Lions, Tigers and Bears....

Oh my! Okay, there weren't any lions and tigers...or bears for that matter. Just a cute baby zebra and kangaroo! A friend of mine let the word out that there was a baby zebra and kangaroo at one of the nursery's that just opened up this past weekend. So we of course had to go and check it out (and no, before you ask I didn't get any pictures *kicking myself* so I will have to remember that for next time.) The Zebra was being a bit shy, I guess she had just woken up from a nap and wasn't feeling very social...but we did get to pet her a little and of course see her. Since Lulu (that's the zebra's name) wasn't being social the owner brought out Roscoe (the baby racoon) and he was perfectly happy with the owner holding him in his pouch while the kids and I petted him. So I guess I'm going to have to start shopping for my flowers/plants at this new nursery so that we can visit with Lulu and Roscoe and watch them grow up! They are still getting started, so they don't have a lot of stuff yet, but it looks like it will be really nice once they start going and they have alot of cute knick knacks and what not as well! Not to mention the lady who owned the place was really nice.

Photography

Just uploaded some pictures to my photography blog with some of the pics I attempted to get of my kids all together. I'm not super satisfied with them so I'm going to have to try and again later on today or this week. I figured since it's spring break it will give me more opportunities to get them together in one shot! So go ahead and head over to my photography blog and check them out! There's a link on the side of the page, or you can click on here .

A going away gift...

On Wednesday I found out that this was going to be the last week that Mrs. Isackson was going to be at the preschool. Now I have known for months that she was leaving us (she's moving to be closer to her son and grandkids) but I didn't know exactly when. Gretchen has been as Westside for as long as I can remember (in fact she was there when I went to school there!) So it will be really strange not seeing her face in the office when I drop off and pick kids up from school. So today the kids (Ryann and Jaxon) and I decided to make her a going away present and we wanted it to be special. I picked up a vase, fake flowers, marble stones, paint and butterflies at the store today and we went to work. The flowers, ladybugs and spiders are all made using the kids' thumbprints and then I painted or drew in all the details, then we added the stones and flowers and glued on the butterflies for the finishing touch. I think it turned out really nice and I hope she will like it!

Spring!!

Is Spring finally here...or is it just teasing us?

I am pumped!!

I had the privilege of photographing my brother and soon to be sis-in-law last Thursday for their wedding announcements. This was my first real "official" photo-shoot and even though was still family it was someone other than my kids and they are going to use these pictures to send out to family and friends...so I wanted to do the best job I could and I hope they are happy with some of the shots I got of them. I hope I was able to portray the love that they feel for each other.

Anyways, though I digress... I posted these same pictures on Facebook and a friend of mine from preschool (her daughter is in Ryann's class and her son is in Jaxon's) asked me if I was a photographer as well as a full time mom! She wanted to know if I would be willing to take "professional" (yes, I just loved that!) pictures of her kids for Mother's Day presents for the Grandparents...and she hoped she didn't offend me by asking! Offend me? Heck no, that is one of the best compliments a person who is trying to get into photography can get! So I of course said I would be thrilled to practice on her children! So I guess this is how these things get going...word of mouth and seeing pictures that you have done for someone else. I'm also going to be photographing a dear friend of mine's children as well once the weather warms up some more (as well as some family pictures). So I'm a bit excited!! You can see more pictures of my first photo shoot on my photography blog!

Hail...

This is what it has been doing off and on all afternoon/evening! Crazy weather...the kids thought they looked like dipping dots though!

Did you think I forgot about you....

Here's some fun pictures I took of the girls today. The weather was sure acting crazy, it went from sunny to cloudy and back and forth again. Then about an hour or so after we came back inside it started hailing! Then of course after I had already taken the girls out in the weird weather to take pictures (they finally kept asking me if I was done, because with the wind blowing it was a bit chilly) my new lens came (pretty excited about that)! But they didn't want to go back out for another photo shoot, so I will have to play around with it later!! And yes, Jayde was mad at me in one of the pictures (actually more than one, but I'm only showing you one of them. Took a while before she decided she wasn't that mad anymore!)...can you guess which one? Ryann on the other hand was being a big ham, she was having a blast playing in front of the camera. I got so many cute pictures of her it was hard to just choose a few to share with all of you!

Dr. Pepper

My personal poison of choice. What can I say...I think my son is taking after me! Little stinker was stealing my pop this evening...but he looked too cute doing it, so instead of taking it away from him (besides there wasn't that much left in it anyways) I took pictures instead!

Story Time

Some of the kids favorite stories are the ones that we just sit and make up as we go along!

Wrestle Mania...

First off I just gotta say...I did it! I made my goal of taking atleast one picture a day for a month (February)! I don't know if I can continue to do it every single day for the rest of the year...but this has shown me that I need to take my camera out more often and capture more of the day to day stuff instead of just the big things and posed shots.

Take tonight for instance...when all the kids started wrestling with Doug, I immediately pulled out the camera. I'm glad I did or I would of missed this great shot of Jaxon running as fast as he could to keep from being caught by daddy! I just love the look on his face!

Also, Ryann's tooth came out yesterday. I tried to get a picture of her smile with a missing tooth but she wasn't being very cooperative and I didn't get a very clear shot. So I'll try to get one of her later, still can't believe she's loosing teeth already!