Ben's Wedding

For those of you that don't know, I grew up in OREGON! My family moved here when I was a freshman (totally against my wanting! But I made do!) Anyway, I thankfully still keep in touch with many of my friends there. I know I've mentioned before that Todd was coming to spend Christmas with us because a friend of ours was getting married in the Mesa LDS Temple two days after. Well he got here last Saturday and brought Ben's (the groom) brother and sister down from Provo as well. They got here early (12:30) Saturday morning so Josh and Ronny got to hang out all day on Saturday and Ben came and got them on Sunday morning. We had a lot of fun while they were here! It was fun to catch up with them and remember Oregon times! Bigfoot the Musical... Don't ask! Here are the "laptop nerds" This is how you could find all 3 of them most of the time! And then picture me on the other couch with mine! Poor Brian felt left out! :)So the wedding was yesterday, it was beautiful! I love going to sealings and being reminded of the promises that Brian and I made and see how in love the couple are and remembering how I felt that day as well! At the reception last night I snapped a few pictures.
Here is Todd with my kids! We loved having him here this week and we all miss him already! He and I have always been like brother and sister! On that note... This sister would really like to hook him up! So if you know anyone, pass her on! He is a student at BYU, RM, and studying international finance... Really good guy!! Love you Todd!

Kernan enjoying the fruit...

Ben and Melanie performed a song for all of us "What I've Been Looking For" from High School Musical. It was so sweet!

Here is Josh, Ben's brother, clogging with all the girls Melanie has taught for the last few years, he is so hilarious!

It was also fun to see Courtney one of my other friends at the reception, she lives over in Mesa and her and I hadn't seen each other in FOREVER! We found each other on facebook but hadn't gotten together yet! Being around all my Oregon friends always makes me home sick! I loved living there!
Hope you are all still recouping ok from Christmas! Enjoy your weekend! Ours is going to be low-key, YAY!!

Christmas ...

Well it's over... Hope you all survived! :) We had a good day yesterday and got lots of good things! First off, Christmas eve... Mexican food! Yum! Then the kids get to open one present (jammies) So here they are showing them off for us!

Then we had to go put out our reindeer food! Maci loved this last year and this year they made some at school!
And Kernan was into this year too... He didn't understand why we were throwing stuff all over the grass but he liked it!

Here are Santa's Cookies and Milk.. (thanks Natalie for feeding Santa)
Isn't Maci's note to Santa cute?!

Now... Onto Christmas! We started a new tradition this year. We want our kids to understand the REAL reason for Christmas and that is the birth of Jesus so before they were allowed to go out and see what Santa got them we read the story of the birth of Jesus out of the scriptures and then said a prayer thanking Heavenly Father for his son and for everything he does for us! I really enjoyed it!

Then onto the presents! :)

Here is Maci finding her video ipod! The pig plays the music out the speakers in it's ears!

Stockings! What a surprise, Santa brought her High School Musical 2! We're watching it now!

Kernan's scooter...

It's all about Elmo with him... I loved this picture
He has the best facial expressions! I'm not sure what he is looking at here..
While we were all going through our stockings, Kernan slipped over to the cookies Santa didn't finish all the way and helped himself... Hahaha!

My favorite present of the day was what my husband surprised me with! My list this year was a little unrealistic... So he had a hard time with me! But he did great! In my stocking was a toy that looked like the rings babies play with... I was like, what is this!? And he told Maci and I to go look in her room there was a present in there for both of us! So we went in and he had gotten each of us a bird!! (My bird AllB's died in February, I had it for 10 years!) I never thought he'd let me have one again! And now we have two!!

This one is Maci's I'll get a better picture of mine... They are still in need of names though!

Onto presents... Kernan loved tearing off the present but then got so busy with the thing he opened didn't want to move onto the next one!

I love his expression here... "Oh Todd what are you putting together??"

The aftermath.... What a mess!

We go out to breakfast every Christmas morning with my family. It's been a tradition since I was little! Here are Brian and Todd at Ihop! We have really enjoyed having Todd here with us!

Kernan got a mini big wheel from my parents and loved going down Uncle Stockton's ramps!


Onto Brian's family.... We had dinner and opened presents...

Trevor's first Christmas! Doesn't he look handsome?!

Opening his presents with Mom.

And the drive home... The signs of a Long, Fun Day!



Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! Now to the clean up! :)

Twas the Night Before Christmas..

Here are our kids before church today...

I wanted to share this story one of my visiting teachers brought over this month. I thought it was so good and something to think of as everyone is running out getting all the last minute Christmas shopping done..

The Stranger

At Christmas time there was a man who looked so out of place
as people rushed about him at a hurried sort of pace.
He stared at all the Christmas lights, the tinsel everywhere,
the shopping center Santa Claus, with children gathered near.

The mall was packed with shoppers, who were going to and fro,
some with smilies and some with frowns and some to tired to go.
They rested on the benches or they hurried on their way
to fight the crowd for purchases to carry home that day.

The music from a stereo was playing loud and clear
of Santa Claus, and snow men, and funny-nosed reindeer.
He heard the people talk about the good times on the way,
of parties, fun and food galore, and gifts exchanged that day.

"I'd like to know what's going on,' the man was heard to say,
"There seems to be some soft of celebration on the way.
And would you tell me who this is, all dressed in red and white?
And why are children asking him about a special night?"

The answer came in disbelief, "I can't believe my ear!
I can't believe you do not know that Christmas time is here--
The time when Santa comes around with gifts for girls and boys,
When they're asleep on Christmas Eve, he leaves them books and toys.

"The man you see in red and white is Santa Claus, so shy.
The children love his joyful laugh and twinkle in his eye.
His gift-packed sleigh is pulled along by very small reindeer,
as he flies quickly through the air, while darting here and there.

"The children learn of Santa Claus while they are still quite small.
When Christmas comes, HE is the most important one of all!"

The stranger hung his head in shame, he closed nail-pierced hand;
His body shook in disbelief, he did not understand,
A shadow crossed his stricken face, his voice was low, but clear,
"After all these years, they still don't know."
And Jesus shed a tear.

So as you all are stressing and getting the last little things done... Take a minute to slow down and remember the REAL reason we celebrate!
Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas! Enjoy your time with your loved ones, we will be!

Maci's Kindergaten Program

Maci had her Kindergarten Christmas program last night. She got to wear her Christmas dress for it! It was so cute! I wish I would have remembered the video camera! Here are some pictures we took before we left...


I messed with the coloring in this one... Kinda fun and different..

This is her and her teacher Mrs. Ludwig. They just happened to match last night! She is an awesome teacher and Maci just loves her!

Her is our big performer...
She sang "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas" "Must be Santa" and "Feliz Navida" (sp?)
She did such a good job! All of those kids are so cute, I wish they could stay that cute, innocent and loving of school! But they grow up! :)
Now for those of you that asked about the "after" shot of Kernan's hair cut, let me explain.... Beth just cut the back of it, the length stayed the same... Until Sunday! My husband drove me crazy enough I finally said "Cut his Darn hair then" ( do you hear the sarcastic tone?) Well we got home from church and he wasted no time! He cut it ALL off!! I CRIED I was so upset and still am! It's a good thing it's hair and it'll grow back!! So here are your "after" pictures!
This is what it looked like before.. SO cute and surfer... I want to cry looking at it! Also, his Dad took this picture of him!! Just wanted to share! :)
Only 5 more days til Christmas!!

Love the weekends!

This week has gone by so fast! And Christmas is right around the corner!! I'm so excited for that! This week was another busy one... (I'm getting good at typing that huh?!) I had a photo shoot for Brian's cousin on Monday, this is a picture I took of Maci while we were waiting for them to get here..

Once they finally got out here it was almost dark so we had to hurry and snap some pictures. I'm really happy with this one! Love the sunset and the girls look so cute!! There are a few more on my Photography Blog... Check those out!

Once we were done with pictures they all came back to our house to have pizza and Beth cut the back of Kernan's hair for me! Thanks Beth!

Maci and her Dog... Brian hates this thing but his Dad got it for us when Maci was Kernan's age! The rest of our family LOVE it! Kernan walks outside and the first place he runs to is to flip the switch and the dog comes up and he goes... "oh dog-dog"! Love it! Thanks Poppy!

Finally here are some of the Christmas cards I've done. I did another photo shoot yesterday that I'm editing now and will of course post those when I'm done! If you're interested in last minute Christmas cards let me know.... If not remember me next year!! I also do custom Announcements, Invitations, and more! I have a lot of fun doing these! And hopefully you've all gotten my Christmas card by now and I won't be blowing it for you! :)

Have a good weekend! Happy Saturday!

Life...

That post title has a lot of meaning right now... I won't bore you, our life is just crazy, hard, enjoyable and much more right now! Enough said!
Look at this goofy picture I took today of Kernan, I got my camera out and he instantly put on his goofy grin! Notice both his teeth! He has a total of 4 right now!
It rained again this weekend which is great but it wasn't great for photo shoots! I had to move this family from outside into my garage! And reschedule another family... I wasn't to happy with how their pictures turned out but what was I to do?! More are up on my photography blog...

And poor Rusty! He has these growths all over his body and one broke open on Thursday and wouldn't stop bleeding! So Brian took him to the doctor and he had to go in on Friday for surgery! He got them all removed.

He now has over 9 areas on his poor body that have PINK stitches! They removed so many of those growths! Poor dog! The vets office called today and told us that they were cancer! So thankfully they removed them all and are certain that they got all the cancer out of his body but we have to watch and make sure they don't come back, if they do it means the cancer is back! Pray they don't come back! That dog means so much to us!!

Hope you all had a good weekend!
If you or someone you know wants Family Christmas pictures I have 2 openings left! So call me! I'm also doing custom Christmas cards, you don't have to get your pictures taken by me I can use your own pictures but they are $50 dollars for 50 of them, including envelops. I would show you an example but right now I only have ours done and that would ruin it for everyone getting one of ours! So when I finish the one I'm working on right now I'll post it!! Happy Monday!!