Seriously?

Wow!  I have only been averaging about 1 to 2 post per week for the last month or so.  That is so sad.  Funny thing is that I thought when my son started school I would have SO much more free to time to craft. HAHAHAHA  It has been the opposite.  I haven't sewn hardly at all and I have made nothing for my etsy shop.  I have barely managed to do a few projects for friends or for church.

This last weekend I did a Halloween photo shoot with some friends and friends of friends.  It was lots of fun.  I made a Halloween banner just to help with decorations.  I also brought my halloween quilt that I made a LONG time ago.  A lot of the fabric matched because it was left over from when I did the quilt.  Here is a picture of my son and his friend Lillie ( who happens to be my best friend from high school's little girl )

I was planning on using the Halloween banner across my fire place but I made it SO huge that I would have to cut it in half and so far I have been way to lazy to do that.  Pathetic I know.   The main reason for the photo shoot was to take a picture for my friend.  Her little girl is almost a year old and she is so adorable.  She was looking on pinterest or somewhere and saw a picture of a baby INSIDE a pumpkin.  If you have been looking on pinterest at all you have probably seen the picture.  she sent me a copy and said, "Can we do this, please?"  I told her as long a s she carved out the pumpkin herself I would totally do it.  SO this is what we ended up with

When we first put her in it she balled!  Like big crocodile tears!  Then her momma started singing and all the kids started jumping up and down dancing and we got this little smile out of her.  She never smiled huge but that is okay.  We liked this one any ways.  What a cutie pie huh?!

So there you have it.  Some kind of a blog post from me.  And since today is Thankful Thursdays I am going to say I am thankful for friends.  My friend Lisa not only set up everything at her mom's house and bought all of the decorations for this photo of her daughter, but she then wrote a note on facebook and asked if anyone was interested in coming and paying money to get their kids picture taken!  What a trooper she was!  She worked hard all day too.  I'm so grateful for the few of my friends who are like that and support me no matter what.  Her momma raised her right.  I met her sister and she was the SAME way.  Kept asking me if I needed anything, threw my trash away for me, put my medicine in the refrigerator for me.  It was so nice!  I hope everyone who reads this can find something that they are thankful for today too!

So here's hoping I have SOMETHING crafty to show for my self soon.  I am NOT making any promises thought because we are moving into our new house in about two weeks,  I have one box packed.  YIKES!

9-11

I remember this day like it was yesterday...

What do you remember from this day?  I am STILL kicking myself that I didn't save any newspapers from this day or any of the days after.  My husband was in Brazil on a mission for our church when this happened and he saved a Brazilian newspaper from this week!  He said it was really crazy being in another country. He said someone came up to him and asked if he was American and then said his country was under attack.  He didn't really believe him.  I'm glad he kept the newspaper!

Never forget all those who lost their lives that day.  Some willing and some not.  I am blessed to be an American!

In The Mood

I have been WANTING to sew lately but have had several other things going.  My sister was here visiting along with my other friend Kevin.  We had lots going on while they were here.  My house, when they left was a MESS.  Like horrible mess.  Kayla was best buddies with her cousin Jacob who crawls.  She would crawl on the floor with him and says, "Come on baby Jakey"  It was so cute.  Then he would smile and laugh and follow her.  She would also dump out EVERY little thing she thought he would like to play with and spread it out all over the floor.  You could barely walk in my living room.  I have no idea how they were crawling on it.

Any ways.  We had lots going on after they left too.  I FINALLY got about 25 clips to the shop here where I live.  I am both nervous and excited to have something in a store for sale.  I have no clue if any of them will sale.  If they don't sale, then it will be kind of disappointing.  The good news is that I am in no contract or anything and my first month of rent space is free.   Take my advice people, if you have a skill you are good at always ask if someone is willing to trade services.  The shop I was going to be selling hair clips at was having problems taking pictures and getting them on facebook.  I told them I was a photographer and asked if they would be willing to have me come do pictures for them and I could get rent space free for the first month.  They said yes!  WOO HOO  Here are some pictures I took of their shop

It's a pretty cute shop!  The good news is that no one else sales hair clips either so the only hair clips in there are mine!  I made some cute stuff for the shop too.  But because I have been doing hair clips like crazy, I am not in the mood to do some for my etsy shop.  Maybe in a week or so I can duplicate some for my etsy shop because some of them were really cute.  Here is a picture of all of them together.

I have more crafts to write about but I don't want to write them all in the same post so I'll write more soon.  I need to shower and go over my lesson for church today.  It's a pretty intense lesson that I am praying I can get through.

Happy Sunday everyone!

Today is thursday. I am having a crappy week. It makes thankful thursdays kinda hard. I am thankful for so many things. When I am having a bad day I usually miss my husband a lot. He has been having a crappy week too. Some of our reason are the same, some are different. We are both amazed lately at how many people SAY they will do something but DON'T. It amazes me when how bad the economy is, and how much people need business right now, they are not pulling their weight. We have had family members totally let us down, lawyers NOT call us back and real estate agents who ignore our calls. Seriously? Do you NOT want our business? I thought EVERYONE right now needed and wanted business but I guess not.

SOOOOOOO for today I am going to name something simple. I am thankful for my new business cards! haha I ordered some new cards for my photography since my old ones say Serving the Central Texas Area. I really liked my old cards so I did something almost exactly the same. I changed things up slightly. In stead of business cards, I got postcards! I LOVE THEM! They are so cute and I love that they are big enough to see the pictures well on them. I have seen photographers do this a couple times over the last year and every time I found one, got given one or picked one up somewhere, I just loved how big and colorful they were. So you want to see?

Sorry it's a bad picture.  It was taken with my cell phone.  SOOO who wants one?  :)

Blue Eyes

Remember how I told y'all I had  a photo shoot this week with some cutie pies from church?  Check out their gorgeous blue eyes!

 Adorable right?  If you want to see the rest of the pictures click here

Do You Remember?

Do you remember back in May or June when I blogged about a camera bag I REALLY wanted but they were out of stock in the color I wanted? WELL, they have the color in stock again! I have been debating on buying it or not. I HATE spending large amounts of money on one single item. Last month I bought my new backdrops and I haven't regretted that yet! I got great pictures of my sister and her little family. Check out my cute nephew

Here he is with his daddy sporting one of the bow ties I made him!

So I LOVE my backdrops!  I haven't used all of them yet so I still need to get some bodies over to my house so I can try out some more.  And now I am debating on buying the bag.  BUT WAIT!  Over at sew.craft.create.  She is giving one of these camera bags away that I want!  I am sure I will not win because I just am NOT That person who wins things ever BUT I am blogging about the giveaway any ways.  Today is the last day to enter so go on over and enter because you never know when you might win something!  And even if you don't win the blog itself is SUPER cute and you might get some new great ideas!

Since I am showing you pictures from my little photo shoot wanna see some more?  Check out my cutie pie Kayla girl

And the BEST picture I could get of the two of them

And then my boy!  The first picture I posed.  THEN he decided to pose himself...

LOVE this one!  haha

And if you knew my boy you would know him this picture describes him to a T!

Don't forget to go over to the giveaway and enter for your chance to win a camera bag!

Birthdays

It was my sister and Dad's birthday on Wednesday.  My parents tried for years to have kids and after considering adoption they found out my mom was pregnant.  She gave birth to my sister Kristy on my dad's 30th birthday.  May 4th.  We celebrated and it was fun!  We started off with lunch.  I had my boy Tyler take a picture of us at lunch and he took the best picture.  Perfectly centered and my camera is BIG.  I was impressed.

This is my sister Kim, our friend Liz, Kristy, Me and Kayla.  Kayla was wearing her skull dress I made her.  :)  Then my sister Kim and I took the kids to the mall and bought cards and a gift card for my dad.  Then I went back to my moms house and finished my sister's present!  She loved the birdie sling purse I made my mom and I so my mom bought her some cute fabric and then had me sew it.  It turned out really cute.

The last picture is of the inside.  We made Tacos and chocolate cake but it wasn't just ANY chocolate cake.  It was a chocolate chocolate cake!  YOu take a box chocolate cake mix ( or make your own chocolate cake from scratch )   Then you take a cook and serve vanilla pudding and make it according to the box directions and add it to the other mix.  Cook at 350 for 20 minutes.  Take it out of the oven and dump a whole bag of chocolate chips right on top so they melt.  Then you add walnuts!  Me and the kids don't like walnuts so we did half with and half without.  Check it out

Kids loved it too!  Funny because I was planning on making the cake but I was making taco shells for dinner so my dad ended up making his own cake!  But I did make some home made whip cream and we bought some vanilla ice cream to go with it.  It was delicious.  We also got a slip n slide for the kids to use out side.  They had tons of fun.  Baby Jacob had not be in a sprinkler before.  He loved it and it only took him a couple of minutes to realize that if he leaned forward he could drink the sprinkler water.

Then Kayla had a bath and RIGHT when she was getting out of the tub her Daddy for to my parents house!  We hadn't seen him in almost 2 weeks and the kids were SO excited.  It was a fabulous day all around.  Happy birthday Kristy and Dad!  Hope it was as enjoyable for you as it was for the rest of us.

Todays the Day

Today is the day I have been WAITING for!  At 3:30 I go in for my lassik!  WOO HOO  I am SO excited!  I did a photo shoot on Saturday before we left to come to Utah and it was so weird doing it with my glasses.  I don't think my pictures came out that great either.  BOOOOOOOOO  After this ( assuming everything goes well ) I won't have to worry about my dumb glasses!  I had an appointment yesterday where they had to dilate my eyes and it looked SO weird!  Check it out.

My sister was making fun of me for taking a picture but seriously, doesn't it look weird?!  I couldn't even open my eyes out side for a while it was SOOOOO bright.

We are having fun here in Utah.  We got here at around 3:30 on Sunday and they kids had an egg hunt and had lots of fun.  We got a new picture of the grandkids since our last one didn't come out!  haha  This one is MUCH better!  What do you guys think

OLD PICTURE

THE NEW ONE

A million times better right?  I LOVE it!  Hope you guys enjoyed your Easter.  I finished my girls skull dress and it's so adorable.  I can't wait to put it on her and take some pictures.

Scripture Case # 3

Tomorrow at church we are having an auction.  I wish I could say it was for a reason other then just for fun but that is just it!  We are having an auction with things the women donate and it's for the women and their daughters.  You earn "points" by doing things like "reading your scriptures."  "drinking 6 glasses of water a day."  "Sharing the gospel with a friend"  and then we can purchase things at the auction with these points.  I am afraid I won't have very many points haha  BUT I am donating two things to the auction.  The first is a 16 X 20 canvas print of the Salt lake City Utah Temple that I took back in October.

I like it for this time of the year because it is spring and has the flowers!  Then I am also donating something I just finished today.  I am really excited about it because I think it turned out really cute.  It's a scripture case I made using my own tutorial from here  

I LOVE how it turned out.  The pictures are kinda crappy and don't do it justice.  I figured the canvas print the older women would like and the young girls would like the scripture case!  We'll see how it goes.  I am sure there will be LOTS of fun stuff there.  I'll bring my camera and try and takes some pictures.

Birthday Card

My mother in law had a birthday a couple of weeks ago.  I wanted to make her a card for her birthday and send it to her.  I had an idea and it would have been great except for my pesky kids not wanting to cooperate.  How dare they, right?!  haha  I made three signs.  One said HAPPY, one said BIRTHDAY and one said NANA.  My IDEA was to have Tyler hold HAPPY and to take his picture.  Then I was going to have Kayla hold up HAPPY and have me take her picture.  Then I wanted the two of them to hold the sign NANA together and have me take one more pictures.  Tyler does his picture and all is well.  I give Kayla her sign and I can NOT get her to hold it up the right.  She wanted to hold it upside down so that she could read it.  Looking back on it now, I wish I would have just taken her picture with it upside down because I think that would have been cute too.  At the time I was frustrated and annoyed.  Why can't we just relax as mom's sometimes?  Sheesh.  Any ways.  I eventually got SOMETHING and made the card but it wasn't what I wanted it to be.  Here is what we ended up with

Then I used picnik.com to make the actual card.  If you have never heard of them or tried them go to their site and check them out.  I made my header through their web site too!

Overall it was cute and she liked it but I wish I had gotten better pictures.  Leave it to someone who considers themselves a "photographer" to not be able to get good pictures of my own kids!

5 Pounds

That is how much weight I gained over the last week and a half!  Booooooo  We were in Utah and ate at a bunch of places we don't have here in Cali and then it was my birthday and I made this delicious cake with some YUMMY frosting.  I ate almost all of it myself....hmmmmmm

Last week I was even disciplined enough to work out three times before we left to go to Utah.  I KNEW I had gained some weight because my pants were fitting tight.  I finally forced myself to get on the scale.  This week it's South Beach all over again and some self discipline!  I just bought some cadbury eggs too!  DOH!

And because I have been posting a lot with no pictures ( which I HATE ) here is a quick one from our trip

Enjoy

The top picture was taken inCedar City.  It snowed the day we left.  The other picture was taken in the car with the window rolled up while we were still driving.  Yeah...that's how I roll! haha  When you have kids and are in a hurry there's no point in stopping, getting out of the car or rolling the window down.  In fact, when I do roll the window down I either get yelled at, or my boy barks like a dog.  He's a weirdo  haha

Funny Photo

Do you ever go through old pictures and find something you LOVE!?  I do that all the time.  Sometimes I find a picture that I can't believe I missed and other times I don't find anything.  My sister Kim was going through some pictures from October and found a funny one she sent me.  I was taking pictures of the Salt Lake City Utah's Temple.  I was crouched down because I was getting the reflection of the Temple in the water of the fountain.  My niece Bradlie was trying to play in the water.  He mommy was holding her pants so she didn't fall in.

Check out the picture my sister got

HAHAHAHA  I love it!  That's my Bro in the back ground.

Well just thought I'd share the funny photo.  I have LOTS of things I could be posting but I think my week is going to be busy.  We are leaving Thursday to drive to Utah to visit for the weekend and we are excited.  In fact, Kayla today kept saying, "Mommy, Daddy, Grandma-pa, Papa, Nana!"  haha  She is so funny.

Kids

I apologize if you read my photography blog because today I am reposting some pictures I just put on there.  I took some pictures of my kids today and I am loving their eyes!

My girl

And my boy!  He drove me crazy ALL day but it's hard to resist these eyes

I love you Tyler and Kayla!!!