She needs a house coat

And maybe some contacts.

I want me one!

Anyone know how I can get a Keebler coupon book without buying it on ebay?

Secret Visitor

We've had a visitor for a couple of days now that we were not aware of until last night. I don't think it's been longer than a week.
It's not a cute and furry visitor. It's a yucky, yucky, yucky visitor. Last night Joel noticed mouse droppings under our kitchen sink. Well, needless to say he got an earful from me about it because I had warned him last year when he remodeled the kitchen that he'd left a hole that was way too big, and I have been waiting for this to happen ever since, even checking for droppings every month or so since. But I won't drag on my frustration here.

So last night we went out and got traps and poison. He cleaned up under the sink and carefully set a trap. I checked the trap later to see that the bait was gone and the trap was still set. Rotten trap! So we took it out, re-baited it and set another trap with it. At about 2am I heard the trap go off, and it sounded like it got something, it didn't sound like it hit wood. So a few seconds later my boys come into the room asking me if I wanted them to get it. "NO! leave it for dad!" duh.

Sure enough, we caught ourselves a mousey.... problem: the trap and the mouse fell down the hole. Problem: husband is freaked out about mice more than me (perhaps) and refuses to get gloves and pick it out himself. Solution: husband would rather sacrifice his beautiful Craftsman grilling tongs than a stupid fluffy work glove to avoid even feeling the squishy body of the mouse. I told him he has one week to solve this problem and if I find any mouse droppings after that, the bird is getting traded in for a cat. I hate cats. But I hate mice more than cats. I also hate not sleeping more than I hate cats, and last night I didn't sleep :(

When Joel wakes from his nap in a few minutes I think we are going to go buy 20 cans of spray foam.

The Patch

We've had trouble lately getting Joy to wear her eye patches. She has to wear them for an hour a day, but she HATES it. So when I was at the YMCA, I was talking to another mom who's son patches and she told me about these cute little patch pals.
She only wanted the puppies, but hey, if it gets her wearing them, I'll buy her 10 puppies!

I am so excited!

And so bummed at the same time!

Rumor has it Brett Favre is signing with the Vikings today, and that has me excited for an exciting new season. I am also bummed because this is the first year we won't be able to get even one ticket to a game :( Booooo!!!!
It's been our tradition that each year we buy two tickets to one game, every year. But with Joel being laid off, we can't do that this year.
Glad we have a really big tv to watch the games on!

Don't box me in!

Put me in a little box and see what I will do! These are some of my images from a job I had today taking images of the inside of several elevator cabs, that a company makes, for their new website. The lady making the website for them has agreed to barter with me for my images, and design me a smashing new website for my wedding line.
We had so much fun doing this, the biggest kicker was when people would go to get on the elevator, to watch their reactions. I found it super amusing when people would try to ignore us, as if they see a photo studio set up in the elevator every day.
Thanks for the fun job Tina!

You know you're a hard core photographer

when you look like you chew tobacco :)



LOL, just kidding. JoAnne took this and I embellished it a little for fun. If you can't tell it's the lens cap to my nifty fifty.

Life is like a bike with daiseys

Ok, maybe it is more like a box of chocolates, but this is a really fun picture I took at my friend Ann's house tonight. She's so creative and fun!
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Tonight I went out shooting some family portraits for a friend's family. Actually the mom and the daughter are people I consider to be good friends to our family. I've done a lot of work for them and they've been wonderful to me in sending customers. My other friend JoAnne came with me to help. She's so nice to volunteer, I feel bad that I can't think of things for her to help with, and when I do, I accidentally ask someone else to do it, hahaha. I love hanging out with JoAnne, I can talk to her pretty easily, which doesn't happen often with other people I meet. Also I love that she's got a big interest in photography. She has a great eye and I love seeing her perspective in images. I like having a friend to share that interest in common (she's totally going to kill me when she reads this- but that's ok, I wanted her to know I love her friendship).
I was thinking tonight about how lucky I am to have such great friends.
It's been a while, trying to fit into our ward, but I'm starting to make some really good friendships with people in it, not just with Ann and JoAnne, and it's feeling more like a family to me. I love that. I love having great people in my life who are uplifting and ... I don't know the word for it, I just feel good around them. I know I'm not likely to have an awkward moment with them, or have to explain how I live to them. They know, and are living it too.
Feels really good to have people like that in my life every day.

Day of two swims

Yesterday my kids had a fun treat! First, I decided to take them to playgroup, after all. I wasn't going to, because it was at a lake again and lakes really gross me out. But Joel had to study for a big test that he has tonight so I decided to be generous to both parties, and I also let them wear their swim suits, which was totally unexpected for them because we only swim at pools.
Then later in the day JoAnne invited us over to their house for more swimming. I had to go water the garden and was going to have the kids play on the tire swing hanging by our garden, but swimming at JoAnne's was much more fun! I decided to bring my camera for some shots.

This was a shot of Isaac bouncing a ball off of Jaeden's head.

I love this awesome duck they had in their pool. I think it had chlorine in it?

At one point JoAnne went into the house to make slushies, and I took the opportunity (of not being too embarrassed) to show my kids that I can still do a flip on a trampoline. I didn't land on my feet, but my kids were still amazed and thought it was great.

Rocky the wonder bird

Rocky was hatched in May.

Here's a cute little video I made today of "Rocky" (or "Roxy" if it lays an egg this winter) having his first official bath. I've tried letting him play in the bathtub with a little water, and I've misted him with a spray bottle and he didn't go for those. But today while I was eating lunch I let him hang out on the kitchen table with me and offered him some shredded zucchini. The next thing I know he's trying to cuddle with my water bottle. I then realized that he was trying to get all of the moisture off of my bottle onto his wings. We experimented with a couple of containers before finding one that worked for him.

Wait a second.... I'M the BOSS

Sometimes I feel like I'm a little into my own world. I need to find a good balance in my life.
Sometimes I come to crazy realizations of things I should have known years ago. For example I've been so set in a schedule of having the kids go to bed at a certain time that I've just carried it on through the summer. Being a good girl, going to bed at a decent hour, waking up in the morning when the kids start fighting over the remote. But now, I'm thinking to myself... "Hey! There's nothing going on in the morning, I don't have to go to bed at a certain time, why am I doing this to us?" So now I'm being a rebel and staying up until... oh, say, midnight. It helps that I have a lot of work to do, so I'm busy. But it's also bad that I've discovered UNO on Facebook and have become addicted in just the three short games I've played. I'll have to be careful when I turn that game on, I might not make it to bed. I'm sure that come school, we'll be having some adjustments to make.

Kids and stuff

A lot of things that have been happening to the people around me have caused me to reflect on my relationship with my children. I want the way things are to be that if I ever had to leave this earth any time soon, I want my children to never have to wonder about how much they were loved by their mother and how much of their antics she noticed and treasured. And then this morning I remembered a book I had started for the children, to read whenever they wanted. I'd had it in a window in a stack of books by the couch, but the couch has since been moved up against the windows and the book has been forgotten for about two years.
I pulled it out this morning and skimmed through the things I had written in there. Some of the memories brought back some huge laughs.
Like the time Jaeden and I were at Sam's club and she wanted to know why we were on the security tv. I told her it was because we were famous. On the way back to the car she looked up to me and said, "I just don't understand why we were on that tv show!"
Or the time I went into the family room and saw all of Joshua's monster action figures in the kneeling position with their arms up. It was a curious thing to see them all lined up in a row in this submissive position. And then I saw it. The lone American soldier with his gun raised and aimed at the line of monsters. Good soldier.
Two years of these wonderful memories have passed without being written. I am so sad about that. I hope that this time I can keep it going. I wanted to write in it this morning, but couldn't think of anything off the top of my head to write. So I decided that I would watch today for something to write about.
It didn't take long for Joy to join me in my room in the morning. We got into a discussion that was very deep for a four year old. She wanted to know about how her spirit got into her body and how did her bones get into her body too. Then later at church during sacrament she was sitting on my lap. She wanted to talk and I told her she needed to be quiet and be thinking about Jesus. Well, that started a whole train of thought on how did we have all these pictures of Jesus on the walls? She asked me if someone took a camera to Heaven and took pictures of Jesus and then came back to where we are and put them on the walls? I thought that was a little humorous for a photographers kid to think of that. I had to explain to her that nobody today has seen Jesus so artists have painted or drawn pictures of what they think he looked like.
I don't remember thinking such deep thoughts at such a young age. I hope her mind never ceases to wonder at the miracles of God and the world around her.

Changing subjects- I've had a horrible migraine for about 5 weeks now. It started once I realized that we weren't going to make it through August on our own. A couple of necessary doctor visits due, arthritis medicines, property taxes due, school supplies and clothes (my kids haven't gotten new clothes since January except for a few wonderful hand-me-downs from some ward members), Jaeden's birthday, and possible AP books to buy were threatening to sink us financially. Some days the migraine was really horrible and I'd have liked to just stay in my bed with a pillow over my head to knock out any light or sound. But even with Joel home, I have things that I have to get done and couldn't stay in bed nursing myself. I've fasted and attended the temple more and I think that we are starting to receive the favors and blessings we've been seeking. I've had a bit of work coming in in the last couple of weeks that were unexpected. Not all of it's paying much (one of the jobs is getting me some much needed new tires for my van to replace the ones I can see Lincoln's head on), but it's work and I love doing it and every little bit helps. I've done more family portraits in the last month than I have in the last three years. Necessity has forced me to take on jobs I would normally send to other photographers. For the last year or so I've stuck mostly to weddings and babies. I'm becoming more comfortable with families, and I love it more when families are willing to play and do whatever ideas I have and even throw out their own. That makes what I do so much more fun to me and it feeds my drive to do more. Nothing squashes my creativity more than asking me to do a session with nothing but straight on standard poses and that is one reason I've stopped doing family portraits, because that's what people have wanted and expected. I felt squashed and boxed in. So with the new jobs and also (at the risk of announcing it to people and the embarrassment that will come with it) my parent have offered some help in getting school supplies for the kids, and also we are benefiting from people's fast offerings for the next couple of weeks. Anyway, this is all to say that I think we might make it through the dreaded August after all. I was really sweating it. My migraine has eased up in the last day or so and that has been so nice to have my head back again.