memories

Behind the Scenes of the New Messy Mom Video

Baby Face

Baby Hand

Last week I had my 20 week ultrasound. Everything went great. The baby is healthy. I’m right on track with measurements. The kids enjoyed seeing the baby on the monitor and yes, we did find out the gender.

I texted my brother from the doctor’s office to announce the news and tell him I had a gender reveal video that I wanted to try to put together as soon as possible. He was on board and days later he and my sister in law came out to turn my idea into reality.

Some of you may remember last time we did this (back in March).

That video was obviously scripted whereas this next one (which I have not seen any of yet), is totally just documenting the moment.

I can’t share too much because I don’t want to blow the secret, but we used paint to make the announcement.

This was the first drawing on my story board. Don’t critique it! It’s just a really quick sketch to get the idea across and that’s just about all I can show you other than this photo of set up

and the two paint cans

and here we are getting ready for some fun.

I can’t wait to share our news with everyone!!! It is an honor to have my brother help out with this project. He has a busy schedule and he literally travels the world shooting films and commercials. Yet, he and his wife jump in with both feet to make a short film for their new nephew… or niece. Ha! Just kidding. I’m not telling.

1939650_1405642339765708_4196421180132518704_o

That’s my brother in the orange jacket on set in Iceland. Photo Credit: Paper Lantern Productions

11696423_990592850981658_1623088934420518467_o

Here he is wearing some kind of gear that I don’t know the name of. Photo Credit: Drive Media House

Subscribe to my youtube channel so that you know exactly when we release the video. The big reveal is just days away!

By Natalie|2015-07-17T12:35:44+00:00July 17, 2015|Creativity, Pregnancy & Birth|2 Comments

The Good Times Van

My word for the year is good and it’s been helping me remember to focus on the good around me.

I think back to a season in my life that did not seem like it was good at all, my first year of high school. The year was 1997 and we were moving from Georgia to Texas. I was about to start 9th grade.

The old family minivan got us from one state to the next, but we knew it was on it’s last leg. My parents being as eccentric as they are frugal found a 1978 Dodge Ram Van for $1000 it seemed like a steal. As a 14 year old girl I couldn’t care less about the price or dependability. In my adolescent mind image was all that mattered and I was certain that this van was going to ruin mine. We called it the good times van because it actually said “Good Times Van” in a retro style font on the side.

It was multi toned brown, with bubble windows and on the inside there was an enormous steering wheel, burnt orange interior, and shag carpeting. Especially as the new kid in town I did not want to be seen anywhere near the Good Times Van, but I really had no choice so I tried to make the best of it.

Little did I know that in that same year the movie Austin Powers would become a huge sensation launching my generation into a flower power revolution. A year later in 1998 That Seventies Show would premier with ratings through the roof. It was then that the grotesque mortifying whale of a vehicle would become the envy of my peers. When people saw it coming (and believe me everyone could see it coming) it was welcomed with remarks about what a sweet ride it was.

It wasn’t long before I was the one people sought to carpool with. All of my friends would pile into the van to go to concerts and we would all shift our weight from side to side causing it to rock back and forth down the road. People that I didn’t even know would stop me in the halls, “your the one with the good times van?” Yeah, that’s me, and I would beam with pride.

I know it’s just a van and it shouldn’t matter what you drive, but this memory serves as a reminder that things aren’t always as bad as they seem. What I thought was a humiliating eyesore soon brought memories that I wouldn’t trade for a million dollars.

Who knew the Good Times Van would be such a good time after all.

By Natalie|2015-06-12T23:45:55+00:00June 12, 2015|My Life|4 Comments

FaceBook to the Rescue

My whole world turned upside down when we decided to sell our house and leave the place we’ve called home for the first 11 years of our marriage. Then my computer turned upside down when it fell off the bed! The good news is it was under warranty, the bad news is I lost my entire hard drive. I have come a long way when it comes to making back ups, so all of my work related data and personal files were covered except for November and December because I slacked off in the middle of getting ready to move.

As I was getting ready for SJ’s 2nd birthday I wanted to catch up on our family albums and her baby book, but I have no evidence of any family pictures that were downloaded November or December of 2012! That means I lost pictures of my sons graduation from the church nursery,

my kids in their adorable halloween costumes,

and our last Christmas before we left Texas.

That’s when I went to Facebook. I knew I had uploaded all of these events to share with friends and family, but would they be printable?

What a lot of people don’t realize is that web resolution and print resolution are two totally different things. When I worked for Now Magazine I would ALWAYS have people tell me we have lots of pictures on our web site, just pull them off there. And most of the time they were TOO small. Things can look great on the online at 72 dpi, but to look good in print they need to be around 300 dpi. I know it’s confusing, but just because it looks good online does not mean you can print it.

However, Facebook has an option when you upload photos to post them at high quality and I strongly recommended checking that box, because thanks to the photos I posted on Facebook I have been able to print out all the special memories that would have been lost otherwise.

Here’s how to upload your photos.

1. Go to your photo albums and click the button that says add photos.

2. In the bottom left corner there is a box that says “high quality”. Check that.

3.On the right there is a drop down menu that says “public” and when you click on it you can customize who you want to be able to see the photos. If you don’t necessarily won’t to post the photos to your home page then you can select “Only me” and no one else will be able to view your photos, but they are there if you ever had a computer crash like mine did.

After that you just select the photos you want to upload and publish your album.

I am not suggesting that you use Facebook as your primary storage device. First of all I can’t guarantee they won’t delete your whole account tomorrow, and I am not even sure what the maximum number of uploads is. You should always back up your images through discs or time machine, external hard drives, carbonate, etc., but it’s nice to have multiple locations for your most treasured moments and in my case Facebook really saved the day.

Thank you social networking!

By Natalie|2015-06-08T14:29:07+00:00March 8, 2012|My Life, Uncategorized|2 Comments