just a glimpse

Elf on the Shelf

Thanks to a great idea from my cousin, last night, this cute little guy arrived in a box on our front porch with a book detailing instructions for his care. The kids were soo excited to see him and read about him. He's a little elf, who's main job is to report back to Santa every night on whether the kids have been naughty or nice. It's awesome.

Our first job was to name him. After going through about 50 suggestions such as Fluffy, Rumbly, Buddy, Tooty, and others I can't remember (wonder-why?), Jared suggested 'tic-tac'.  It seemed perfect to all of us, so Tic-Tac it is. He watches over the kids and after they are asleep, magically flies back to the North Pole to give a report to Santa and then flies back to our house. When he gets back, he hides in a different spot and the kids are supposed to look for him in the morning. This morning, we finally found him perched at the top of our Christmas tree. Who knows where he will end up tomorrow? All I know is that I am so glad Santa sent him to us. Because we've had REALLY good behavior around here since he got here.

If you think Santa should send you one, check here.....

too funny

On a break today from an almost overwhelming task of proofing, ordering, and packaging the many photo sessions I've been doing lately, we went outside to play in the leaves.

Chloe actually asked me to take her picture. I hesitated, because quite frankly, I'm a little tired of taking pictures right now. But I agreed, because it's not very often that she is a willing model.

First she wanted to throw the leaves. Which apparently you can only do properly with your mouth wide open.

Then she wanted to lay down and look at me.

After seeing her get all the attention, Kate wanted in on the action, so the promptly laid down next to Chloe and I asked them to look at each other.

Kate interpreted that request a tad differently, however.

And I'm glad I had the camera out for that one.

scenes from the pony party at the park

the pony cake:

who is that wacky girl back there?

sliding with ally:

 

Boy's don't wear pony hats:

But cute little girls do:

almost burning her lips:

two years

 

She's fiesty, independent, likes to do everything 'MYSELF', talks in sentences, knows exactly what she wants and lets you know when you don't get it right, makes hilarious faces, cracks people up with her super deep voice, loves animals, loves reading books and singing songs, gives giant hugs and kisses, throws gigantic tantrums, makes us laugh every day.

My baby is 2 today. And I guess that means I'm no longer a mom to a baby at all.

on 2 wheels

Look who rode his bike without training wheels today! His friend Hudson showed him that he could do it after school today and Cole decided he wanted to try it too. One push and off he went. I think he was as proud of himself as we were of him...

ready for treats....

I'm so behind now on blogging that I'm starting to give up any hope of catching up and decided I better just start from now or I'll be further and further behind....

The kids were sooo excited to get dressed up in their costumes last night. Cole searched online for months to find the perfect costume and finally decided on Anakin Skywalker. He showed off his skills with the light saber FOREVER in the front yard after he got dressed.

The girls looked soooo cute as little fairies. Chloe was Tinkerbell and I found Kate a tiny fairy costume at Target so she would somewhat match. Kate wanted nothing to do with her costume at first, but after Chloe got dressed she finally let me put it on her. I put lotion on the their arms, legs, and face and then sprinkled fine glitter everywhere. So they were very sparkly..... We went to the Fall Fun Festival at our church which was especially fun because tons of the kids from our youth group were working the games. All Kate can talk about was getting to 'wide the ponies'. The way she says it is so cute in her low, deep voice, so I've asked her about it over and over.

 

This is one of my new favorite pictures...... How cute are they?!?!?

baby violet

my good friend, jeneen, had a sweet (tiny!) baby girl last monday. meet baby violet..... we are so excited for them!

a small town....

This weekend we went home to Jared's hometown to see our nephew, Trey, get baptized. We were so excited for him and so glad we could be there to support him in his decision. On Saturday, we got to town just in time for the annual homecoming parade. There's something about small town life (and I mean small town, we are talking a population of around 1,000) that is slower paced and somewhat refreshing.

Before the parade the kids played with a kitten from a 'free kitten' box and tried to convince us to bring him home. He was kind of cute, but thankfully the little girl whose mom was trying to give them away decided she wasn't ready to let them go yet.

   

And here are a few things from the parade:

The high school band. I think there are 17 people in the entire band.

A really old trick roper. We heard her say after the parade that she needed to hurry because she was off to another parade appearance later in the morning. :)

Jared's 91 year old grandpa was the Grand Marshal of the parade. Here he is throwing us some candy:

Some sheep?

The mascot on a class float:

a centennial wagon:

Kate actually sitting still:

and waving:

Grabbing the loot:

And sporting low rise jeans just a little too low:

   

After the parade, the kids played with their cousins and we just got to enjoy a leisurely afternoon with not too much to do (except see the Sooner lose to Colorado, whaa!).  Jared's mom asked me to take a picture of all 5 grandkids together, but when we tried it the only person who was cooperating was Jared and he wasn't even supposed to be in the pic. LOL!

They decided the old tree stump was much better suited for jumping than posing. Someday when the little ones are older, I'll have to get them all jumping off of this. Ally got some serious air.

And finally on Sunday, we got a decent (still not that great but it will have to work) picture of the 5 of them together:

And now for once, in a really long time, I actually got something blogged within a few days of it happening. Maybe I'm actually getting back on track.

one of those weeks.....

Um, yeah. So I've been a little absent from blog land. Truth is, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. Between the kids, work, photography, church, and everyday stuff, I barely feel like I am keeping my head above water. So usually this blog takes a hit when I am busiest and that's always a shame because tucked inside these busy times are always things I want to remember.

What I don't want to remember too much of is all that happened last week. It was just one of those weeks that was downright crummy from the get go. Let's see...

On Monday (this is somewhat embarrassing, but I am telling it anyway), I heard a very unfamiliar sound just as I was about to go the bathroom. (I'm already embarrassed just from typing that!). So I turned around and almost had a heart attack when I saw by beloved iPhone at the bottom of the toilet (it had fallen out of my back pocket). Ahhhhh......!!!! I quickly retrieved it (eww!) and promptly called the Apple people to find out what I should do.  My 'official' story was that my 2 year old knocked it off the kitchen counter into the kitchen sink (no way was I telling them it had been submerged in toilet water). After letting it dry for 2 days, it miraculously came back on, but that was pretty much the extent of the miracle. I had to buy a replacement a couple of days later.

Then, on Tuesday, in the course of the same night, Chloe wet her bed and Kate's diaper leaked poo all over hers, so everyone piled into our bed (which is queen sized and certainly not big enough for all 5 of us), for a pretty sleepless night.

On Wednesday, I washed and changed sheets, and stayed up till almost 1 working on work for my actual job. About 1:02, I heard Chloe crying only to discover that she had 'throwed up' as she said all over her bed (and all over Cole who slept soundly through the whole ordeal). So much for the clean sheets!

On Thursday, I had to stay home from work with Chloe and really other than that it was an ok day, except for the fact that I barely got any work done except for rewashing sheets of course.

On Friday, I had a photo shoot in Arkansas (it's 2 hours from my house). And I got almost half-way there before I realized that I FORGOT MY CAMERA. I don't even know how it's possible to forget your camera for a photo shoot, but it was pretty much par for the course for my week. Luckily, my friends Luke and Jamey saved me, and Luke met me halfway and brought me my camera (so I was only an hour and half late to the shoot, yikes!).

So, anyway, I'm still here. And thankfully this week is off to a much better start.

magic light

My mom found this dress at a resale shop and sent it to Kate this week and she loved it when it came in the mail. She insisted on wearing it to school yesterday, so before I put her in the tub last night, I decided to snap a few quick photos of her since she looked so cute. We went across the street from our neighborhood to an overgrown parking lot that looks terrible in real life. But with the sun setting and the golden glow, it looked so pretty.

And here's one on a dirt road nearby just as the sun was going down:

I've been messing around with different post processing techniques and love the actions and photography of Nichole Van. So here's on in color and one with a vintage texture. Which I know most people who read this won't like at all, but I thought it was kind of cool. More artsy than anything really.....