Merry Christmas!

The next few days are going to be a bustle of craziness......but I thought I would throw up a quick greeting and a view of our Christmas Card this year.






Please note the typo....thank God I did it on my card only:) Too many things going at once....but I am ready to settle down for a lovely, fun, and PEACE-filled Christmas.

Rejected Christmas Card Pictures

Ridiculous. That is how I describe my life these days! Too say we've been busy would be an understatement. *sigh* I see the light at the end of the tunnel though, and that is encouraging.

In an update to all that's going on, I will give you the brief bullet points

• Our house is still for sale. The house I wanted is not availalbe at this time. It is possible it will be availalbe later (which isn't necessarily bad that ours has had no interest right now) but it is a huge huge huge question mark. I have decided to let it go, let God do his thing, and keep my options open.
  
• Thanksgiving was nice. Had a nice huge family meal, stayed up all night with my friend, sis and mom shopping that night and into the next day, and got some great deals. My mom got a puppy, the stinkin' cutest puppy in the world. Merry Christmas Mom! Some day Lucy will get that peeing and pooping on the floor is not necessary.
• My sabbatical will start this weekend. I put in my last order of the year yesterday and today, and thank you sweet sweet SWEET Lord I will be taking a much needed break into January. I still have some gorgeous senior pics I gotta finish up and a website to work on as well as some business stuff I need to get ironed out. There will be some big changes made to MyHouse Photography.....it is no longer a hobby, it is a business, and this crazy season has shown me I need to treat it as such. I am very much looking forward to cleaning, baking, and spending some quality time with my much neglected husband and kiddos!
  

SO........back to the title. I worked on our card and have one that is absolutely fabulous if I do say so myself! I am WAY excited to get those finished up this weekend! My mom had bought cowgirl hats and boots for the girls this year, so I decided we would incorporate them into the card shoot this year. Not every pic was Christmas card appropriate....so I thought I would share a few of those! Admitedley...most of them have to do with Maebree and her goofy faces.


Don't worry....I got some good ones in there too:) Not that these aren't good...they pretty well tell the story of the evening...Em is confident she was born to be a superstar model, Faith is cooperative and beautiful, and Maebree is..well.....Maebree:) My favorite of the whole shoot: Faith is sweet and perfect, Emmy is giggling, and Maebree is fabulous! Click on it to see the whole shoot!

Guns 'N Hoses 2010

On Saturday, my hunky firefighter husband participated in the Guns 'N Hoses flag football battle to help fund the cops and firefighter memorial at Westside Park. Anytime I get to brag about being married to a hunky fireman, I jump on it. Do you remember going through high school, having all the popular (and slightly hookerish)girls make fun of you for not dating and sleeping with everything that moved? Only to grow up, marry a dimpled cutie who became a hot firefighter so that you could go to your 10-year high school reunion and tell them you married the #1 fantasy of all women and they can all stick that in their slut-pipe and smoke it!! No? Just me? Huh....I thought every girl had that dream....

Anywho, my grandparents joined us. Give them a chance for to spend time with their great-grand babies and watch their favorite grandson in-law play something, they take it!
Grandma had to show off how burnt grandpa was from his fishing trip that morning.

Take note of their amazing sunglasses. They always get those infomercial glasses that look huge because they cover their regular glasses. I love those crazy old people!

Russ warming up

The Color Guard. That is one of Russ's fellow firefighters back behind them playing the bag pipes. He is in a full on Scottish kilt. The girls were disturbed that their was a man wearing a dress there. I tried to culture them in the ways of their heritage (they are after all, like 1/8 Scottish:), but they couldn't get past the dude wearing a dress.

The Team

A little photo of the action.......

Yes...that is our one firefighter chick..right in the middle of the action. Apparently she was playing with a broken finger. I think I saw a stinkin' cop guy run over her head after one play. Literally...ran OVER her head. Like with his cleats. She is one tough cookie. Not that all the other guys weren't tough, I saw a bunch of them take some pretty nasty hits (in flag football mind you!), I just had to give a shout-out to all the tough chicks out there!

We ended up losing by 3 points....freakin' cops. :) All in all, not a bad way to raise some money for a memorial honoring those who risk their lives for us every day.

New Photography Blog

I decided that I needed a separate site for all my picture stuff. Some people come here just for that, some people come for my winning personality and witty comments. I don't charge enough to have a fancy, paid for photography site, and at this point, I don't need one. I just wanted somewhere to share my pics, share a comment about my awesome clients, and maybe post a price sheet.

Without further adu....I give you my official SITE....enjoy!

And leave comments...I love comments and constructive criticism. If I don't like them...I'll just delete them:)

Camping

We decided to try our hand at camping last weekend. Mid-October, first time ever in all our 12 years together camping, and the weather decided to give us a wonderful Indian Summer. It was 90 degrees. Which meant our tent was a sauna. Think cult-in-the-desert, sweat-lodge kind of sauna. Regardless, we had fun and will be doing it again sometime. Sometime when it's NOT supposed to be so hot.

We took the girls pony-riding one of the days, which was a hit. Maebree refused to smile the whole time she was on the horse, but would not stop talking about it when we got back! Mostly...it was about the pony that almost bit her finger.


Faith was mad cause she wanted to do full-on trail riding. Maybe next time!

We had a favorite horse there, and ironically, it's name was "Favorite":) She was quite a hit with the kids! They discovered that she would eat anything, including grass.

We have more pics, but I didn't bring my nice camera, so they aren't the greatest in the world:) Plus, we were so busy beating the heat, I didn't think to pull it out! Maybe next time!

Sleeping Beauty

Peaceful moments are few and far between in my house. This was a peaceful 10 minutes.....


Notice the chocolate-stained mouth....funny thing is...we didn't have chocolate that day.

Faith's new look

I am SO behind in blogging it's not even funny. Tis the busy season! I have so much to catch up on...some of which I don't necessarily want to remember (i.e. going crazy trying to sell the stupid house!) and some I do (celebrating 12 years of marriage to the most awesome, handsome, dimpled firefighter the world has ever known:).

Poor Faithy got her mama's eyesight...which ain't good. She got glasses a couple weeks ago...and with the exception of looking like the unibomber in this getup (she was helping me on a very cold and windy photoshoot), I think she looks way stinkin' cute. Way cuter than I looked in my first coke-bottle pink and blue glasses. Wow....gotta love the 80's.

Burning my candle at both ends

That's how I feel right now. I am completely overwhelmed with all that there is to do in one simple day. Like today for example...I have a trash-pit house to clean, about 1,000 images to go through and choose for editing (only 2 families! I have GOT to stop taking so dang many pictures!), groceries to buy, homework to help with, chauffeuring to do, lunches and dinners to make, bills to pay before we end up with a bad credit score, and quite frankly, all I want to do is crawl back in bed on this crisp fall morning and fall asleep.

I am sure most of that won't get done, but if you think if me today, prayer is wonderful and nice thing. At some point, this house needs to sell so that life can go back to some sense of normal. Well......is it ever really "normal" for me? No....but at least it will be a start.

Randy Travis and his amazing Afro

My grandma just turned 78 a couple weeks ago. She is a sprite little thing for a 78-year-old woman. She could run circles around me I'm sure! She's always up for babysitting her great-granddaughters (even when she is convinced they have learned new cuss-words;) and loves spending time with us. Tomorrow we are headed to the Aurthur Cheese Festival with her....not something I would do on a normal day, but she wants to do it, so mom, I, and the girls will head down there with her. We will all poop-out way before she does I'm sure!

I was sitting at the computer the other day while Russ was watching some random airline documentary (seriously....I don't understand the mindless stuff he watches! Guess that's why he is the smart one!) and low and behold, Randy Travis was featured due to him coming through that particular airport and the security issues that came with it. Russ commented "Hey...Randy Travis DOES have an Afro!" Right now...everyone except my sisters and mother reading this is confused...let me explain.

It is my favorite, crazy grandma story, and I have a LOT of them. Probably about 8-10 years ago at Thanksgiving, Diana and I were talking about Lenny Kravitz and his amazing afro. Don't know who that is? Click on the link...you'll get the picture...literally. My grandma happened to be walking through from the laundry room (a room she frequents at EVERYONE'S house!) and just in passing says "Randy Travis DOES NOT have an AFRO!" Then walked through and into the kitchen. It was that day we were convinced that her hearing had gone. We laughed hysterically and to this day, we tell that story in preface to anyone meeting grandma cause it's the awesomest grandma-story ever. She didn't mention it again, just simply stated the fact that her precious Randy Travis (a close second to her favorite singer, Vince Gill) did not indeed have an afro.

I informed her yesterday that I had indeed seen Randy Travis recently and needless to say...he was rocking a pretty amazing afro himself. It is a little more flat-ironed than Lenny's, but still...pretty puffy if you ask me.

Jesus at Walmart?

I decided to go grocery shopping yesterday for the first time in about 12 years (or what seemed like 12 years according to our cabinets). After hearing on the radio that my store of choice, which is usually Meijer, was having some big back-to-school bash, Walmart quickly became my only choice. It was unusually quiet which was strange because it was 5:30 in the evening and usually a really busy time. It was just Tater and I, so I got through everything pretty quickly while she was "resting" in the front of the cart.

We get to the check-out lane and the guy in front of us was a little unkempt looking.....and that is probably being nice. He hadn't shaved, cut his hair, or probably showered for about 5 years, and he was wearing an orange robe/tunic looking thing. By this time, Mae was wide awake and begging for candy bars. She looked forward, noticed they guy, and started pointing and yelling "LOOK MOMMA!! It's an ORANGE JESUS!!" I was doing my best to give her "the face"...you know "the face" moms. It's the "dear GOD please stop pointing and embarrassing me" face. It's the "be quiet before I get into a confrontation with a rather scary looking person" face. I was shooshing her and begging her to stop talking...all with "the face". She didn't notice the face and refused to quiet down until I acknowledged that she truly did see an "orange Jesus".

Fortunately, I don't believe the guy was with it enough to hear her, or he was just being nice and not acknowledging that he heard her which if that was was the case, was kind of Jesus-like:) The check-out lady, however, did hear her and was laughing hysterically as if she had been holding it in for about 12 years. She informed Maebree (as did I of course) that was NOT in fact Jesus.

kids.....*sigh* Their perspectives are pretty interesting. We don't know what Jesus looks like, but I am anxious to see if he looks like my Maebree's "Orange Jesus" or more like my "Passion of The Christ" Jim Caviezel Jesus. I'm hoping the latter, but probably neither.......

Zeke and Zack

THEEEERRRREEE DOOOOOOOONNNEEE! And I cried while editing...just like I cried at her maternity shoot.

Ok...not gonna say more or I'll cry. Grab a box of tissues, some coffee, click on the pic and go on over and attempt to prepare yourself for all the cuteness that is awaiting you. Just try...I triple-dog-dare ya!

First Day of School

Thursday was the first two-hours of school (lame...I can't believe they make us do that!) and Friday was the first OFFICIAL DAY of school. I snapped a quick pick of the girls before we walked out the door.

Please note the incredible excitement all over Emmy's face. Thrilled.

Mae had to wear her Dora backpack, but she informed me that she was "too yiddo to stay. I not big yet momma...I too yiddo to be at school. Maybe in two weeks". I was also informed that Tinney Bear as well was too "yiddo to stay".

Baby Z's

I am not supposed to publish a bunch before I get the whole lot to her....but I have been hounded by so many people to see even a sneak peek.....I just couldn't take it anymore! I can't wait to see what the future holds for these precious little guys.

In the meantime...Peace out my brotha!

I'm Old....

....Yep....I am.

Due to massive amounts of back-to-school shopping and partying yesterday, I didn't get this post up! My baby turned 10 yesterday. That's right....ten. As in double digits. 1-0. She's the best 10-year-old money can buy. I couldn't ask for a better kid in her. She is literally THE most helpful kid I know. If she senses that I'm stressed (which is a lot lately) she immediately asks what she can do. I love her more than my heart can stand, and I can't wait to see what God has for her as she gets older.

We decided to forgo a massive family party and took her and her BFF Lydia to Indiana Beach for the day. She is not a roller coaster kid as I thought. But regardless, we had lots of fun walking around that County-Fair-on-Steroids.

Happy Birthday Faithy-Foo!

Officially official

It's done! The house is ready....complete with that new-carpet smell! Besides a few odds and ends that need to be finished up (some trim work, ceiling fan scrubbing, small pool removal, etc) the HOUSE is complete and ready for your offer:) The small child pictured is not included.....unless it is a REALLY good offer.

I went to bed last night feeling a little nostalgic. I had that moment of sheer panic that I was going to have to leave this house that I love so much. We had it built. We picked the cabinets, fixtures (thank YOU Gullifords!), flooring that ended up all being replaced due to crappy installation. We picked all the paint colors. We spent two weeks and six coats painting the kitchen and dining room to get JUST the right color red. I really do love this house. I brought two of my babies home to this house. If it had a basement, we wouldn't move. Oh, do I wish we would've just spent the extra $10-15,000 and put a stinking basement in when it was built! We haven't outgrown it yet, but soon we will have. Can you imagine THREE teenage girls fighting over who gets their own room and who gets the sink and whose turn it is to shower? Ug. Not to mention, I know God has given me this photography gift. I know he is growing my business, and I know I want to be able to bless others with it. So change is in order.

We have a house picked out. It's massive. It's got a studio ready made for me. It has three massive bedrooms for the girls, a MASSIVE bathroom with TWO sinks and a completely separate shower space for their teenage years. It is literally one of our houses on level one, and one MORE of our houses on level two. So I have in my mind moved us in there. I know where the Christmas tree is supposed to go. I know where I'm going to store all that extra "stuff" I just can't get rid of. It has room to grow. All of that said, if it sells before we can get to it, I can't wait to see the even BETTER house God has for us. Cause that one just seems perfect.

So prayers are in order for us. Pray that I can keep my sanity while trying to keep a house picked up and ready for a showing at any moment. Pray I can keep on top of the already intense schedule I already keep on a daily basis. Pray that ours sells quick and that bandaid can be ripped off super fast! Pray that the other house stays where it's at so that I can put my Christmas tree where I want it.

Girls Photo Shoot 2010

Outside of St. Joe, there is this little area called "The Wetlands". Personally, I think it's a waste of taxpayers dollars. It's basically a hotbed of mosquitoes and bugs of all sort, but I have wanted to take some pictures out there for a long time. It's lush and green and has some flowers. I had something else in mind, but had no assistant, so we just kind of went with what worked which was simple. As soon as I pulled up there, got the kids and the camera out of the car and shut the door, I realized I locked our keys in the car. Emmy immediately went into hysterics as she thought we were for sure going to leave our car there forever. If you notice, she is a bit blotchy in some of these pics from her little fit of fear. I assured her no matter what, we would figure something out, and after randomly hitting numbers on the side of the door, I got the right code (still couldn't tell you what it was, it was extremely random!) and we were off. I wanted to get some more stuff downtown with the kids with some of the older brick buildings, antique shops and such, but as soon as we left the car, I noticed the little one had indeed peed her pants. Photo shoot over. Why is it always my kids?

All in all, it was a success as I got some pretty good stuff. My little Faithy sure is showing me that she is getting "the eye". She posed her sisters and herself in MANY of these! Just click on the collage to see more!

Times....they are a changin!

It's been a whirlwind of activity in our house lately. The things that have gone on would make even the strongest person in the world hide and twitch uncontrollably in a corner. The biggest and the catalyst for everything that has happened since is that we decided to put our house on the market. We just feel the need for more space. We aren't bumping into each other or killing each other due to the close quarters, but our kids are only getting bigger (stinkin' things gotta eat three times a day.....growing being the after affect of such) and we want something that we are going to be able to grown into comfortably. I also need space for my business. I need an office with an area for a studio or a possible area for a future possible studio. So the look is on! It's been nuts, but we really feel this is the right decision for us at the time. The shame is that we are getting our house looking so good, I don't really want to leave. I've found that there is nothing in our area with as cool of stuff as we have, but compromise may be in our future on that.

So...here are a few things that have gone on the last month or so:

• Had a massive, 4-family garage sale. Threw it together in less than a week. Our profit reflected that. Most of it went to the garbage or to Goodwill.
  
• Painted every area of the house that had not been painted. Including the hallways and stairwell. If you've never seen the stairwell.......it's about 483 feet tall. Maybe not QUITE that tall...but....tall.
  
• Painted our room which also is 483 feet tall.
  
• Scrubbed every piece of trim in this house. I hate trim. If it's possible to not have trim in the next house, I would be ok with that.
  
• Looked at 6 houses. Haven't found one that I am in love with. Found one I really like, but will have to replace all the carpet.
  
• Have to replace all the carpet in our house. I'm calling Carpet Weaver's out on this one. They suck. Sorry.....they do. Our house is 7 years old, they "fixed" it twice before we even moved in (literally....there was JUNK under the carpet from their laziness in not sweeping up construction crap before they laid it!!). They stretched it once then. It looks like amber-waves-of-grain do to the mounds in it. Plus....our girls lived hard in it. Nail polish, make-up, you name it, its on it. So we are replacing it. Hence the reason I don't want to have to replace it in another house we are looking at.
  
• Taken, edited, and ordered about a billion pictures.
  
• Worked VBS all week this week.
  
• Re-arranged our living room, de-cluttered the kitchen, got rid of unnecessary toys, and on and on and on!
  

It's craziness. Literal and utter craziness. So if you know of any great houses going on the market in this area soon...let me know! And if you are in the market for a great house....LET ME KNOW!!

Michigan slide show

I am a perfectionist...I wanted to edit all our vacation pics and make them look perfect before I posted anything with them. And I realized that was stupid because if I EVER got time to do all that, it would be Christmas. So.....I just uploaded them to iMovie (love that program!), picked a couple fitting songs, and let-em-fly! It's not even half of the pics, but I guess I will save those for when I have time to edit them and make them look perfect. Sooooo.......Christmas........;) And again, I apologize for the super small size....for whatever reason, blogger doesn't like to let me do it big.....whatever. I'm too tired to figure it out.

Special thanks to the Holt's who came with us, had a blast with us, and gave us a vacation that we will never ever ever forget!!! Love you guys!

Vacation Pre-Post

I have a billion pics and videos to post from our vacation. I think I am going to just make a video montage of the whole thing, if I can get blogger to upload it. If I'm being seriously honest...I am a little depressed we had to come home. I am pretty sure I had another two weeks in me:)

But I love this picture...it sums it all up....fun...on the beach...arms spread as wide as you can go calling for daddy to take her to the deep end of the "pool". And can you believe I took it with my crappy little "point-and-shoot"? Love.It.

Stay tuned....much more to come later!

Awkward Family Photos

One of my favorite websites is Awkward Family Photos. I get so many ideas on what NOT to do in a photo shoot!! I think I might have one to enter........

She can't stand being out of the spotlight!

Favorite.Picture.Ever:)

If you want to see all of her adorable set....click on the pic below!

The First Cut is the Deepest

Saturday was a really busy day. My husband decided that he wanted to do the pool area up right this year, so he decided to finish the area in patio form so in the fall, we can plop a fire-pit up and have a little gathering area when the pool is taken down. Friday was packed full of that job as well as games in the evening. Russ was pretty burnt and didn't feel well from all the work done Friday (who loses 8 pounds in one day? Yeah...the incredible growing and shrinking man...my husband!), and we had various things planned as it was: Em had a b-day party for a friend, a graduation party, and I had a photo shoot scheduled for the evening. Due to the rain, all I could do was return the compactor we rented and run a few errands then head back home. I stopped at Walmart on the way home for some food for dinner (grill-able food), a present for the friend, and decided to get myself a handy-dandy mandolin slicer to make some grill-able sweet potato chips. (If you don't know what a mandolin slicer is....google it). I got my $11 slicer, the rest of the stuff, and headed home. We hit the various parties necessary then came home to make up some quick dinner before my shoot. I rinsed of my new slicer, cut a potato in half, stuck in (or so I thought) the guard and proceeded to make up some slices......four slices in, the guard slipped.....and my thumb went on through the slicer.

My first words uttered were "Crap. I totally just cut my thumb. Hmmm...." No emotion, no freaking out, I said it just like that. It didn't hurt, I just knew it felt deep. So I stuck it under the water in the sink......then it hit me....crap....that is deep...and it is seriously bleeding. Faith was there, and she asked if she should go get dad....I told her it wouldn't be a bad idea.

Now, I've been in this situation before...I was washing dishes and the glass broke, had to go and have about 5 stitches put in. That was about 10 years ago. My initial thought was "Can I just wrap it and go about my shoot? I DON'T have time for this!" Russ took one look, smiled and asked what the deal with my family and knives was, and informed me he was taking me in. A quick call to the BFF to take the girls and we were on our way.......

We had a relatively easy and quick visit to the ER this time. I hate the ER...hate it. I would almost rather bleed to death then go. But in retrospect....I guess it was good we went. I almost kicked the nurse (? maybe she was a doc or a nurse practitioner...I am not really sure) when she made me bend it.....and the tears were flowing when she jabbed that numbing needle RIGHT into the cut (or flap....it's really more of a flap) after the initial numbing didn't work. Then I knew nothing else of what they were doing because this time I chose not to watch as they cleaned and stitched that sucker up. Twelve stitches later, the side of my thumb was replaced to it's rightful location, and I was on my way! Russ took pictures...but I will spare you. It's nasty...looks like a horror film. If it weren't for my thumbnail that stopped it, I would've taken the whole side of my thumb off. Thank you Lord that when you were creating the human body, some thousands of years later, you knew I would buy a mandolin slicer and use it incorrectly. ****sigh****

So I have a gimpy thumb. I have three shoots to edit, a disgusting house to clean, a shower to throw for a friend, and softball games to attend all week. I really didn't need that $11 slicer that turned into a $136 slicer after the ER copay.

Ironically, as I was being checked into the ER, Sheryl Crowe's song "The First Cut Is The Deepest" was on the receptionist's radio......I had to smile and have a good laugh about that one.

"Z" Squared

I'm not sure I can do this post without crying. I think I cried while editing all of her pics. Just bawled like a little baby. If you know them, you know the hell these two have been through and the story behind the tears. But they were happy tears because it is THEIR TIME! They will be bringing two (yes...I said it..TWO) bouncing baby boys into this world in just a very few short months. Maybe I was crying because I didn't look half as good while 30 weeks pregnant with just ONE baby let alone TWO!

So I better prepare, drink lots of fluids so I'm good and juiced up...I am sure that I will be crying like a baby while editing Baby Zeke and Baby Zack's pictures in a few months.

Click on the collage to see more from their shoot!

Happy Birthday Emmy!

This is a little late, but better late than never, right?

We celebrated my birthday on Friday with some yummy Kamakura and cake. I have waited for six weeks for cake. I couldn't even finish my piece of cake, and it was so heartbreaking.

Saturday, we celebrated my favorite birthday present ever, Emmy!! She turned 7, and her and I made a day of it. We got up, went shopping, got her hair trimmed professionally, and got our nails done. Then we went to the park and had some awesome ladybug cupcakes (well, I didn't.....I was a good girl!) then played with one of her (and possibly my favorite!) presents for the rest of the evening. Got lots of pics, so I will let them speak for themselves!

She said "A boy did my nails....AWKWARD!!!" :)

Chillaxin

Baby Addison

Well, you remember when I photographed her parents. I believe I said she had no choice but to be anything but gorgeous......

And I was right.....she is gorgeous. But, again, she had no choice....look at her parents....

Click on the collage to view her full set....