Colleen in town

Here are some pictures of when Colleen and the girls came to stay last month!

Craziest week ever!

Ok, so I have some very exciting news. In case you aren't aware, there is a women's center in town that I went to when Audrey was little and I needed someone to tell me things got easier! They are awesome and they do so much to help so many new mom's. Anyway, it has worked out that I do a photoshoot for the mom's at this group once a month or so. It is a great thing for them, the mom's, and me. The women's center is just awesome.

Well, they hired me to shoot at this baby bonanza they have coming up in October. I did a thing with them in April too and it was way fun and everyone said they loved the pictures! So, I was pretty excited about this. Well, we were talking about it this last week. I didn't really understand what the whole thing was, but basically it is like an expo kind of thing. Dr Sears is coming to speak at it- and his seminar of 200 is already sold out. There will be lots of different venues there. Well, aside from all the long details. Basically they have booked me at the only photographer to be at this thing. So, they are not only paying me to shoot pictures at it, but they are giving me a booth area to showcase my stuff!!!!!!!

Ok....... THIS IS HUGE! Do you have any idea how big this could be for my career? I am SO unbeleivably excited about it. I don't know why this wonderful place has decided I deserve this, but I am so thankful. It is going to be so fun, and so great. There will be so many people there. So, needless to say I am SCRAMBLING to make my business look as professional as I can and get as much printed and ready for display as possible. So, if anyone has any fabulous ideas that I haven't thought of please let me know! The next month will be crazy to get ready for this, but I am SO excited.

I have no doubt that this blessing "fell" in my lap because of the Lord's unabounding love. True testimony builder once again to PAY TITHING, and do all the other things you are suppose to do and the Lord places things in your life to help you with your goals!

IT'S DONE!!!!!!!

Ok I am so excited to share this one with you all. So some of you may know that I have serious issues with my brain working overtime pretty much at all times. I think way too much and have way too many opinions. I also happen to have way too many projects and ideas stored in that back corner of my brain. I guess though I would rather have it this way than be bored all the time. After all.....all we can take with us is our knowledge right?

So, this was actually something I dreamed up one night as a father's day gift for Charles. I worked many many hours measuring and making it look good. I hope you all can appreciate that. hen is sat in Audrey's room waiting to fill it's contents till I finally had more orders to print the family photo with. There are a few things I would like to perfect but for now, it finally has a home on our wall yea! I think it came out looking pretty dang good.




PS. If anyone might be interested in purchasing one...let me know. They would make great Christmas presents.

FINALLY

Ok, I will do this in samll increments so that you are not overwhelmed. Things have been quite busy for us around here. We took a trip to Tahoe just Charles and me and Audrey. It was SO fun and such a nice relaxing time. Don't let anyone tell you you can't have a good vacation for under $500!!! WOOHOO!

Then we were home for a week and we got to spend some time with Colleen and the girls. They flew out for a couple days before the whole family headed up to Boise ID to celebrate my granmother's 90th birthday! SHEESH. I haven't decided if I want to live that long yet. Well, maybe if I am as cool as she is and look as great as she does I will think about it. It was so great to be there. Basically all my mom's family was there. People that I haven't seen in 15 years were there. I was honored to take all the family shots, as well as my first full frame 50+ person shoot. It was crazy but fun, and went suprisingly well. Just gotta take charge!

I think we convinced Colleen that moving to Boise would be ok! This was one of the points of going. Nathan and Colleen will have to make a decision about where to live (granted he gets LOTS of job offers) in May when he graduated law school!!!! YEA! the end is in sight for them! We are all so excited. So, we will see what happens.

I LOVED Boise, always have. There are SO many amazing parks and they have done SO much to clean up downtown and make it a really really nice place to live. My mom couldn't believe how nice it all was. We have some seriously cool family up there that do fun things like ride horses and repell massive rocks! Good times.

Audrey is doing superbly awesome. She is now a pro at crawling, (well as much of a pro as a flat tire will let you be). That is what Charles calls it. She crawls on her left knee and with her right foot, so she sort of lumps along. It is pretty funny. It is even more funny when Charles imitated her. not quite as graceful when you have non baby extremity proportions. HAHA. She is also a pro at FINALLY falling asleep on her own in her crib, taking baths, eating almost anything in sight, and reminding me that I should probably vacuum my house EVERY DAY. I swear we pick things out of that little mouth a hundren times a day. Thank goodness for immune systems eh?
So I thought I would share my scrapbooked pages instead of putting just pictures on here. That way you don't have to scroll through as much. I will do a couple at a time as they come. Enjoy. Oh, and I haven't done the Reno trip yet, I am working backwards but i will get them out!

FUNNY GIRL

Things are going pretty well here. Just wanted to update some fun pictures of my little stinker. She is getting cuter and more opinionated every day. She grows and learns so fast. We love it. She is fully crawling now, well kind of a gimpy crawl- left knee right foot. Audrey even goes potty on the toilet.

We are headed to Tahoe then Boise this month and then hopefully the heat will stop being so intense. School starts soon and baby girl hots 8 months. LOVE IT!

AUDREY HELPS HER GRANDMA RECOUPE FROM HIP REPLACEMENT

THIS IS HOW I FOUND AUDREY YESTERDAY MORNING. THE FIRST TIME SHE GOT INTO ANYTHING AND IT HAD TO BE CHOCOLATE!!! LUCKILY FOR ME SHE STILL LIKES HER SPINACH AND PEAS
THIS IS AUDREY'S BULL FACE. SHE HAS THIS LITTLE FOAM PIECE THAT SHE LETS DANGLE FROM HER MOUTH. I SWEAR THE THINGS KIDS COME UP!

AND THIS IS CIGAR MODE

I FOUND THEM LIKE THIS TWICE NOW. HOW CUTE IS THAT! POOR DADDY!

AUDREY HAD TO BE MOTIVATED TO CRAWL. A TRUE AUSTIN- FOOD AT THE HEART OF ALL IMPORTANT

CHARLES THINKS WE SHOULD SEND THIS ONE IN TO GERBER!

DANIEL COMES OVER AND LIKES TO READ HER MOBY DICK! LOOKS HEAR LIKE SHE ACTUALLY PAYS ATTENTION HUH?

I SWEAR MY DAUGHTER FELL ASLEEP SITTING UP AND JUST CRASHED!

I AM SORRY ARE YOU 7 MONTHS OLD? SO CUTE!!!

Latest Work

Just Wanted to add a few images that I have shot and worked on most recently.

BABY MADELINE

FROM MY MOST RECENT MOMMY MIXER

And I am back!

I told y'all I am can't do it all and I would be bad at this. Funny how that happens when you are a mommy.

What has been going on here? Seeing as Audrey is almost 7 months I will do a little updating. We are all absolutely fabulous! Except that I can knock this up to one more summer of dillusion on my part in still living here. Haven't figured it out yet why we keep staying. There can be NO way that the saints passed through here in July to settle, I just can't imagine someone walking through our quaint little valley and saying, "oh great idea lets settle, and build homes out of clay, and try and survive in a furnace!!!"

ok. sorry for that. So of course as new parents our lives revolve around our darling little one. And she is doing so great. She has two full blown teeth on the bottom. She did really well during the teething process. The only off was that she wouldn't sleep as long for her naps. She is eating a little bit of grown up food. She loves Cuban squash, but not carrots- go figure. She LOVES peaches and gets really excited when she sees me eating one.

Audrey has fully decided that she wants to skip the crawling phase and go right into walking. She is really secure in sitting and playing and even really secure on her hands and knees but the concept of her legs moving with her arms totally evades her. She can pull herself up onto thing already and just stands there hanging out. Guess it is time to move the mattress down.

She is always full of smiles and wants to be on the go exploring all the time. This is cause for much frustration in her life (and her mommy's right now) because she thinks she can go and then she ends up on her tummy and gets mad and man do we hear about it. So, I predict that she will be crawling within the month and then probably walking not too long after that.

We had a big family party for the 4th and had the most massive slipnslide down the ramp to our basement outside. It was much fun. Charles has decided on a public administration degree at UNLV in the fall. It should take him 3 semesters more or so and then maybe onto a risk management masters and working for FEMA. At least that was the last thing he got excited about. So we will see.

I am moving along with some photography projects and have some great contacts here in town that are going to help out with some ideas I have been brewing up. So, I will let you all in when that is going down. But it is all very exciting.

Not much else to report. Life is busy and completely enjoyable and we love it. We are hoping to get into a house sometime this year so we will keep you updated. Enjoy the mother load of pictures.

PONDERING TOGETHER

AUDREY DISCOVERS RAIN

HAPPY FOURTH!

HERE ARE OUR FAMILY PICS FROM WHEN AUDREY WAS 6 MONTHS OLD

I TOLD MYSELF I WAS SWEARING OFF SEWING MATCHING OUTFITS FOR US, BUT THIS FABRIC WAS TOO CUTE TO PASS UP!

SOME OF AUDREY'S LATEST STUDIO MODELING!

THIS IS A FUNNY THING SHE DOES WHEN SHE IS TRYING TO SIT UP-STRAIGHT FROM HER BACK! HEHE

HER AND ONE OF HER LITTLE FRIENDS SWIMMING

I SWEAR I AM BIG ENOUGH!!!

TOO CUTE NOT TO TAKE A PICTURE! SHE ACTUALLY KEPT THE HAT ON FOR SOME TIME

THESE TWO ARE RIDICULOUS TOGETHER. I ALSO HAVE A PICTURE OF MIA EATING AUDREY'S HAND AND MY DAUGHTER EVER THE LITTLE POSER IS SMILING DILLIGENTLY AT THE CAMERA!