Fashion Crime (Have you heard?)

Sometimes people act without thinking about the consequences and this is a MAJOR one! February 10 2009, dubbed "National Bankruptcy Day", all items geared towards kids will all need to go under extensive testing. Sounds good right? Do you know how much that will cost? Do you know how many things a child under 12 comes in contact with in just one hour? This not only affect sellers, but buyers too. As of right now, not even schools and public libraries are exampt! That means they will need to buy ALL new books and supplies or close down. Yes! It is that serious. I want our children to be safe, but this is the wrong way to go about it. Please contact your local congressmen and get the word out! Read more about this subject here!

My First Day as an American! (WE DID IT!)

Yesterday, I went to Salt Lake City for the Naturalization Oath ceremony and it was AWESOME! There were 198 New citizens there, one lady couldn't even wait until the actual ceremony and had to take the Oath ahead of time because she was about the give birth! She's okay though, they gave her the oath and took her to the hospital with an Ambulance.

First, we had the Pledge Allegiance , but before we did, a SLC firefighter went through each words and explained what the words meant.

A lady lead us to sing the National Anthem, which was interesting to hear We had 2 speakers, Cindy Toone from Daughters of the American Revolution and Michael Fox, another SLC firefighter. They spoke about freedom and the most important responsibility of an us citizen, which is to vote.

Then we took the Oath of Citizenship all together. And the Judge (who was a special judge because he took the Oath ceremony when he was in law school!) and some of the new citizens made some remarks. It was really inspiring to hear them speak, and feel their love for America. I was too chicken to stand up but I felt extremely grateful to all those who helped me get here, especially the boutique community. This really is a great country and I'm proud to live here and proud to be a citizen!

THANK YOU!!!!

pssst.... my father in law took pictures but didn't download them yet, I'll post some when he does!

Back To Real Life....

The first week back from vacation is always so depressing to me. I miss my family, I miss the chaos, I miss the noise, I miss the smell...EVERYTHING! I just spent the last 3 weeks in (not sunny) California visiting my family and it was so fun and relaxing. Okay, relaxing was a poor choice of word because the only time it was relaxing was when I went to get a massage. There were a total of 21 people in the house! Including 4 kids, 2 tweens and 2 teenagers, enough said. But I had a fun time anyways. I got mani-pedis, 3 massages, and a haircut! We shopped till we drop and ate until our bellies were full! My cousin Jeff hosted a sushi night and made sushi for all of us! He was my favorite cousin that night!

Hands down though, the highlight of the trip was getting to hang out with these 3 kids here! They are my cousins babies and they are just SOOOOOOOO adorable! They made me want to have another one, until, that is, Logan starts spitting up every 30 minutes. I hate the smell of spit up!




Speak of the lil devil, there he is! He is suffering from some major cradle cap right now, but so chubby and cute nonetheless... Check out his natural Mohawk! I love that kid to death!



This is Ashton (Jeff's kid), he doesn't like me much because I always take away his binky and that drives him nuts. Then he makes a quizzical look at me and gives me 2 kissing sounds... that means he wants his binky back. Cute right??

And here is the queen of them all, Lauren. We call her lala, and she is the BOSS! She has a mind of her own and don't need you to tell her anything. She loves following Sean and Sami around but gives them a piece of her mind if they get out of line.

6 more months till I see them again, that is too long I think!

Sending out Christmas cards...

This is one of my favorite activities to do around the holiday season. I love getting cards and I love giving cards. I like to send them out early, so I can guilt people into sending one back (insert evil laugh here). No really, it's not pulling teeth like it is with other people. I love getting the kids all dressed up, yelling about eating a drippy peanut butter sandwich right when we're about to go out, the kids telling me they are done with pictures after just 2 minutes....sigh.... it's just bliss

I figured no one really cares what Rhead and I look like, we don't change that much, I only include the kids. Plus Rhead gives me hell more than the kids do and I can't bribe him with a dollar. Sean was trying his hardest to please me, as always and Sami was being a diva, AS always. But I did get this LOVELY shot of the 2 of them.

Don't you just love digital cameras??? This was taken with my canon rebel xt, 50mm lens, RAW, manual, at around 4 pm as the sun was setting. Rhead WAS suppose to be holding the reflector but he kept walking into my shot or distracting the kids and I think by the time I took this shot, he was in the car reading! He wanted to get paid to like the kids did ($2 each!) but I told him he was fired!

I did very light post processing: level, wb, sharpen and burn the door. Which I didn't blow out her shirt, but no untrained eye will be able to tell. I got this super cute card template from a fellow ILP, have I mentioned how much I love ILP??? If you want to learn about photography, join! I've learned so much from reading other people's posts and critiques.

This was our picture 3 years go, look how Rhead is holding the baby! You'd think she was a football or something! And the picture just reminds me of this weird phenomenum that Rhead is shorter than me when we are both sitting even though standing, he is about 5 inches taller than me! It's fun to look at old photos right?? Sometimes I wish I had Sean a little later, so I would have all his baby pictures on digital... scary to think, I had Sean before digital camera was cheap! I'm not gonna go there today I think....


As always, blog love appreciated! Untill next time...

Trimming The Tree

Don't you just love this time of the year?? My mother in law has scented candles burning, which she must because we have this fake tree up. It's a little hard to adjust for Rhead and I but the kids don't mind one little bit. They had fun putting up all the ornaments, singing Christmas songs, drinking hot cocoa, and eating gingerbread.



Then when all was quiet, I took my camera, prop it up on a box on a stand, turned off all the lights except for the ones on the tree. I had my aperture to 22 and shutter speed at 1 second and took this shot. Doesn't it just make you want to snuggle up with your family?? LOVE IT!!! I want to try it again with my kids later when all the boxes get put away and tripod out. We'll see how it goes...

Miss E - 3 Months Shoot

Miss E had her 3rd session with me yesterday, BY HERSELF!! It was tough trying to take her picture and keep her happy without her mom's help, on top of my 4 year old "trying to help!"

I did get some good ones though, but the post processing needs work. When I got to the school lab yesterday to use their programs, it was closed already! So I'm hoping to go back next week to get better results. You'll just have to bear with me with the 3 below :) Just see how cute she is, not how bad the processing is.

As always, blog love welcome!

Until next time...

Waiting to get LOST

I missed last episode of Grey's Anatomy yesterday so I went abc.com to see it online, and they had a little promo for LOST! Lost has to be one of my favorite TV shows of all time. It is so good and frustrating at the same time. If you're a fan of lost, this promo will get your blood pumping. I got mad goose bumps when the scene flashed to Desmond and Penny. My heart just aches for those 2! Anyways, I won't tease you anymore, check it out yourself!