Christmas Promo

It seems early, but I'm totally booked through the end of the year for a regular session! Crazy huh? So I opened two dates to do some mini sessions in hopes to get as many people in without driving me crazy!

I needed a model for my card promo. Who better than my own kid who is here...all alone...aching for her own little "session". Problem is...I wanted a couple cute, Gap/Old Navy/Children's Place shots where she just looks cute and trendy and natural, and she is pulling a Tyra on me. As in Tyra Banks...America's Next Top Model? You get the point. I did manage to get a few and the end results were pretty good.


Anyway...if you're interested...email me soon cause space will fill FAST! If not...just enjoy looking at my super cute kid.

Christmas in September!

If you know my grandma, well....you know:) You will remember THIS post from a while back.

She is always willing to step in and watch the kids if need be for us. We never leave her house emtpy handed, and that includes a stack full of hand-me-downed People Magazines, some bread, and maybe a package or two of donuts.


Gramma loves feeding us and she loves her gossip mags. In fact, for as long as I can remember, she has had stacks FULL of People magazines for us to read at her house. I'm sure it's where I got my amazing fashion sense from an early age (as I sit here with greasy hair and in my husbands pajama pants and stinky t-shirt). Here are a few things you can always count on at her house: People Magazine, a cushioned toilet seat (seriously where do you GET those things?), 18 family sized bottles of shampoo and conditioner (cause she and grampa have so much hair to wash), Suave Baby Powder lotion, makeup from 1982, and the t.v. always tuned to Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Network. That is if her favorite "stories" aren't on and being taped. I remember coming over one time when she was on the phone with her sister. She was going on and on (reading off a yellow notebook) about some couple who were divorced and the kids were having a hard time dealing with it, then the ex-husband shows up when they thought he was dead and come to find out he was actually the CURRENT husband who had been beamed down by aliens in order to repopulate the Earth with superior intelligent beings....ok...maybe I'm not sure that last part was in her notebook, but when things started s0unding weird, I looked at the top page she was reading off of and it was dated with "Young and the Restless" following it. Yeah. She takes notes. And then reads it to her sister in Florida. As if it's real. *sigh* Oh.My........

Anyway...Back to my "Peops"....gotta see what The Biebs is up to lately. And I'm VERY curious to see how "Sandra Got her Groove Back".

Boring Ol Housewife.

I wish. I was reading the "About Me" section I filled out way back when I started this blog (my those were simpler times) and I described myself as a "boring ol' housewife". I then laughed and laughed and laughed until I felt like passing out so I stopped. I wish I was a boring 'ol housewife. But no...I gotta try and build an empire or something. Russ and I joke about how people just don't understand what "big deals" we are, I with my photography, he with his......whatever he seems to be overachieving at that particular day. I said we are like the JLo/Marc Anthony of St. Joe but without the amazing Latin heritage, or the creepy inexplicable skinniness (Marc A), or the pending divorce and twins and.....the...um...."junk in the trunk" (that would be me...I have no junk up in my trunk. This is an area that I am in agreement with the whole "spread the wealth" philosophy on. I would like to spread some wealth of my hips and thighs and belly to my trunk). So....maybe we really aren't like J/Marc, but they do have an fun new clothing line at Kohls and I gotta give them mad props for that.

I am taking some much needed time off over the winter to slow down my brain a little. I want to enjoy Christmas with my kids. I want to not be working their ENTIRE school break. I want to pain my kitchen a new color. I want to decorate my house for all the upcoming holidays. I just want to enjoy life again without all the crazy/business that seems to have taken over lately. I want to start next year off organized and ready to take on the year and not hold on for dear life like a roller coaster that's taken off without the safety bar being locked firmly in place. This year...I'm gonna do it!

PS: We really don't think we are "big deals". It's a joke. We aren't self absorbed jerks.

No...it's not the hair color

I get asked almost daily by people who know me how the dizziness is "going". It's really a funny way to put it.."hows the dizziness going" as if I'm building a house, or making a craft, or attempting to accomplish something. And my response (as I'm a firm believer in positive confession) is typically (if caught on a good day) "can't wait for the manifestation of my actual healing". The reality is that I struggle with it on a daily basis. Daily.Basis. Not that vertigo, room spinning, I'm gonna throw up or I can't do heights (though...I can't do heights) kind of dizziness. It's more like when your under water and your holding your breath and its' that moment of "crap I better get air now or I'm gonna drown" kind of dizziness. I feel short of breath and sweaty and creepy. It's so awesome (sarcasm drip drip). My favorite response from people is "well...you ARE blonde". OMG and Wow. Amazing. That is information I was not aware of. I mean...here I thought I was paying my hairdresser to make my hair purple. Dang. She is so fired. And the blond jokes..really? I had a stranger come up to me as I was leaving a baseball game and ask me if he could tell me the funniest blond joke I ever heard. I told him no. His drunk-off-her-butt date said SHE wanted to hear it so I got to hear it anyway. Jerk. Coincidentally...it was not funny.

Another question is "have you seen anyone, like a doctor, about it?" Usually that gets a huge laughter response from me. Um...yeah. Just a few. No one can fix me. I got some relief through the chiropractor (go see my cuz...he is AMAZING!), and should be going more regularly, but nothing has "fixed" it. I saw a neurologist cause they thought it would be wise due to Diana's recent diagnoses of MS. He was a complete...er....butt. And that's being nice. There was a language barrier to begin with, so that immediately frustrated me. I couldn't understand half of what was said, and the other half he said with such a condescending smile that I wanted to throw up allover him. He kept saying "MOOOST women come in here and think "AH...I have MS..I'm so dizzy, my arm is numb" and they just don't have MS". Ok..that exchange didn't go over...you have to hear it in my head because I hear it with an accent and if I typed it like he said it...I would end up on some government watch list and probably would be arrested for a hate crime. He ended the very brief visit with "Well...it's not a tumor, it's not MS, not cancer. It's nothing big, so I don't have answers for you". It was at that point that I took a page out of my mentor, Jack Bauer's book and jumped out of my seat, grabbed him by the back of the head and repeatedly slammed it into the computer desk over and over. Then I ran to the door, threw my coupon for Rosetta Stone at him and pulled the fire alarm thus evacuating his practice. Ok...almost none of that is true, but it did go down like that in my head. I did leave in tears of frustration over the fact that I am not even sure he looked at my file or my MRI and once again...I don't have anything to tell all the people that ask on a daily basis if I'm still dizzy.

So.....square one. Still there. I deal with it. There are things that I can't do that is frustrating (ie singing, talking for more than 10 minutes at a time, etc). But...I have the assurance that "it's nothing big" from an esteemed neurologist at Carle Clinic...so...I should be comforted by that right? Right. And next time you see me...please....refrain from the blond jokes. I've heard them all. And they are not funny.

Back in the saddle.....Vacation post

So....it's been awhile. We are now almost into fall, and life is none less crazy. I realized I hadn't even blogged about our vacation yet which was equal parts awesome and exhausting. Faith turned 11 while we were gone, and we got her a phone. You must know I am not an advocate of kids having a phone, but since she joined cross country (another new development MUCH to her father's excitement!) it's come in very handy. Also...it came in very handy yesterday when I was attempting a nap and could hear every footstep and stomp below me and I texted her to tell her sisters to sit on the couch and be quiet or they were all grounded to her rooms. Yep. I threatened them via text. From the same house. Yes I know that's lazy. Don't judge....it worked and I got to finish my nap.

Very. Excited.

Vacation: Well.....the weather was crap most of the time. And there were at least 1.5 billion people everywhere we tried to go. And if you know me, I like to relax WITHOUT people around me, so that wasn't super fun. The resort we stayed at was ok...nothing fancy. The pool was small, overcrowded and dirty most of the time. And we went during seaweed season (I wasn't not aware there is a seaweed season...but now I know) so the beaches were equally nasty which was pretty much the entire point of going....for the beautiful beaches. We almost died in a thunder/lightning storm as we were stranded on an island with NO shelter (except a metal umbrella...not good during a lightning storm). We found some rocks to shove the kids under during it so they were safe, but it was still scary. Me and God had some words....well...more so me than him....but he kept us safe and gave us shelter so that's good.

Pre-Apocalyptic storm-looks pretty eh? Not-so-much 3.5 minutes later.

the kids hiding in their shelter. Mae and Emmy are still hysterical at this point. Mae at least tried to put on a happy face for the pics:) The ferry captain jokingly told us he was taking us all to Mexico on our way over to the island. After the storm, Mae let out a big sigh and said "I HATE MEXICO!" Apparently she took his joke to heart.

The last trip to Florida was perfect. Except all the jelly fish. That put a bit of a damper on things. But the weather was perfect. The room was perfect. The timing was perfect in that all the party people were not there. We were spoiled, so anything less this time was disappointing. BUT...I must remember. We are so blessed that we were able to save and take this trip in the first place, that I should not focus on the negatives of it. I got away for a week. I only answered 4 business emails, didn't edit one picture, and could just enjoy my family and that is awesome. The highlight of the trip was our dolphin tour. We (again) were disappointed in that the guide we had the last trip was unavailable. He was perfect. We felt safe with him. They hooked us up with this young kid who I could tell from the get-go was on his dream job. He got to go out snorkeling all day, showing people cool stuff, got to drive his boat fast, swim with dolphins..yeah...not too shabby for a kid huh? He took us to this little shallow area to go snorkeling then left us to go find and bring back cool stuff.

That would be a puffer fish. He brought us back a puffer fish. Who brings back a puffer fish??!!

After this trip I quickly decided I needed a boat. Boats are fun. We could've swam with wild dolphins. He took us out in the middle of the Gulf with like 5 foot swells and said "go ahead guys, jump in!" as wild dolphins were swimming all around. Here was our exchange:

Kids: Uh yeah...were are NOT getting in. You guys go.
Me (wearing my life vest and standing on the edge of the boat): Go ahead hunny...you go first.
Russ (not wearing a life vest): You go first. GO head...you can go first if you want.
Me: your the man. You go first. Go ahead hunny...I'll follow you.
Russ: No no...ladies first....you go.

This went on for about 30 more seconds. I jumped in first (haha!) and the dolphins swam away. Russ jumped in and we both quickly realized that were were in fact in the middle of the ocean with other boats and Ski-Dos' flying around us and wild ocean creatures swimming below us and thought...Hmmmm.....petting wild dolphins isn't really that important to us. Maybe we'll visit the zoo next time.

So all in all...we did have a good time. I will never again return to PCB in August. Or September. Apparently the time to go is October. Maybe we will try that next time. Maybe we will save ourselves the 14-hour drive and just go to Michigan.

Here are a few more pics from the trip!

Not our pool. Our was gross and smelled like rotten cheese. We illegally resort hopped and went to the resorts pool next door. Not my proudest moment. And at the same time....my proudest moment:) It was a massive lagoon type pool with waterfalls and deep ends. Nice.

Hermie 2, Hermie 3, and Hermie 4. We had to let them go on our boat tour. The girls wanted to keep them.

Post storm....the girls running off all their pent-up frustration and scaredness.

Mae Snorkeling. She had NO fear.

Beware of the seaweed.


Balcony view. Yeah...that didn't stink.Shell Island pre-storm. No seaweed. Clear skies. Yeah. Best 45 minutes of the trip. Faith catching some waves.

The kids favorite part....."surfing"

There is so much more...but I must get onto other things today. Hopefully I will get busy with more blogging this week!

PS: Funny Maebree sayings of the week in case I forget.

*Yesterday in church as we were walking out she stops in her tracks and says very seriously "Do NOT stand in front of a hippo. They will kill you" Words to live by.
*She accepted Jesus in her heart on Wednesday of last week. I asked what she did in class and in one breath she says "I got God in my heart, do I get a mint?" Yes you do....yes.you.do.