. Ella was also mad she didn't have her scooter so Dave brought that too. She didn't actually end up using it though!

Divya and Miles having a blast because Ella was running around

 I had absolutely no voice so it wasn't the best meetup. My voice got worse and worse as I tried to talk.  It's very hard to take pictures of people when you can't get the kid's attention to look at you.  Even with my camera not being there at the start of the event, I still got over 500 pictures on my good camera.  After I deleted blurry ones or ones with kids photo bombing me and some blinking pictures I still had almost 400 to share with everyone.   I wanted a black backdrop with red hearts but my black backdrop just had so many creases that would not come out. I used a sheet at the last minute. It was so wrinkled. If I had a portable steamer, it would have helped a lot. 10 minutes of work at the front end would have saved me about 2 hours of photo editing later.  Actually it'd have been more photo editing if I would have edited photos for everyone but I only did ones for myself and the 1 person I specifically mentioned. I did put an offer out to everyone so more may ask.

We did a few crafts. We decorated the valentine bags, made a heart puppet, and a heart pipe cleaner with beads.

So since Miles didn't nap first, I tried to feed him there and then get him to sleep. That wasn't working.  He would nurse for a few seconds then be distracted.  It took a bit. Then after that I tried to push him around in the stroller in the room.  Yamini's mom offered to push him around and then he finally went to sleep. It probably helped that I wasn't talking keeping him awake. He napped less than a half hour but it was something.  I took that time to take photos of almost everyone that wanted photos.   I did try to pass out valentines but then someone would say "just one more" and ask me to take pics of them but then that happened like 3 times.  It worked out except the late comers didn't have their bags over there :( I would have caught it if I put my valentines in sooner. I think I was the last one to distribute them.  Sarah did announce so then Gavin got half the valentines or so.

I started to clean up my photo booth with about 15 minutes left since it seemed like people were done with it.  Everything seemed to get cleaned up so quickly with help but then all of a sudden there were a couple things left and only 2 people. Those couple things take longer. It's hard to sweep and put away tables and chairs with a needy baby and a needy toddler.

We got home and had to try to eat and get Miles to sleep.  I never managed to eat myself.  I was starving. I got lightheaded while nursing Miles. Oops.  Dave made instant pudding then shared it with Ella. She loved eating out of the huge bowl. She did make a mess though.  She said she was going to eat enough junk to make her stomach hurt. Then she did.

We forgot it was Miles's 5 month birthday so we ended up taking the pictures after dark. I feel like his weight is off too since it was so late in the day.

Ella the helper

I spent most of the evening trying to edit some photos from the meetup. I was just going through them and getting rid of blurry ones and once I deleted what I was going to delete, I cropped a bunch. Most of the ones other people took using my camera were not zoomed in enough and I don't like that associated with my name when I post so I had to fix them. Everything takes time with 2 kids sitting on your lap.  Then I turned on auto backup so everything could go to google and I could make an album to share.  Then I started editing the awful sheet wrinkles out of a few of my favorites of our family.

I could not handle the group shot and how the kids were too wide so then I worked on editing that. It was really hard with Ella on me and also I'm no expert with editing. I did eat some Ramen for dinner.  I ended up not getting Ella to her room until after 10 because I was really trying to finish the one picture I was on.

Then I edited a few a friend sent me that were her favorites.   The wrinkles in the sheet looked so bad to me. If I had a portable steamer, 10 minutes would have helped. Ahhh.  I hate that I order backdrops and you can't get the creases out of it.  It was 11:40 when I finally stopped trying to edit photos.

before and after minor editing

My method of editing changed after I did this one!

I could have just included some after pictures but since I wrote about how I couldn't handle things and did editing then I was making collages to compare the before and after so I included those.  I don't know how bad they look. They look good on a small screen but wouldn't hold up to zoom scrutiny.

Yamini and Ishaan. Yamini loved the photo editing. She couldn't even believe how good it looked after. But she thought it looked fine before.   That angled wrinkle is all I see. I wonder if everyone else notices it as bad.

I took many more pictures of many more kids and families but didn't include them all here.