Frustrated with my novice skills

I bought the camera, I have been practicing with the camera and now I am feeling very overwhelmed.  I have always only shot in AF mode and I have switched over to full manual mode, I have a lot to learn.  Then I downloaded the free trials of photo shop and light room and I have NO IDEA HOW TO USE THEM!  I did not pick up the camera today, I am feeling very frustrated with it.  Any photographers out there that can offer any advice?  I am just getting started and I am looking for any tips, tricks or advice you are willing to give.  
Here are some straight out of the camera photos, with no edits. 

My hubby is 32!!

Happy Birthday to my husband Bill, he turned 32 today.  It is hard to believe that I knew and dated him when he was 19 years old and that this is the 3rd birthday since we have been together.  Makes me think how quickly time flies, when you're having fun, in love and enjoying life.

I made him a coffee mug, you know one of the Pinterest mugs that you draw on with Sharpies, then bake?  It looked great, then...I baked it and my colors faded.  My purple turned to grey and my red to a burnt orange.  It is still pretty neat, just not as bright as it was before it was baked.

After it was baked

I bought him a funny card ( I am known for the sappy cards, so I think he was pleasantly surprised by my funny card), some Starburst candy and....

....I made him a homemade, from scratch birthday cake.  

I lit the candles and sang him "happy birthday"

Here is a fun, younger picture of my husband.

It looks like it is a picture of a picture, but he still has those dimples!

The boys behind the blog #5

I am so behind on blogging, there has been so much going on here and my broken laptop makes things very difficult.

I decided to participate in my first Boys behind the blog  link up.  I am actually pretty excited about this, I get to take this moment and share a bit about Bill.

There were 5 questions that were asked and Bill needed to answer them...I now leave the "floor" to Billy.

1.  Describe yourself in 5 words.
Loyal, truthful, stubborn, happy, in love

2. What is your biggest fear? Not being able to provide for my wife.

3.  What is your favorite candy?Starburst

4.  What is your favorite Halloween costume that you remember? In 7th or 8th grade I dressed as a girl.

5.  Who is your favorite sports team? Chicago Bears

My hubby Bill on our 1 year wedding anniversary trip to Atlantic City.  This is one of my FAVORITE pictures, I love his smile!  

Photographer, maybe one day

Have you ever wanted something so badly that it literally hurts some days?   That is where I am with pursuing my photography.  I borrowed Bill's aunts Nikon D3100 and have not put it down since I have had it in my hands.  It has been great practice for me and I can not wait for the day I go and purchase my Nikon D5200! Here are some of the recent photos that I have taken this week with the camera.  I am loving this opportunity to learn more about the camera and try to figure out what kind of photography I want to do.  I know I want to have a studio and take photos of kids and families.  A lot of my pictures that I have been taking are of the neighborhood birds, I let my sparrows, that I raised go 2 weeks ago and I know they are still around, in the mix of birds that are here. After I raised the birds, I realized I have quite the love affair with birds.   

Our niece Brooklynn

Our niece and nephew 

To be 5 again...

As my nephew and I set out on a bike ride through our small town Coal City, IL to go to Dollar General and pick up AA batteries, I bet he never thought he would be sitting in a combine, on a farm, helping plow some corn.   We took another water break, probably our 5th one in 5 minutes and it was at a corn field where a combine was plowing the corn field.  We stood and watched as the farmer plowed the field and then spit all the kernals into the little bins.  Then the farmer drove the tractor over to us, opened his door "do you want to ride with me and plow the corn"?  I wish I had my camera to have captured his face at that very moment when he looked up at me and said "can I Ti-Ti"?  There he went, he got to ride and plow 8 rows in the combine.  When he was done and the farmer helped him out he came running down to me and said "that was the coolest ever".  He shook the farmers hand, said "thank you" and we rode off.  

  Collin and I do tons of stuff, tons of 5 year old stuff.  He is my best little friend.  

here we are at the park

A quick recap of  C and I, he turned 5 on the 29th of August, this was my picture tribute to the best aunt and nephew relationship ever. 

Birthdays all weekend

Phew!  What a weekend and it was amazing, it was a nice reminder how amazing my family is especially the family I married into.  We had a couple birthday parties to attend this weekend, one of the parties was my husbands cousins son, he turned 3.   I am a picture whore, I love to take them, print them, hang them and give them as gifts.  So I thought to myself  "what if we could get all the grand kids and great grand kids together for a group photo for Grandma Darlene (my husbands gram) and give it to her for Christmas"?  I messaged all the cousins a week ago and we figured that the day of "LJ's" party would be the best time, everyone will be together.   I set the self timer and we took several photos; one large group photo and then each family by themselves.  This is going to be an amazing gift for gram.  

Group shot of all the grand and great grand kids.

My husband Bill and myself.

From LtoR: Sister in law with our niece and nephew Center: Bill's cousin Randy and his family R: Bill's cousin Shelia and her family.

This is going to be an AWESOME gift for gram and I can not wait for Christmas!  We also celebrated our nephew's 1st birthday this weekend, his birthday was on Friday and he had his BIG 1 year old party today(Sunday).  

Brandon on his new 4 wheeler.

SMASH cake!!

We had a great weekend with family celebrating birthdays.   ...and for a quick apology; my laptop screen has gone out, then the laptop completely died, it will be getting a tune up at some point, until then I am sharing a laptop with my husband, but I promise I will do my best to post. 

Then they flew the nest...

Boy do I feel guilty!  Right as I say I want to start blogging regularly, I take a 4 day hiatus.  I have legitimate reasons and will be back in it, starting today. 

Have you ever seen a baby bird from the time it was 2 days old till the time they have feathers and are flying around?  

This has been one of my life's greatest accomplishments.  I put my heart and soul into caring for these birds, they received hours upon hours of care and attention.  I spent hours upon hours reading blogs and bird websites to make sure that I was doing everything correctly.  I had my share of negativeness from people, "you need to take them to a wildlife rescue, you are not experienced enough to give them what they need".   Some of those comments hurt, struck me right in the heart and some days when the comments came flooding in like that I would think "am I doing more harm than good"?  My husband was a great support system throughout this process, without him I may have thrown in the towel, but I am glad I did not....for the full journey go to Fledgling Four.

Up until June 23rd-September 28th I have never seen life change so rapidly.  On June 23rd I received a text from my father in law,  "a nest of baby sparrows fell from the gutter, I will care for them tonight, will you take them?


2 or 3 days old, my "pinkies".

A little back story to how it all unfolded.
The nest was initially located at my in-laws house, up on a gutter at the very top of the house. It was a large nest, momma bird went in and out through a hole. After the baby birds hatched the nest must have been to large and it split in half and fell to the ground.... Two baby birds landed outside the nest and the others were still inside. My father in-law put the 2 that fell out back in and left the nest be, in hopes that momma would return.

She did, but back up to the gutter. Sparrows make their nests up high and after the babies hatch that is where they return. They will not look for them anywhere else. Momma bird returned all day to that gutter with worms for the babies, she never did find them.

The baby birds went unattended, with no food for about 6 hours. Then my father in-law stepped in. He did some online research and then ran to the store. He returned with cat food, the baby birds were fed mushed up cat food for the first 24 hours, it is full of protein and vitamins.

The baby birds were offered to me, Roy had to work on Monday and the birds need to be fed every hour throughout the day. This was a big decision for me. Do I want to dedicate myself to these birds for the next 21+ days? With obvious proof the answer was "yes". I picked up the baby birds at 7:15am Monday June 24th.....

 

....And that is where my journey began to check out the journey from the beginning check out the Fledgling Four a page I created to document the journey.

 

The first 3 weeks was grueling, time consuming care.  They were fed from a syringe every hour from 6am to 9pm sometimes, every 45 minutes based on their intake.  I enjoyed every minute of it though. 

I weaned them from formula to bird seed at about a month or so but continued to do one feeding a day of the formula. 

 

 

I kept the birds a bit longer than I should have, when you put everything you have into making sure they survive it is hard to open the latch and swing the cage door open to let them go. 

 

Yesterday was one of the hardest things I have ever done when I let go, I knew it would hurt but not as much as it did.  They are around my house, I am sure they have eaten with the neighborhood sparrows from my bird feeder already.  They were greeted with open wings yesterday, one by one as they flew out a group of sparrows would follow it and greet and they would come back and wait for another one to fly out.  It was an amazing thing to see as the birds were greeted by the other sparrows.  I will miss them but I know that they are here and I know I did the right thing yesterday as hard as it was to see them fly out the cage door, I knew it was time.  I will leave you all with some pictures

 Forever my "bebies"!