Daddy and Dylan Day of Fun (posted by Steven)

As you may recall, soon after Tyler was born, I took Isaac and Noah to Busch Gardens.  Dylan couldn't go because he just started kindergarten.  Well, I had Veteran's Day off, so Dylan skipped school and just he and I went this time.  We were able to do a few things that we wouldn't be able to do with the younger kids, like feeding kangeroos (must be 5 yrs old), bumper cars (must be 42" tall), and Grover roller coaster (must be brave).  Here are some photos:

 This was my lunch- probably too much, but I ate it all.  Dylan's lunch didn't fit on the tray.

 Dylan was proud that he was in the green at 46", so he was tall enough for this ride.

Tyler's nursrey, done.

Tyler is 2 months old.  His nursery has been done for a couple of weeks at least, but I haven't gotten around to taking pictures of it. 
The door hanger is made by my friend Sarah, visit her shop - http://www.pinklemonadedesigns.com/. She does hair bows and tooth fairy tins etc too. 

 See, it's nap time.  Tyler is downstairs though. 

 I painted over a dollar store surf board sign. 

 Here it is! 
This used to be my room, back when I was in high school.  Then it was our junk room/office, then it was Paige's room.  Now it's Tyler's room. 

 It's the same Pottery Barn Kids bedding from Chrissy, Lacey, and Aunt Tina and Uncle Afton.  It's Chrissy's birthday today.  They got it for Dylan.  The African masks are really from Africa.  Andre brought them home for us after his safari adventures. 

 I told you it was nap time, this is baby Ivy. 

 I had a different arrangement in mind for these, but Steven came up with this one and it works.  The "Love One Another" print is from Betsey. 

 Darren can make anything out of wood.  He free handed this name sign.  It's perfect and goes with our Costa Rica chair.  I made the curtains.  Not what I had originally planned, but they work. 

 Darren also made this palm tree.  I love it b/c I sit in the rocking chair and stare at it.  It goes all the way to the base board, but my photo props and throws are in the way. 

The mobile is from Luiz, we loved it so much we bought another one to go over the crib 5 years ago.  I can't find that one though. 

I thought it would be nice to have a picture of the temple in his room.  This one of our wedding pictures used to be in Dylan and Isaac's room.  It goes on the shelf perfectly with a pewter music box elephant from our friends Nathan and Allison.  (I just put a picture of Jesus in there after looking through these to see what was missing.) 

 My friend Liz makes these tile boards for clients.  She made this one for Tyler.  I think he really needed one since his name, "Tyler" means "Tiler" (one who lays tile).  I still need to hang it though. 

 These are canvases that I had the boys paint.  I got the idea from http://www.momtog.com/. 

 Dylan did the tikis and Isaac did the tiger and monkey in the palm tree.  I was going to go back and do the details, but I kind of like that they did it all by themselves. 

 Oh, and lastly, we really did get this rocking chair in Costa Rica and brought it back with us for Dylan.  We didn't even know we were pregnant at the time, or were we?

 So there you have it!  I know I didn't take a picture of him in there, but I've put pictures of him in there before.  I was going to do a jungle theme and planned on doing real vines on one wall.  I wanted it to be old and kind of like the real jungle book movie with old rustic stuff.  It got a little cute instead, but I like it.  Suggestions are welcome. 

And later, after picking up Dylan, Marcie came over with Kirsten.  The house was crazy!  But wait, there's more.  Malia came over too!  Kirsten had to leave, but the rest of the 6 kids stayed for dinner!

 This is for my brother Stephen who posted a picture containing overalls.
Steven, this is how overalls should be worn by non-farmers:) 
My aunt Tina gave these to Isaac. 

 Back to the craziness. 
I cooked the pasta before picking up Dylan from Tae Kwon Do.  (Yes, 6 kids in my car again.)  Then it was still warm when we got back.  It was still sorta light when we started eating, but then we ate in the dark.  And Corrie showed up to see me feeding her kids in the dark.  And Noah got bitten by mosquitoes.  Oops. 

And I'll leave you with a silly picture of my Tyler. 

busy bee (no pictures, just ramblings)

I got stung on my right index finger's knuckle by a bee while de-leafing our pool this evening.
It doesn't hurt that much, but rolling the mouse roller bothers me. 

I got stood up by a photography client today.  She scheduled months ago.  It's a key weekend b/c it's my overflow from my busy month of October.  I thought she might cancel, so I confirmed at the beginning of the month.  She confirmed the cost and location and everything.  At the beginning of this week, I still hadn't gotten her form, so I emailed her.  Then I emailed again and emailed her sister, a previous client.  i called her number but it was disconnected.  I could have put a couple of other people in and turned some away.  Oh well, I had time to get stung by a busy bee. 

I upped my prices already so I'll be less busy and will be able to continue to spend time and give quality work to each photo.  I'm also only giving the 18-25 images instead of well over 50.  It's just the cream of the crop.  And I'm including the digital files so clients will stop using the watermarked ones for profile photos then not buying digital files.  That way, they've already bought it before they get to see it.  I've been burned twice by clients who had me spend over 4 hours on the double sessions, having me either drive them all over town to 5+ locations or just to 2 locations on 2 days plus waiting an hour for them to show up.  Steven warned me about driving clients around, so I won't do that any more.  Neither of those clients bought anything, but used the watermarked images in their facebook pages and got the proofs.  I have wonderful clients usually, who buy something, who talk to me, who refer friends, and are too nice.  Anyway, now I'm including everything.  I did like both of those maternity sessions for my own portfolio, I got to be creative and love the pictures.  I seriously don't spend that much time on my own pictures (as you know.)  I guess that's what blows my mind, that they put so much into the session too, and must have just scanned in the proofs or something. 

Right now I just got a 2nd wind, and figured I'd use it to blog my thoughts, no time for personal pics, I have 3 camera cards to dump onto my computer still.  Steven turned our clock from reading 10:30 to reading 9:30 - woo hoo! 

I'm reading this month's book club right now.  Well, I'm listening to "The 5 Love Languages" on CD.  I went to the library and asked the librarian if she had the book.  She said, "well we have the audio disks" to which I exclaimed, "even better!"  I thougth the book would be about agape, erros, filos, and whatever the other one or two is/are.  It's a self help book though.  Again, even better!  I like listening to self help books.  I still don't know what my love language is, in case you've read the book.  I'm leaning towards "words of affirmation" in that I like feedback and really value others' opinions.  The book isn't as good as others I've read.  I liked the "acts of service" part as a separate "language."  I always think that I should do service for somebody in whom I dislike (or want to understand) - that should help me to see the person in a different light and in changing myself, it'll help me at least be able to tolerate the other b/c I'll be more Christlike.  This book also tore down the stereotype that men are always one way and women are always another way - like the Venus and Mars mentality.  Of course there are underlying men and women thoughts/wants/whatever, but this is talking about other wants/thoughts/needs/whatever.  Maybe service isn't the simple answer after all.  Even just putting myself in anothers' shoes may not be enough.  I like that it talks about keeping a book (journal) of what will work and what has worked.  I also like that it talks about asking the other person what would make him/her feel loved.  (As opposed to trying to figure it out and do surprise service and hope that changing myself will fix everything.) 
K. Done w/ my book report rambles. 

I'm also editing a family's pictures - cute family, as always. 

And I'm eating a bowl of cereal b/c I had eaten too many candy corns already. 

Pictures will appear on this blog sometime, maybe tomorrow since I don't work on Sundays.  I'll probably go for a jog like I got to do this evening.  We'll see. 

Our family pictures are this next weekend.  Our photographer cancelled on US last month.  I want to order photo blocks w/ them and pictures I've taken.  I need to do a sessoin w/ Isaac, he needs a hair cut first.  So does Dylan.  Luckily Tyler doesn't have a bald spot yet in the back. 

Dear Tyler, you're 2 months old

You keep fists tight a lot of the time.
You bicycle with your legs.
You smile more.
You can stand up on my lap a little, your legs are getting much stronger.
You still nap lots.
Your head can kinda hold itself up and I don't have to steady it, but you'll still flop it into my chest so I can't wear big necklaces.  (Sorry about the encounter after you sneezed at church last Sunday, amazingly you didn't have a big bead indent on your forehead.)
You like the sound of water running, so I put you in the bouncy chair on the kitchen floor while I load the dishes and on top of your baby bath on a blanket or towel in a diaper while I'm showering.  I peek out at you and you'll just be staring up at the towels hanging over your head.  It's so funny to me.  Then I scoop you up to bring you in the shower to get the lint out of your fingers.  You have fallen asleep in that baby bath before too. 
I love you and think you're so cute!

Monday Picture Dump

On one hand, I'm already dreading going back to work - even though I won't be working that much. 
On the other hand, I'm thinking of the photo shoots that I need to schedule (I have quite the waiting list that I need to cram in before December.)  I'm thinking how I can use my sister to babysit while I work at either photography or the dental office.  I can't seem to relax and just enjoy not having any deadlines.  The only things I HAVE to do tomorrow are take Dylan to school, pick him up from school, take Kat to the airport, and finish a cardboard Joy School house.  Of course there's a lot more on my potential-to-do-list in my mind. 

Time flies when I don't have a ton of things to be in charge of.  I really just need to focus on my 3 boys and get to nurse, change, and cuddle with the sweet baby. 

I'm sadly no longer the Young Women president at church.  It's good, because I needed to cut things out, my grandma (and others) are convinced that I got so sick with that sinus infection because I'm over scheduled.  The busy photography season is upon me, so I know I'll be stressed and won't have time to personally blog much soon.  I need this time to bond with my family and get organized and plan.  So it's a good thing to be released from that calling. 

Enough talk, here're some photos from my "2011 September" folder.

Snowballs with all 6 kids:

 1st time capturing Tyler's smile!  Ironically, it was at his doctor's office, he'll be crying next time I bet. 

 Isaac took lots of pictures of him too. 

 Tyler's 1st time to church. We just stayed for the sacrament meeting, although we weren't on time for that portion of the meeting.  Next time!  Don gave a good talk, so that was a good surprise!

 We surprised my mom and Don by inviting them over for a cook out then having Kat here!  Kat hid in the playroom and when my mom was supposed to ask where Tyler was, we were going to tell her where he was, and he'd be in Kat's arms.  Isaac instead started calling for Aunt Kat because he wanted Grandma to know that she was here.  My mom thought Isaac was confused and told him that she wasn't here, but then after looking at me, and I said nothing, she too started calling for Kathryn and, in shock, threw her arms and legs up way higher than this recreated photo.  She was happy!

 Dylan and Isaac were so hyper/happy to have Aunt Kat here.

 This is me.  Admiring my boys.  Not knowing what to do with myself w/o the baby or camera in my hands.  Steven asked me tonight, "Can't I just sit on the couch w/o having to worry about a camera showing up in my face every time?"  Nope. 

What's not to love about this picture? 

Or this one?

I held the camera up high over my head to get this.  I wish I had a different lense so you could see that he was on my lap right next to the key board.  Sometimes, he just wants to be held, so I hold him while editing photos.  But of course his cuteness distracts me.  I want to remember everything and he's already changing!

See how easily I can get distracted?  He's smiling again!