Fun Family Photo Shoot

Last Saturday, I had THREE family photo sessions. 'Tis the season for family portraits in time for Christmas, apparently. All three sessions were totally different and really fun - with different aged kids.

This is a family I've known since I married and moved here, the 3 oldest girls were all in my primary class. They're just a really neat family.

Their oldest daughter is getting married tomorrow. Pretty exciting! And their second daughter is leaving soon to serve an LDS mission in Australia. We took a few of just her, I think they're so pretty.

She's such a good kid (sorry, Anna, you'll always be a kid to me) and has a beautiful, angelic singing voice.

The family was so cooperative and easy to work with that we took lots of different poses and groupings.

And we laughed and laughed....


They have a really nice property that runs along the Virgin River - looks more like a Creek right now.

I love leaves, trees, rocks... any kind of texture.

And they had lots of options to choose from in their big yard.

Here are a couple that I played around with a little with PS actions.



Thanks, guys, for making it easy on me, it was delightful. Hope you like your pictures. I'll bring the rest to the reception.

Congrats Jeff and Melinda!

Just Two for Now...

I took some more pictures for my friend Valene the other day and have been trying to get the time to post them. But her two step daughters were so pretty that I wanted to quickly put a couple of them up tonight before getting to bed.

We took lots of fun candids in the park but these two were some of my favorites. It's so nice to have cooperative models.


More to come...

Halloween 2009

Part 1: (Bear with me on the long post, 90% of why I blog is for my own family history.)

Halloween is a really big deal to my kids, apparently it is to the rest of the world too. Marty heard a statistic on the news the other day that Halloween is the second largest grossing (no pun intented) holiday next to Christmas. Hmmmm. Don't know quite how I feel about that.

We did buy costumes, pumpkins and candy, so I guess we're contributing to the spending. The kids have a love/hate relationship with carving pumkins:

We had a fun time carving with our friends, the Corrys. Marty got out his cordless drill and great big drill bit and drilled starter holes and chimneys. He also helped with the "guts" on some of Jenna's kids pumpkins.

It's kind of fun that our kids are all old enough to scoop out their own guts - for the most part.


Part 2:

Anyhoo, I do make a conscious effort to try not to be a halloween humbug for my kids and I have been known to make costumes, take days off work and buy candy.

I would rather purchase a costume than make one, but this year Jaxon wanted to be Sirius Black from the Harry Potter movies.

I tried finding a costume to buy, but couldn't find one. I finally found some striped fabric and whipped up a sparkling new prison suit.

... and then I had to distress it and make it look like he'd been living in Azkaban for many years. (My pot may never be the same.)

I thought he looked pretty good in the end.


And Brynn was Hermione, which is perfect because she's always reminded me of Hermione and does a pretty fierce Hermione imitation.


(photo courtesy of my photo buddy, Nan - thanks Nan!)
(and one of mine with a little faded action)

Luke was supposed to go along with the theme and be Harry Potter, but he rebelled and insisted on being the Hulk. I just bought a costume at Walmart, but I loved it, it was sooooo cute, the big puffy muscles just fit him, I got such a kick out of it.... and that mask!

(another photo of Nan's)

Part 3:

One of the things I do love about Halloween is our school's annual costume parade. I usually take the day off work to take pictures of it, but I had been sick for 2 weeks and missed several days of work, so I left my camera with Marty and asked Nanette to get some pictures for me also. The parade is so fun, the costumes are clever and all the teachers get into it.





Our principal/serious Nintendo player.


This is pretty uncommon in our nice little town, but is a prime example of what I DON'T like about Halloween:

______________________________________________________

I just realized that this will be Jaxon's last year in the elementary school and the last year in the costume parade. WAAAAAA! That makes me so SAD!

Sorry for the outburst. Well, another Halloween come and gone. The kids are already thinking about next year.

You're Killin' Me Smalls!

My friend, Jolene...

had this baby....


about 8 months ago. He was the sweetest newborn baby, and now he's an older baby and he's amazing, and everytime I see him, it just lights up my day.

I took Jolene's family pictures the other night and stole a few shots of just him as we were walking back to the cars. Eyes just don't get any prettier than his.


Am I right? or am I right. Wow.

He's killing me with those eyes.

And he's a good kid, the best kind. He's the sort of baby who makes me want to have a baby.

Almost.

Now THIS is funny.

I'm not sure my hubby appreciates this, but I LOVE this picture. I can't get over the resemblance! Look closely -the face shapes are the same, the cheekbones, and the teeth are scary similar. And then there's the mean factor...

And look at those big muscles!

I've never loved Haloween because of some of the evil, disgusting things that go along with it, but I do enjoy the fact that my kids love it so much. And we live in a place where we are safer than most. We had a great day.

And Marty was a good enough sport to pose for these for me, even though I think it kind of bugs him that I think he looks like The Hulk.

Rockin' Relay 2009

I've been trying to get this post up for several weeks but couldn't get the video to load. It finally decided to cooperate tonight, so here goes.

A few weekends ago, our elementary school held a fund raiser called the Rockin' Relay. It was very well supported like most things are in our little community.

There were teams of grandpas and grandmas, middle aged moms and dads and little kids - all running together!

Here's the starting lineup, all rarin' to go.

Some were more rarin' than others.


It was very early and quite cold, the kids decided to warm their hands on Luke's fuzzy head.

Beings how this is a rural, ranching community, you're bound to see sights like this at many sporting events, I find it endlessly entertaining. The first sporting event I ever went to here was an alumni basketball tournament and half the guys showed up in cowboy boots with their sweatpants tucked into them.


My girl was asked by one of her friends to run on a team and was the third leg.

She worried and fretted and stressed about it for a week. She gets like this whenever she's asked to perform in front of other people. I can relate, I was the same way times 10 when I was her age. Even though this was a very fun, informal kind of race, she was still worried.

And she had to wait a while for her turn.

But then came the hand-off...

I was poised with my camera to capture the moment, and didn't realize what was happening, but as she headed out to run, her dad went with her....



They ran her lap together - him in his cowboy boots - and I caught this little video clip of them coming up the home stretch. (Bless my D90 for having video!)

Brynn was taking extra big steps to keep up with Dad, but they were moving pretty fast. That track goes around the perimeter of our new baseball field - behind that fence - and it looked like a pretty darn big lap to me.


I didn't pay any attention to who won. I don't think anyone cared. It wasn't about that. It was about dads who ran with their insecure little girls and moms who carried babies...


And teachers who held the hands of students...

(Did you see - their signs read, "We're off our rockers".)

And big smiles on lots of faces....


And everyone cheering for everyone else. And, of course, getting the t-shirt at the end. (Brynn and her team.)


And while I was there, I got to see the beautiful rock sculpture made and donated by our friend, the local chainsaw artist. Isn't that a COOL buffalo?!

What a wonderful place to live, we are very blessed.