I had such a Good Time...

My friends asked me to come and photograph their new, sweet little girl. I was thrilled, to say the least, at the chance to do this.

Ash and Chan...

A sneek peek of your photo shoot...

So far, these are my two favorite. But there is many more. I will be bringing you your disc. I hope that you like them. You guys are the best.

THANK YOU for letting me do this.

You are the sweetest little family!

All in a days work...

or should I say "weeks " work, or better yet "two years work".

We bought the house that I grew up in when I was pregnant with Emerson. We moved into it this coming weekend, 3 years ago. We had a plan, it sounded like a good plan. Our plan was simple, or could have been very simple. But with us nothing ends up simple.

(before)

We were going to fix it up. How hard could a few simple renovations be...

Well, simple is...

not for us "high strung", "always looking for a project", and "willing to try anything" type people that we found out that we are.

This last week, Ryan took the whole week off to wrap up some of the projects.

This last week has about killed me...

We poured a little concerete...

yea, I said we. As in my husband and I. I think that the concrete truck driver got a chuckle out of it. Me, in my irrigation boots running around helping him screet the concrete, smooth the edges, and shovel concrete into spots that were low. And after he was gone, Ryan informed me that when I was bent over you could see my crack. Pretty sure the driver had a good story to tell.

We worked on laying the brick in the front. Yea, again I said we. I mixed the morter (by hand) while Ryan layed the brick.

(Almost done with brick)

We finished siding. Okay, he finshed the siding while I cleaned up the yard, went to a PTO meeting, and shuttled kids back and forth to school.

We finished the bathroom. Which still needs a little paint touch-up and a new fan installed, but it is considered done in my eyes.

And to finish off the week with a big bang. We finished our hardwood floors. That is a project of gigantic propotions.

We moved all of our furniture (and all appliances) out in the garage, we sanded, we filled in holes, we sealed, and then we varnished. We had to follow a time frame, which made it hard to do much of anything. Thankfully, my mom let the girls spend the weekend with her. While they were having fun watching movies and getting pedicures, I was home having to crawl through windows to use my own bathroom.

But the end result is beautiful...

So during this process of "fixing Up the house,"

We have moved the front door.

We have moved the stairs from the kitchen to the living room.

We have finished the basement.

We have built a garage in the snow. And on the same day made a quick trip to the ER after Ryan shot himself in the leg with a nail gun, and then despite the Dr. advise to go home and rest, we finished standing up 2 walls.

We have put in new windows.

We have sheetrocked, painted, and refinished about every surface in the house.

I got pnemonia and was in the hospital after the garage incident.

Our kids have learned how to go to sleep to the sound of power tools.

We have cut down one massive tree.

But despite all the hard work and mess we have had to endure, it really hasn't been that bad. My husband and I have spent so much time together. I have done things that I never thought that I could do. And I have a new appreciation for my home.

Hard work really does pay off!

The Easter Weekend

Due to the "fabulous" weather that was threatening the weekend, we opted for staying home and working.

We had this enourmous tree in our backyard, that Ryan has hated since we moved in. It was nice for shade, but that was about all. We ripped out our back patio, so now was the time to get rid of the tree.

<----------- see it here.

So a couple of weeks ago the chainsaw came out and we cut it down, mostly. It was big and out of control. We hauled away so many tree limbs, that if I never see another willow tree in my entire life, I will be so HAPPY!!

So this Saturday we finished the job. The back yard is top priority right now. Because we need to get the garden planted ASAP!!

And in between working we colored eggs. Emerson ended up with black fingers and we managed to not spill any egg color...

The Easter Bunny came... and left.

An Easter Egg hunt at Grandma and Grandpas was next on the agenda. The girls had a so much fun. Aniston gathered the most eggs, which were filled with money. Emerson was a little more interested in watching everyone run around.

Easter happen to fall on Grandma DeAnn's Birthday this year, so all of us were there together, at the same time, which doesn't happen very often. I hope that she had a great day because she deserves it! She is a special person who would do anything for you. She is talented in so many ways. She is the best cook and is always available for my stupid (and never ending) questions about anything and everything. She and Aniston will always have a special bond, because she had Aniston everyday since she was 6 months old.

We love her so much!! Happy "29th" Birthday Grandma!!

The hoilday weekend wasn't too eventful for us. But we were together, we were happy, and that is really all that matters in the end anyway!!

And I thought that...

yesterday was going to be a long day. The kids were out of school for Spring Break, which meant that for the day I would have 6 kids in my care. I was sort of dreading it because it was suppose to be cold, which meant that they couldn't go outside. I hadn't been feeling all that great lately and I was sure that the noise level was going to be through the roof.

But I was wrong...

The day turned out pretty good.

I decided to make sugar cookies with the kids in the morning and then we would go to an Easter Egg Hunt that my moms work was putting on. The kids were ecstatic.


We started on the cookies. Six kids, all trying to get their turn to help, did take us a little longer than expected. But there was no tears and no fighting so I feel that we succeeded with the cookie making task!

I put 4 bowls of frosting on the table and let them decorate their own cookies. There was a little, okay A LOT, of frosting that ended up on the table, chairs, floor, and their little fingers, but they were all content, happy, and quite.




They were all very proud of their creations.

And I couldn't help but smile when they all told me that I was the best. Maybe it doesn't mean a lot hearing it from 6 kids, but yesterday it did mean a lot to me.

We sang to the radio, danced a little, consumed a ridiculous amount of sugar, and laughed a lot.

and check out this orphan Emmy...who is her mother. Her hair isn't done and she is licking frosting off of her finger at 11:00 in the morning????

(I just can't get enough of her. She is soooo stinkin' cute, she just kills me)

We tried to have lunch. (sugar cookies is lunch, right??)

Off to the egg hunt we went. We got there and filled our little baskets full. The kids got candy, prizes, and even quarters.

So what I thought was going to be a long and loud day, turned out to be pretty good in the end.

And my kids are still on their sugar high and it is only Friday...

Happy Easter Everyone!

I hope you all have a great holiday weekend filled

with sugar, laughter, and most of all, love!!

In the Motherhood...

This morning after my 5:30am run, I came home and plopped my tired behind on the couch. I was thinking to myself "1 hour of silence, 1 hour to myself." I should have been editing photos in my 1 hour of quietness, but I was just too tired. I flipped on the t.v. and went straight to my DVR list. I am behind about 2 1/2 weeks behind on General Hospital episodes, I have about 3 episodes of Desperate Housewifes to watch, and a million Oprahs. Now I don't generally watch Oprah, but I record it because she does have some good stuff on occasionally.


I clicked on the first episode for this week. It was a show about motherhood. It was very interesting. All of these real women were talking about motherhood had some "confessions" to make. It was hilarious, but it made me start thinking about the way that I look at being a mother.
The blog is a good way to document things that are happening, milestones in our lives, but I think that it is a little one sided. We, as a whole, don't want people to judge us. We don't want people to think that we don't have it all together. We want to look perfect, right? We, as women, were raised with the idea that we could do it all and have it all. But on this Oprah there were women talking about how they viewed themselves as failures. How being able to do it all felt overwhelming.

I mean lets be real. There are days when being a mother is not all that it is cracked up to be. A friend from High School posted this just the other day. http://barryandstephberg.blogspot.com/ Check it out...We have all had days like these. (Steph I am linking you, is that okay? I just had to share it)

You get married and immediately people are asking when the babies are coming. So you think that to make your life perfect you must have babies. Then you see people with babies and you think that it is so fun and so perfect. So jump on the bandwagon and start a family. It's all great! You tell people and everyone is so excited and you get to shop for cute little things and it is just perfect...

But what I love is that no one tells you the whole truth. NO one tells you that you will get pooped on, puked on, you will go days without sleeping, you will go to the store with bugers on your shoulder, you will have to plan your days around nap times, and you will no long be able to pee alone.

But no one tells you the joys of it all either. No one tells you that at the very moment you hold those little babies that you just fall in love. No one tells you that the puke and the poop is all worth it and that you forget those things when your baby laughs. There are days when being a mom is tiring and exuasting and there are days that I struggle through. There are days when going back to work seems like heaven on earth. There are days when the thought of peeing alone makes me smile. But then my little baby says " mommy read me" and I smile and I read and she laughs and claps and helps me turn the pages and peeing alone doens't seem like THAT big of a deal.


So if there is anyone who reads this and ever thinks that you are alone in the craziness of motherhood. Your NOT alone. We all have days when we wish for a little time alone. We all have days when we wish for our pre-baby bodies. We all have days when we wish we could pee in silence.

So lets talk about it. Tell me your bad days, tell me about your good days. Tell me you all wish you could pee alone...because we all know that we think things like this. We all know that we don't want anyone else to know that we have days when we feel like crying because somedays it is just too much. Share your stories. It makes us all feel better that we are not alone...

I was tagged...

by Cristan a week or two ago. (and I hadn't forgotten, I am just too busy with too many projects)
Post your sixth picture from your sixth file.

So here it is...

There is not one of my files that does not contain a picture of a fish...

That was the summer that we moved into the house we are living in now. It was 2006. Aniston was almost 4. I was pregnant with Emerson. We had an awesome garden that year and I was super excited about the giant sunflowers that Ryan let me plant. (see them in the back. They were giagantic)

This weekend we started on the bathroom. I say started, because we are still working on it and it probably won't be until this weekend that we are finished. I just have to say that my husband is amazing and very talented. I love the way it is all coming together. I will post pic soon. I am just trying to catch-up from a weekend of not doing anything other that working on the bathroom...

Oh... I tag anyone who wants to show me your 6th pic in your 6th file and tell a little story with it...