Jon & Nicole

Saturday afternoon, I had the opportunity to photograph this adorable family:

We met up at Temple Square and got some really fun "urban city" looking shots!

Around Town

The thing I love about Utah is that I can go from a place like this:

To a place like this:

In a matter of a short drive. Here's a few more random shots I got from today:

Travis

My friend Travis is a model and an actor. He's got a ton of fun projects coming up and wanted new pictures for his portfolio. I was SO excited when he asked me to do pictures for him! We went out to Saltair, and I think we got some good ones for him. :)

My Loves

I hope everyone has had an amazing Valentine's Day! I must admit, the only time I have had a boyfriend for Valentines Day was back in high school. So for the last ten years, Valentines has not been a holiday I celebrated. Or even acknowledged. Or even wanted to leave the bed/house for. ;)

But this year I decided to make it super extra special for the kids. Who cares if I'm not in a relationship with anyone but Facebook and Once Upon a Time. (Seriously, best show EVER!) I've got my kids, who love me despite my many faults. And I love them. So why not celebrate that?

Let's do it!

I was so excited to finally celebrate this overly commercialized holiday that I may have gone overboard. But it was so much fun! As good as Christmas Eve! (almost) Yesterday on my lunch break I went to the dollar store and loaded up on cheesy, fun red and pink covered things. Streamers, balloons, favors, gift bags, chocolate roses, toys, etc. I got a little balloon bouquet for each of my kids. Little plastic champagne flutes with plastic hearts on the stems. A pink table cloth.

Just call me cupid!

Now the problem was . . . Where was I supposed to hide all of this?! 3 kids and myself in a 2 bedroom apartment. There are no secrets or hiding spots in this family.

So, I figured the ONE PLACE the kids would never look would be our little laundry closet. GENIUS! After I ran amok in the dollar store, I headed home and stashed my surprises there before heading back to work. I got worried when we came home last night and the kids started playing hide and seek. These kids will hide under the kitchen sink behind the garbage can, I wouldn't put past them to slip into the laundry closet. Luckily, that was the one place they avoided hiding in. Also, luckily, I had just taken the garbage out from under the sink. EW.

So last night after I finally got them all to bed and asleep, I pulled out my stash and went to work like the little Valentines fairy I had turned into. I pulled out all the red, white and pink balloons from the party mix bags I bought. The plan had originally been to blow them ALL up and cover the apartment with balloons. About 3 balloons into that plan, I nixed it. I ended up with 4 each of red, pink and white. Good enough, right? haha! I taped the balloons and the silver and red sparkly garlands to the bedroom doors. I tied the balloon bouquets to each of their beds. I laid out the gift bags all pretty on the table for them to wake up and discover.

Then I settled in to catch up on Grey's Anatomy. Valentines episode. Oh yeah. I'm SO in this Valentines!

I made the kids stay in their rooms while I cooked dinner and got the table ready. I wanted to surprise them again! And the boys really, REALLY needed to clean their room. (and it's still not clean. figures. lol) I left work a few minutes early today and I stopped and got us some flowers for our table.

 I made Pink Punch, to make it an extra special dinner. Raspberry sherbet, pink lemonade and sprite. YUM! I even brought out my china plates and fancy glasses. (To go along with our plastic champagne flute water "glasses.")

On each of my kids' plates, I placed a little stuffed animal.

Alayna got this little elephant. She has so many stuffed animals, but not an elephant. Her zoo is now complete!

Hunter got this little frog, because he's always asking Alayna to play with her giant stuffed frog that my older brother got her for Valentines when she was 1 1/2.

7 years ago, when my dad was in the hospital right before he died, my then step mom called my siblings and I into his hospital room. Laying on my dad in the hospital bed were little bags with his Valentines gifts to us. His last gifts to us. He was in a coma and couldn't give them to us himself. In my bag was this little bee keychain:

Bridger is always asking me if he can play with it. And then he leaves it places and forgets where it is. I panic. Then we find it and I tell him he can never ever ever ever play with it again. Until he asks me again, and I let him. Repeat process. So I got him his very own bee. Hopefully my little bee can stay safe now. ;)

I had wanted to watch Lady and the Tramp with the kids. I made us spaghetti and meatballs for dinner and thought, "How cute would Lady and the Tramp be, to go with our spaghetti!" You know, that whole scene where the dogs share the noodle and end up kissing. It seemed like a good love story to watch with the kids. But the store didn't have it! GASP! Sigh. Sadness.

So we watched Glee and sang along and had strawberry shortcake.

Best. Valentines. Ever.

Birthday Boy

When I posted that I was going to start in photography more, and was looking for guinea pig models, a friend of mine from college was one of the first to support me and let me take pictures of her amazingly handsome son. He's going to be baptized soon! I can't wait for him to have that experience, and I was so excited Amy said I could take his pictures.

Doesn't he look amazing in his suit? I LOVED the pinstripes!

Thanks Amy!!!

My Boys

Pictures say a 1,000 words, and I think these two pictures showcase my boy's personalities perfectly! These two have my heart. <3

Re-Visit

Tonight, just for fun, I went back and revisited a couple of pictures I took of Hunter and Alayna. I wanted to see them with a new edit. I just bought a few action sets from Florabella. I LOVE them!!

Old Edit:

New Edit:

 

Old Edit:

New Edit:

It's amazing to me how different editing effects can completely change an image! That's always my hardest thing, is picking what way to edit a photo.

I'm going to have to resist going back and re-editing all my photos with my new actions!

Art Night!

On one of my "I can't sleep because I have too many ideas running through my head" nights, I came up with doing an art journal night with my kids. I'm so sick of the come home, do homework, cook and watch tv rut we're in. So I decided to throw in some activity nights. Monday night is going to be our art journal night! I went to Michaels and got us all an 11x14 sketch book. Lucky me, I found out when I got to the register that they were all buy one get one free! SERIOUSLY! I was one happy art journaler! I just got us all a set of Crayola watercolors thinking if we actually stick with this and someday get to be amazing artists, I'd get us a set of nice watercolors. But for now, the $4 Crayola sets work just grandly!

For our first foray into watercoloring/art journaling, I thought it would be fun to paint to music. I set it to Elvis' Greatest Hits. About halfway through my kids turned the iTunes to Adele. What? That works too. hahaha!


Here's what we came up with:

Top Left: Bridger's meteor crashing onto the grass on Earth. Bottom Left: Alayna's scenic art. Bottom Right: Hunter's portrait work. Top Right: My random flower.

Art Journaling Monday is fun! I think next week I'll give them a word or theme to paint and see what we come up with. Any good random kid friendly words or themes you can think of?

Practice Run

So, yesterday I made a purchase I have been DYING to make for years . . . .

EEK! I am so happy! I was so excited to take it out for a test run, so this morning I took the kids out to do a few quick pictures. Hunter isn't in any because he didn't want to take his coat off. It wasn't THAT cold, but I didn't want to force him. lol Bridger only lasted long enough to get one decent picture, but Alayna was my little champ! I love that she loves having her picture taken!

Here's what I got out of 20 minutes and this fantastic building in "downtown" Bountiful:

My only problem with these is how GROWN UP my daughter is looking! This just can't be!

I can't wait to take it out and do MORE pictures! I need practice with it so if you're in the area and want pictures done and are willing to be my guinea pig, let me know! ;)