Well.... big news to share!

Hi everyone! (Meaning all 3 people the might accasionally read my blog, since I hardly ever blog these days....:P )

I have some really really big, (or at the moment really really little, but getting bigger) news to share with you!

CLAY AND I ARE HAVING A BABY!!!!!


Here, I'll give you amoment to absorb the enormity of what I just told you.


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It took us a few moments to absorb it too. We are very surprised, but also very very happy about it.



So anyway.


Now you know! :D YAY!

Question......by Owen

Asked yesterday morning as we're getting ready to take Sam to school.....


Owen: "Mommy? Why do you smell so delightful?"

*grin* I don't think anyone's ever told me I smell delightful. Maybe it's my new deodorant. :)

Compliment...kind of....

Tonight while making dinner in the kitchen...

Me: Owen, can you go put this away in mommy's bathroom?
Owen: What is it?
Me: It's deodorant. (It hadn't been put away from our latest shopping trip.)
Owen: What's it for?
Me: It's to help Mommy smell good instead of stinky.
Owen: (As he walks off to put it away.) Well you DO smell good even though you are stinky.
Me: Umm, thanks Owen.
Clayton: You think. *chuckle*

Hey, I knew what he meant. And it was sweet.

Dancing at Liverpool Station

And now for another episode of "Christmas Carols....by Owen..."

A new one!

Joy To The World, the Lord is come.
Let earth receive her King!
Let every heart prepare Him room
And having a major sing
and having a major sing
and having, and having a major sing!

A New Christmas Song.....by Owen

Owen's been writing new lyrics to the 12 days of Christmas this morning.

There are 10 Leopards Leaping
and a Garbage in a Pear Tree.......

Love how his mind works!

Interesting Conversation....life with boys

Owen: *poot*

Sam: (running from Owen in abject horror) "AAHHHHHGGGHH!!!"

Me to Sam: "Did he just fart in your face??"

Sam: "YEAH!! He DID!!!"

Owen: (quietly with a happy nod of his head) "My new attack."

Ooooh, Disco! Merry Christmas!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Merry Christmas from our family (and Kristina!) to yours! Oh, and check out my real life dance moves. Yeah, I got the rad moves. :)

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

My poor children....

I have been so incredibly BUSY the last few months. Busier than I should be. Too busy to get the laundry done. Too busy to get the dishes done. (Well, at least before they start to smell not so nice...)

I've hardly had time to spend on the important relationships in my life. I keep apologizing to my friends for not calling, and not being able to spend time with them. My dear, dear husband has told me as we drift off to sleep that he missed me that day. More than once. And my kids.....my poor children. I feel so bad that I've been so non-present and distracted. Basically I've been so busy that I literally can't think straight. My thoughts are all sporadic and jumbled.

Have you ever felt like your life is speeding by you at the speed of light and you are missing it? Like the routines and tasks and jobs fill up your days so much that you miss the moments? I have been feeling this way for a while. It's frustrating, and I keep fighting the feeling that I am failing everyone around me.

It's difficult to know what I should be doing sometimes. I feel that if I stop working to go hang out with my family for a bit, that I'm falling farther behind on my business deadlines. If I focus on work, I'm neglecting my children and my husband. Add in trying to maintain friendships, extended family relationships, and ministries at church and I feel like my time is spread sooo thin that no matter what I choose, I am failing somewhere else.

Sadly, I often err on the side of neglecting my family. I think this is because I know they love me the most and will forgive me. But I don't want things to be this way. It's a very crushing way to feel. I want to BE with them. I want to BE there FOR them.

Here's an example....

Yet another day that I was busy working, not just scrambling to "catch up" but desperately trying not to fall even further behind. It was a lovely fall day outside and Owen came into the office and asked me if I would play with him. So I suggested that we go outside and he could ride his scooter while I watched. (He loves that.) But first I just had to finish the thing I was working on. So we'd go in a few minutes....

Fast forward a few minutes. He comes in again..
"Mommy, are you ready? Can we go outside now?"
"Just one more minute. Let me finish this real quick and then we'll go..."
"Okay, I'll go get my helmet on.."

Fast forward a few more minutes....

"Mommy are you ready now?"
"Just...one...more...minute....and then we'll go...."

When I FINALLY finished what I was working on, I went to look for Owen and found him asleep. In my bed. With his helmet on.

He was waiting for me to play with him like I had promised. And I never came. :(


I am soooo looking forward to Christmas vacation. The only thing I have scheduled during that time is Christmas caroling. And I want my boys to come with me for that. :) I'm looking forward to playing with them, and talking to them, and listening to them. I'm looking forward to spending time with Clayton without being distracted about all the things I still need to get done.

I'm looking forward to life slowing down a bit.


Sorry about the epic pity party post. I'm not REALLY having a pity party. I've just been thinking about this for a while and pressing forward through it. And I'm glad I'm almost done!

A cool link for you.....

I came across this post on a blog that I follow that I thought was really cool and wanted to share... http://www.jasminestarblog.com/index.cfm?postID=450 . The blog author was holding a competition for her viewers to write a story in six words. Make sure you read the comments. There are some REALLY good entries. Thought provoking.

Mine is not among the thought provoking ones, haha. "Dang. I'm not going to win."

You'll be thinking in six word sentences for the next few days, at least. :)

My favorite two weeks of the year.....

I LOVE THE FALL.

Fall colors make me giddy. They cause me to interrupt myself mid-sentence in the car to squeal out, "Oooh, pretty colors!" I deeply appreciate the colors God created in His great nature-painting palette. Sooo beautiful.

We are in the middle of my two favorite weeks of the year and this year its a doozy! Oh yeah, baby.

Anyway, this morning was a double whammy, because not only do I have my beautiful autumn-colored trees everywhere, but there was fog added in on top of it. Nature beauty smorgasborg. (I'm sure I butchered the spelling of that, but I don't really care. 'Cause the trees are still pretty.)

So I went out with my camera this morning. My subject was suddenly overcome with PCSS (Painfully Camera Shy Syndrome), but you still get an idea of just how beautiful Bakersfield is at the moment. (Wow, I never thought I would call Bakersfield beautiful. I can't believe I just said that!)

I hope all this color sticks around a while, because I sure am enjoying the heck out of it. :)

*Singing* I feel happy! Oh, so happy!

Somebody stop me! There are sooo many other things I need to be working on right now. But I can't help myself! I'm just so excited that I finally had a chance to go out and do nice pictures of my own boys! And they were in a cooperative mood! And the air was clear. And the sky was blue! And there were cool clouds! And I finally found the angel wings I've been wanting to use for two years now!

I had so much fun with them. Really, I can even say.

**Click to see bigger and clearer! :)

Okay, back to REAL work now. :)

Heavenly....

Not much time to post, but sooo much to update you all on, (with LOTS of different images to share).





I just wanted to share one really sweet photo I managed to capture of my boys this afternoon. This is the first one I happend to grab and edit. LOTS more to come!





So without further ado.....here are my little angels.


**Click on the image to see it bigger and clearer.

Some funnies...

I like to laugh.

Obviously.

Well, duh. Who doesn't?

But anyway.....I came across this:
http://countrydoctorswife.blogspot.com/2008/08/cdw-choreorganizers.html
and about lost it! Sooooooo funny.

Well, at least to me, it is. This is the bane of my daily existence...cleaning up pee from on, around and under the toilet in the kid's bathroom. Ugh. I wonder if these cards would work for me? :) haha


Oh, and then I came across this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO_BnsrWMnI


Totally unrelated, but still funny. And the guy is a pretty good athlete, too. I couldn't do the stuff he does, and he does it dressed up like a girl!

Anyway, just thought I'd share. 'Cause I'm nice like that. :)

P.S. Blog post about the boy's first day of school will be coming shortly...

Dancing around the World

This guy dances like me!

***Edited to add: Check above post for actual video. Grr. Technology stumps me sometimes. :)

Found this video on another blog and it made me smile. I would LOVE to do something like this! All the different people he came into contact with...what an opportunity!

Oh, and I meant it, this is how I dance! :)

His name is MattHarding. Here's his page so you can find out the story behind the video.

Make sure to read the About Matt section. He thinks like I do. Random. haha!

Sweet Freckles....

I can't forget my little Sam. He is so big now, but still so little. And he can be so angelic at times.

I love the kid to pieces.

Look, he's recently developed a very light sprinkling of freckles....

How sweet are they?!...

I told him that freckles are angel kisses. His response is "Well, those angels sure have been lovin' on me!"

Sam and Owen taking a break while riding scooters...

Owen's Birthday

Yes, I know his birthday was weeks ago, but, hey-I've been busy with Easter and all sorts of other stuff. (Like cleaning off my hard drive after I tried to download images off my CF card and my computer told me "NO". Yikes! That's been a big project and I'm still not done because I have to make sure everything is backed up and burned to CD before I remove it from my computer.) So anyways.....you get the idea.

So here's a random schmandom smorgasboard of birthday week festivities....

The yearly "hold-out-how-many-fingers-old-you-are" shot.

I had about two seconds to get this 'cause he wanted to be off riding his new scooter.

*Click on images to see them bigger*


He likes to do little "stunts" on his new scooter. Like putting his toes up on the front bar. Pretty smooth...

The super-fun birthday party at Pump It Up....

http://http//www.pumpitupparty.com/

The obstacle course is really fun to try to race your kids on. :) Even when you get owned. Not that I would know anything about that...haha

They had this AWESOME hallway.

Owen got to sit in a little throne.

"Hey Owen, look at Mommy real quick, so I can get a birthday picture!".....

"Owen, up here, honey! Look up here!"

"Hey now..."

Me: "Owen, pleeease? Look up here for just a second..."
Him:"Cheeessse..." (with a mouthful of pizza.)

Me: "Okay, I guess that will have to do."

Owen's best friend Ian wanted to sit with him. :) How sweet.

FYI: This Nerf dart tag set is SO FUN. We've spent many hours as a family having dart wars since his birthday. The kids like to set up ambushes and attack us parents. Good times, good times.

ANOTHER FYI: The set comes with safety glasses for a reason. Wear 'em. (SORRY MJ! Hope your eye is okay! I really was aiming for your stomach.)

Hey! There's the birthday boy! He's actually looking AT me! And smiling! And he doesn't have a mouthful of food! YES!

Oh, serious moment over....

Oh, wait a second....Could it be???

Photo magic....Isn't he a handsome little guy?

And now he's 5. And getting ready to go off to kindergarden. *Sniff* How can he be 5 already??!

Why I love Photoshop....

Photoshop is the most amazing program. Really. I'm not kidding. The people who created it are geniuses.

Look what it can do with a simple photo! This is from a senior session I did last week. Bakersfield alleyway. Pretty bricks and wildflowers, but also ugly garbage (and who knows what else) on the ground.

But with Photoshop....poof! Voila! The trash is magically gone and, oh!, where did those pretty leaves come from?! (They came from the ground in the before picture. I just cloned them and then added some color. Cool, huh?)

*click on the image to see it bigger*

The cloning isn't my greatest, but still, what an improvement! And look at all that beautiful rich color I was able to coax out! Scrumptious!

Anyway...THAT is why I *heart* photoshop. :)

Oh, and I still intend to post recent photos of the boys real soon....just have some business sessions I have to process first...
Good things come to those who wait. Where I am involved, good things come to those who wait....and wait.... ;)