first pictures

i'm sure some of my clients have been wondering why i've been turning down sessions or weddings in the summer and early fall - well, here she is! we will have another little girl at the beginning of august (or earlier if i have anything to say about it!) so i'll be shooting my last wedding at the end of june and then taking some time off. but don't worry - come fall, i'll be back! and i'm sure there will be plenty of posts of my new little one once she gets here!

birthday girl!

we celebrated tyler's birthday with a fun trip to the city this year! i had the living room decorated in the morning when she woke up. i was attempting to be a cute mom this year, and i have to say that i know now that my talents lie elsewhere!





we are trying to break the thumb habit - and the best part is most of the time she's got her thumb in her mouth and her finger resting in her nose! she doesn't pick it, so i don't know why its more comfortable that way, but it sure looks great in pictures doesn't it???











why do we use ribbon on presents? its always the most frustrating part for kids!





she got a princess dress and shoes so of course we had to put it on right away. i loved the little toes peeking out!








my two boys waiting patiently for their food at lunch :) this shot cracked me up!





the servers brought tyler a dessert and sang to her. she was talking to everyone before that, but as soon as she got all the attention - she wasn't a fan! but isn't this the coolest dessert ever? it was VERY messy!








we went to the national park near the city later in the day, and the kids loved hiking around and running through tunnels.











i saved the cake for the end of the day, and she was SO EXCITED about it! it turned out okay, but NOTHING like the picture, and had it not been for my patient husband who helped me put it together, i would have been tempted to dispense with the cake altogether. this was by far the hardest part of my "cute mom" idea! :)











the day was hard for us parents, but the kids had a blast, so it was all worth it!

gotta love boys!

this was just too funny not to post! i still cringe when i leave my daughter home with my husband to think of what her hair will look like if he has to take her out in public! obviously men learn their "hair-fixing" talents at a young age - my son helped his sister with her hair this morning.














of course she loved it and thought she was beautiful with all the colors!

NIGHTMARE WEEK!

list of fun things that made life fun last week...

1 - my poor powerbook froze on me and then wouldn't even start up! i went to bed after a couple hours of looking online for some solution on our pc. after an early morning apple store appointment, it was all taken care of. don't worry - its just the motherboard, and will take a week to fix even though i had a wedding two days later. (sarcasm)

2 - tried and failed to download a new printer driver on my hubby's pc three times (each download taking over an hour). new printers do come with CDs with the drivers on them, but mine got stuck in my powerbook when it froze, and i couldn't get it out

3 - i decided that whatever internet service i chose was just plain too slow. they told me dsl was slower than cable, but this was ridiculous! decided i would pay anything to upgrade because i just couldn't handle it anymore!

4 - after two hour phone call to my internet service, we found out my dsl was testing below dial-up speeds (i'm glad it was my internet and not just my lack of patience!)

5 - my plane was delayed over an hour, and the passengers consisted of myself, one other business traveler, and a class full of 11 and 12 year olds on a "discovery learning tour". you can use your imagination on the details of waiting in the airport and the flight.

6 - because my plane was delayed, shuttles to the rental cars were few and far between and i waited half an hour at midnight on the curb. then the rental agency i had my car reservation with was closed.

BUT....

i had an AWESOME wedding on saturday that i will be posting as soon as i get my computer back. the bride and groom were SO NICE, and it was a beautiful day in san diego. it was a small intimate ceremony, and the whole day was very relaxed and calm. i worked with heather from amorology weddings again, and was not disappointed with all the little details as usual!

christmas can be confusing!

why, you ask? i'll give you three examples...

first - i sat down at the piano to play some christmas songs for my kids. when i asked blake what his favorite christmas song was, he said "jesus had a little lamb"

second - when looking for the angel piece of the little people nativity set, he asked "where is the fairy godmother?" "you mean the angel?" "no, the fairy godmother with the wings"

third - blake also asked me "so mom, is it jesus who is watching us all the time, or santa?" (guess i'd better revise my threats!)

my inspiration

today i decided that i wanted to update my family wall of photos. the last full shoot i did for my own kids was back in april!!! i love when i get to experiment without feeling any pressure to get certain shots. i went not knowing specifics, but with a couple thoughts of what i would do. my kids are normally great with pictures, and my husband puts up with me and all of my ideas and does whatever he can to help me :) i am SO happy with how they turned out!

thanksgiving weekend!

yes, i do know that it is december already, but i'm a little behind on my personal blogging :)

we had a great thanksgiving! it was our first year by ourselves! no other family!! we usually go somewhere for the holidays, but i had a couple portrait shoots, so we decided to stay home. it was actually kinda nice to just relax quietly!
we started out the day with a little turkey bowl where i dressed the kids and myself in all usc clothing in honor of the big game. needless to say, in the middle of all the asu fans, we were not very popular!





our thanksgiving table... very fancy :) we even used real plates!





after eating, we went with the kids to see the bee movie. they thought that was cool. everything we did, blake asked "do we do this on thanksgiving?" one of those things was gamecube. i guess he got tired!





i LOVE CHRISTMAS and have been dying to decorate, but owen made me wait until after we ate so that thanksgiving was kind of over. the kids each have their own tree in their rooms so that they can decorate them however they want. i do a different color theme each year - sometimes for a reason, sometimes just because i feel like certain colors. for each kid's first christmas, i decorated the tree in blue (for blake) and pink (for tyler). this year the kids used the ornaments from each of their first christmas' on their own trees! i thought it was really cute!











this year's color theme is silver and gold. its one of those "just feel like it" years for the theme.





i also broke my mom's heart and a three generation tradition by purchasing stockings instead of making them myself. i do feel bad, but after three years of glue-gunning felt at midnight on christmas eve to create a makeshift stocking, only to have it fall apart christmas morning (you would think once would be enough!), i felt it was time to break down and buy some!





(by the way, yes, my stockings are stuck in the cover of the piano because i have nowhere else to put them!)





this is as close as i get to decorating. i basically have my piano - the only flat surface in my living room to put some decorations on. i got all sorts of christmas-y stuff and put it in jars. i thought it turned out cute, but for all you out there who are really talented at decorating, you're probably cringing right now!











another exciting thing this year... our grandma gave us another piece of our nativity set! we now have the shepard and stable animals!! only a couple more pieces left and we'll have it all!

the day after thanksgiving, we did our gingerbread house. both last year and this year, grandma gave them the kit to make the houses, and they have been DYING to make it.





that about covers our weekend! we definitely missed our family, but managed to enjoy ourselves :)

the kanenwisher family

tanya is a lifesaver. she does organizing for a living, and is SO GOOD at it! she helped me organize my whole house, and my life is still crazy, but at least its organized in the middle of the madness! if you're interested in having her come to your house let me know - closets, bedrooms, kitchens, garages - she does it all!!

here is her adorable family!

MY FAMILY!!!!

family pictures are important to me, and i get them done at least every year! the kids get shoots in between because i can do those, but around christmas time i annoy my family by stressing about their outfits, changing them 5 times on the day of, and then dragging them out to get portraits done :) i totally understand what all you moms go through! melissajill took our portraits, and i absolutely love them!

boston at random

i admit that i was kind of a slacker when it came to photos on our boston trip (i'm kicking myself now!) i really didn't take TONS like i should have! but i had fun and have enough for some scrapbook pages :)

the morning after we flew in, we headed to the aquarium on boston harbor. the kids LOVED it! i really liked this sea dragon thing - so cool!

they had an area where the kids could touch crabs and pick up starfish and other sea critters

this is the cute town hall center where i shot some of the other family portraits...

there had apparently been some incidents with the killer geese, but luckily they didn't seem to notice us much that day.

one day we went into boston to see boston commons and some other sights, and ashlee is so cute - she bought this book for my kids and read it in the boston commons and then pointed out all the places the book talks about. the kids love it and its now a favorite bedtime story! such a great idea for a memory of the trip!

these are statues in the commons of the mallards from the book


one day we made a trip out to newport, rhode island to see the famous mansions. we only ended up actually touring this one, but we drove around the other ones. this is the breakers mansion which used to be the vanderbilt's summer home. it is A-MAZ-ING! its over 100,000 square feet, and so the details are so intricate in every single room! this is the view from the balcony on the second floor. you weren't allowed to take pictures inside the mansion at all, so this is the only shot i got while "in" the house. one room was built in europe, taken apart, and shipped over WITH all the people to build it back again over here. and one of the fireplaces was from an actual castle!!


this is the backyard and back of the house.

i thought this driveway entrance was so cute - it was someone's house that we saw on our drive along the ocean.

i took a couple while i was waiting for my portrait family to arrive...and for your fellow californians or arizonians who are enjoying the 90 degree weather - THIS IS FALL



let me just say now that my pictures cannot convey how AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL it is out east, and thanks again to our friends for letting us visit!!

WICKED!!

ashlee and i were walking around the boston commons and started talking about wicked the play. then we passed the opera house and saw that it was playing!! so we went and bought tickets for THAT NIGHT! it was SOOOO GOOD! i can't even express to you how great it was. for those of you who haven't seen it - go see it! this was ashlee's third time, and she still loved it, and i'm already trying to talk my mom into going with me in LA over christmas!

blake took this picture of ashlee and i that morning while in the boston commons, and its the only one of the two of us that we took so i had to post it - even with the unflattering up angle of my face!

first REAL haircut!

i have a phobia about baby mullets. for this reason, when tyler was 6 months, i flow-bied her hair. (if you haven't heard of one, its this cool contraption from infomercials that sucks the hair right up into your vacuum) the flowbie lets you cut it all one length all around the head, so i left a good 2 inches all around so that there weren't any wierd long parts in random places. i then cut it even with her hairline in back until the front caught up, and seriously, it grew in SO NICELY! although my daughters might not like it, if i ever have another girl - i'll definitely do it again!

anyway, tyler's hair was a couple inches below her shoulders and i decided it was time for a real hair cut. i couldn't decide what to do, but of course once my amazing hair girl celeste suggested a cute bob, i went for it! my only regret is that i didn't take pictures right after celeste blowdried it because it looked way better than my job this morning! but i LOVE it!

my mini-session with the new hair was interrupted by a visitor, so these are all the shots i got.

soccer season!

blake started his first year of soccer this weekend!!! we are so excited, and it was so much fun to watch him and his friends play.


starting the game...

here is owen cooling blake off with his water bottle - we are obviously new at the soccer thing because we showed up with no blanket to sit on, no chairs, no umbrella for shade, and no water for any of the rest of us! i already have a shopping list for next weekend's game!

and the final huddle! i love how huge the uniforms are on all the boys - i think most of them spent half the game pulling up their shorts!

last days in boise

this is the whole clan! we had so much fun visiting with all owen's family! we took some portraits in the park with my timer, and i'm so happy with how it turned out!


the kids got to go fishing with grandma and grandpa, and boy, am i glad that they were the ones to teach them fishing! they used actual worms (velveeta's the only thing i've used!) and i would not have been able to bait a hook.


tyler preferred to feed the ducks her bag of marshmellows.

she liked the white duck best, and kept getting mad when the other ducks would take the marshmellow first.

we also went four-wheeling... the kids had a BLAST!!

the kids loved uncle khan, and he was so great to hang out with them all weekend!



this is the end of our trip! we had so much fun and hope to come back soon!

idaho!!

the kids and i made a trip up to idaho to visit owen's parents. both sets of grandparents love to do very different things, so its fun for the kids to have the experiences with both.

one of blake's favorite things to do up here is to hammer nails. this started when he was young, and he has remembered it ever since!

this was his log from the last time we were up - you can see, he spent a lot of time hammering!

he got a new log this trip, so he's working on filling it up as well!

until owen was 10, they lived on a potato farm, so this trip, grandpa planted some "spuds" for the kids to dig up. then they had to load their trucks and get them to the cellar. it was so cute! i missed the actual digging, but the kids had so much fun, and loaded up the cellar!d





i'll get more pictures up of the rest of the fun stuff soon!

fun new things!

this week tyler started a ballet and tap class and blake started preschool! i've been waiting what seems like forever until tyler was old enough to go to dance and now she can! she had so much fun and was pretty upset to find out she couldn't go back the next day. and blake loves his preschool too! last year i waited too long and so i ended up doing a co-op preschool with some of my friends. let's just say i'm so glad he is going to a real preschool this year!

i'm sorry to all my clients, but i just don't think it gets much cuter than these two kids :)

last night on the beach...

the last night we were in california, we all headed down for a barbeque on the beach. i got a couple last surfing shots before i left to do some portraits. after i got back, we all roasted marshmellows!

okay, this was just a random shot from the day before, but i thought it was so cute i had to put it up!

matthew LOVES to body surf. the way the tide was made it get really deep really fast. all you could see was his head, and he almost got run over by more than one surfer!

i liked this one because my dad and jess are on the same wave together!


we were hoping to get a fire pit, but they were all full so we improvised :)

blake didn't want any brown on his marshmellow.

california was so much fun! thanks to all of you who met me for photo shoots, and to my family for the fun times!

take two

apparently i didn't post a very impressive surfing photo, so i went through the photos again and chose a better one :) i think my dad feels better about himself now!

a little more fun from the beach...

on vacation... sort of :)

i'm really should be relaxing since my next couple months are going to be really crazy! but of course i can't stop myself from doing photography - both for myself and for others. but its okay, because i love it! we are having a GREAT time with my family on the beach! my kids and i drove out to join them at a beach house to visit with the rest of my brothers and sisters.

tyler kept sending blake to get water for her bucket



here's one of this year's surfing shots of my dad :)

and we headed over to balboa island one night. the kids love the ferry!

pinetop

we went up to pinetop and snowflake this weekend with friends for the july 24th celebrations - and to get out of the heat! it rained a couple of the days, and the weather was absolutely gorgeous! we hit the rodeo, the snowflake parade and carnival, and just hung out around the cabin we were staying at. they had a little creek in the back and the big and little boys caught some craw daddy's one afternoon, and then cooked and ate them!



tyler kept sneaking licorice - as you can tell from the red mouth :)


we found a couple cups tied to string, so obviously we were not the first to try to catch something!





this is the big one that they caught, and it climbed out of the water in the pool we had set them in and looked like it was going to attack!


a storm rolled in really quickly while they were fishing, and the girls decided to head back just in case. as soon as we got back to the cabin, it started pouring! all the boys got caught in the storm and came back soaked.



thanks guys, we had a great trip!

i am one of the crazies!

okay, i like to read. LOVE to read actually, and i read books to relax or wind down or just for fun. my husband teases me that when i find a good book i have a hard time putting it down. but i have to say, i can't think of any book that has grabbed my attention as much as Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. i'm not kidding - i started reading it after the kids went to bed one night, and didn't go to sleep until i was finished! this is not a small book either - 500 pages. and in the back, there's an excerpt from the sequel New Moon, so of course what did i do in the morning? rush right over to barnes and noble and buy the second one. again, i started almost instantly. luckily my kids took a good nap that day and i was able to read during that. i did have to pause to eat dinner, but went immediately back to reading and finished the same night again. unfortunately, there was another excerpt from the 3rd book Eclipse, but its NOT OUT YET!! it comes out august 7th. so to occupy my time, i read the first two over again - each in one day again - and still loved them!

i don't want to tell you what they're about, and if you read a description or the back - don't be deterred because of the subject, i waiting until i heard from about 5 different people before i finally said "okay, i'll try it out" thinking i probably wouldn't like it.

i used to laugh about my mom and other people waiting in line to get the new harry potter release, putting countdowns on their blog and everything - so i had to put one on. its to make fun of myself, and also to really see the countdown because I AM DYING! i will be there tuesday morning while i'm on vacation picking it up :)

utah for me...

as you can see, i was VERY busy in utah. i stayed with my grandparents, and i felt bad because i hardly got to see them. but what time we did spend together was great. i haven't gotten to see them as often as i'd like, and my kids always have so much fun with grandma!

we all spent many of the evenings out on the balcony which has an amazing view of BYU campus below. my grandma and i went out one night before it was even dusk, and we watched the sunset and finally went in when it was pretty much completely dark! it was nice to just sit and talk in the cool evenings - especially since i don't get many of those here in az.


my sister took a picture for us so that we could have all of us together. my kids obviously don't know what to do when someone besides me is taking the picture - they both seem a little confused ;)

i am so grateful to my grandparents that i was able to stay with them, and that they put up with my crazy schedule! thanks guys!

utah 2007

that is it for my utah portrait sessions! i had such a great time working with all these amazing families and locations. i'll see you all next time!

what a week!

i know it has been awhile since i last posted. you might think i was slacking off, but that is definitely NOT the case! owen was gone again for work, and after last time, i promised myself i was just going to stick to my normal responsibilities instead of some crazy surprise. well, halfway through his trip i decided that i could handle painting my master bathroom. my bathroom is not big by any means, but it does have vaulted ceilings which make for some fun painting. its also fun when you do two complete coats and at 1:30 AM, you decide you don't like the color. and by that time, you have to fix it, you can't just leave it as is! so i got up early the next morning (the day he was getting home!) and found a new color at home depot. oh yeah, i forgot to mention that i also decided to rip off the old light fixture in the bathroom and replace that as well! once again, at that point, its already ripped off the wall, so you have to put something back up! in the end it turned out really well, so i'm happy, but worn out ;)

and lastly, it was blake's birthday party today, so we had all that planning and shopping to do for it. it ended up going really well! i knew it would be hot, so i planned a water party with water balloons, squirt guns, and popsicles. the kids had a blast, and all the grown-ups got into the fun as well! they aren't the most artistic pictures because the party was pure madness, and half the time i was shielding my camera from water, but you get the idea!

this is tyler as she aimed for my camera with her squirt gun...


the big kid that all the little kids are aiming at is my wonderful husband. i have to say, he was the life of the party! things definitely would not have been as fun without him! don't you love the little boy blocking with the big football?! owen made me buy a super soaker for him so that he could get all the kids drenched.

blake getting some help blowing out his candle from a friend

i really don't know what this is, but i had to put it in. i tried to explain why we don't put our feet on our plates, but she didn't seem to mind.

the only "CARS" pinata they had was a pull-string pinata. i had never even heard of these! in fact, i was completely confused at the store when i asked if you were supposed to hang it by the strings. i guess someone came up with a safer idea than blindfolding a kid and giving them a metal bat. anyway, each kid pulls a string and eventually the candy comes out.



that's it for now! be prepared for TONS of blogging in the near future!

on becoming my mother...

first of all i would like to start by saying - i should not be left alone. my husband was out of town for a couple days so of course, i decided to paint my kids' rooms by myself before he got back. (by the way - i haven't done any decorating other than the painting, so please don't judge me on the naked walls!)

now, if you know my mom, you are laughing right now because this is totally something she would do. my mom is amazing- she does everything from building furniture to mapping out and remodeling entire rooms. i may not be quite as talented as her with the home remodeling, but i figured i could handle painting. i love that when i called her to tell her my plans, she wasn't surprised at all, it was as if it was totally expected of me to try to paint two bedrooms in a couple days on my own. and when i hurt my back pulling that huge toy bookcase because i decided taking the toys out beforehand would take way too much time, she completely understood that as well! i think for both of us, the best part about doing things on our own is because we can do whatever we want and not feel bad about making others help us when WE want them to. my husband might call this impatience, but i prefer to call it initiative ;)

anyway, here are the rooms... tyler's started out with the bottom half blue, and the top cream, and blake's was all cream. i should mention that i painted tyler's room and then painted it again because i didn't like the bottom color! i still want to add a really light blue to the top 8 inches of blake's room, so that's in the plans also.

Cute shelf!

My friend Brooke posted this on her blog, and I loved it so I thought I'd put it up here too. These are all pictures that I've done for her kids, and I LOVE how she arranged them. When I do portrait sessions, my vision is always to have coordinating photos that could all be put up together, and she did a great job with them!

easter portraits

the biggest thing i wanted to do this week was to do easter portraits of blake and tyler. my sister and i were driving on the freeway and saw this spot so we pulled off and then tried to find our way over to it. i love how the portraits turned out! i apologize ahead of time for so many portraits, i had a hard time picking my favorites!






this is why i don't ask clients to smile - check out these fake cheeses!














and here are my gorgeous sisters...

easter break

the kids and i are spending spring break with my family in california. i always love coming home, and enjoy time with my family!