Christmas....

Christmas was great, the kids loved everything they got. The one day a year the kids will play all day and you almost never have to scold or referee. I really missed having family around. At dinner Rori said the funniest thing. She said "Next year I am going to buy mommy and daddy and baby lots of presents" " ahhh thats nice we said. "Because Santa doesn't bring presents very much to mama, daddy's and babies." Lance and I had a good chuckle. She is such a thoughtful and sensitive girl. I love her so much! She is just giving me tea now. :) Here are some pictures of Christmas day. If I am lucky enough to have good business with photography this year I want to adopt a family next year. On a sadder note a dear friend and former co worker from RC Willey  Neal Bird passed away.  He lost his battle to leaukimia.  But what an amazing man.  Whenever I feel like I am complaining about nothing I am going to remember him.  He never gave up.  He has given less than a month to live and he gave himself 4 years. He did not sit out on disability he worked he traveled and climbed pyramids.  One of the years he was sick he had perfect attendance at work. He lived to see his youngest child graduate so he knew his wife would nt have to worry so much.   He believed In Heavenly Father so much.  He was not afraid to tell you that you are loved.  He is respected and loved by all who knew him.  If we all lived as he did this world would be a beautiful place!   I hope he is in a very good place I know they swung the gates of heaven wide open for him.  I pray for his wife Karen who truly lost her best friend and soul mate!  I think I am going to get an ornament to hang on my tree to remember him every Christmas.

2009 slideshow.

I have wasted so much time making slideshows that are not emailable.  I am hoping this will work to mail for christmas but I am adding here just in case we have to add a link! :)  Enjoy our family 2009.

"waters family 2009"

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Finally a family photo.

I met a girl on cafemom in my photo group that happens to live here in Las Vegas.  I asked her if we could swap taking family photos.  It has been a string of unfortunate cancelations.  I still need to shoot her family, today our photos were taken.  I love them except for my weight, but I won't go there and that I forgot to put my hair away from my face.  Here are a few so far.  Thank you Jessica for braving the party of 6!

Pierce did not want to cooperate!!

Santa visit

Santa opening Liam's candy cane!

We did our traditional visit to RC Willey to visit Santa for free. :)  Liam was so excited until we got there and then he cried and woul not go near him until after photos when we told him he couldn't have his candy cane until we were in the car and he saw Santa open another little girls candy cane for her.  He said "I'n see Santa"  OK we saud and he walked over to him and pulled his candy cane out of his pocket and said " Here you open."  LOL Funny Smart Boy!!  The best part was walking through clearance and finding the 6th chair we needed for our table set for 25 bucks and only a floor model.  :)

Santa's Elves

the back of the van

the front seat these two bags were filled with gifts.

another bag full by Brendan.

I am truly blessed.  A few months ago one of the teachers at Lances school asked us if her woman's group could adopt us for Christmas.  With mixed emotions we agreed and I was worried we looked like we needed it, but then realized she is a teacher and can add up 4 plus evryday living plus teacher salary = negative. I was grateful for the offer since in fact we would have been able to give the kids nothing this year but Christmas Spirit.  I did not know what to expect, I guess I was thinking a gift for each kid, not what came today.  They told us to come to the school at 1pm where they had adopted several other families from the school.  I could not hold back my tears and cried all the way home.  We had a full van of gifts.  More than one family needs for sure! The delight on the people that had adopted us was so beautiful.  I love to be on the giving side, I hugged them and thanked them over and over.  I am so grateful that angels watch over us and take care of us.  I would never go out and ask for help or put us on angel trees or anything, so for 2 years in a row to have people just find us without us saying a word is just amazing and wonderful.  Now if the van nagel would bless this Van.  The blower is out in the front and the hydrolics out on the back lift.  We need this van to get us by for a while longer. Thankfully we can get by without fixing these things right away.  So thank you Christmas angels for taking away a mother's stress at Christmas time!!  I am so looking forward ahead to paying it forward down the road!!  My kids will have another beautiful Christmas thanks to them!!   Thank you Ms. Carroll for thinking of us!  We love you!

A Special Friend

Some people are brought into our lives for reasons unknown.  Sometimes they impact you right away, sometimes it isn't for years later.  I met my friend Kathy about 14 years ago or so in an undernet chat room, where a big group of us have become lifelong friends.  We lost touch over years and re found each other through facebook this last year and she has become such an angel friend.  Even though we are both busy with kids I know she is there.  We went through our last pregnancies together.  She taught me a lot about natural birthing and gave me the strength to do it.  She sent me some essential oils and told me how to use them.  She had her baby 5 days before Brendan and lost her to the angels. I cry and cry for her loss.  She came and visited a month later and held my baby and shared with me hers.  She is in my thoughts and prayers so much lately.  I got an email from her a couple weeks ago and she sent us an e gift card to Target, somehow she must have known how much we could use this. She is wonderful to think of us.  I am so grateful to have her back in my life.  She is such a strength and a joy. I can't look at  my baby boy daily and not think of her baby girl.  I wish she didn't live so far away.  I am glad her family is close to here so I will be able to visit at least once a year.  I just want her to know how much I treasure her friendship! 

My favorite photos from my recent photo sessions.

session 10 still editing this session

this is my fav from session 10

session 9 had a lot of favorites

this is one of my favorites of all so far

session 8 family shot

i love the dog in the backround session 7

I am learning and growing every session.  Light is still my best friend and worst enemy but I am finally remembering to adjust ISO which is helping!

Crazy Busy!!!

Pouty Rori

Kaleb tried to cheer hr up

Happy at the pinata

Hugs for her BFF

Brendan with the tree

Rori hanging ornaments

Pierce rehanging ornaments

Liam hasnt taken his hat off in days

Tammy told me yesterday I needed to update my blog,  I am so glad she cares enough that it has been a while since my last entry.  My couple of free photo sessions have snowballed to 2 and 3 a weekend and adding a little bit of grocery money.  I hope this is the begining of a new endevor for me.  I love photography so much, how awesome it would be to make money doing something I love.  For the last three years we have lived here we have had a little 3 ft tree as we left all of our christmas stuff in Idaho.  This year we are so grateful to have recieved a big prelit tree from someone in the freecycle group I am in, and a bag of ornaments from another freecycler.  Ironically she does murals and has offered Lance advice and overflow business. If he can do some murals and I can do some photography this year, we should be on the giving end next Christmas.  I am being positive this Christmas, I just hate it when people ask me what we got for the kids.  I think people should just not ask this to anyone.  It should be taboo like asking someone if they are pregnant or asking someone their age.  The kids are growing and are so beautiful!  Brendan just turned 5 months, he is the best baby.  I have had 4 best babies!  Rori is just blooming in school coming home with new songs all the time.  Liam and Pierce are interacting with each other with Rori gone.  Pierce gets pushed out a lot when she is home!  Pierce is what I would call Echo.  He copies and repeats everyone!!  He tells me I love you at least 20 times a day... it doesn't get better than that!!! My birthday is in a week.  I  am really kind of looking forward to the day.  I was able to help tech support  for a website and they sent me a 100 gift card to the Mandalay Bay for the whole day I spent helping.  So we are going to take the kids to the Shark Reef and a nice lunch or dinner.  We decided to use it on my birthday so I know it will be a perfect day!  Oh and I cant forget about Rori at her friends party last week.  She was so sad that her friend had other friends she was almost in tears and didn't even eat her cake.   She was happy again after when they had time to play. She said on the way home that she didn't want her to have other friends.... LOL  I tried to explain how friends work. Funny how 4 year olds think.  Here are some pictures of the kids with the tree and Rori at the party.

A Holiday Smile. (Essay for my Dentist office)

Pierce licking the fudge spoon

This Christmas like last is a humble one. While trying not to be sad I am not out buying my kids gifts, I opened my box full of journals I have kept since age 8 and looked back at my Christmas entries. What I wanted and what I got didn't matter. As a child I was just as happy to get the GIANT Orange, Apple,and Banana in my stocking that I swore Santa magically grew but now realize was my parents way to fill a stocking for little money. Things that brought a smile to my face were so simple. A bike ride through a GIANT puddle and the entry I wrote at age 9. "Peace on earth good will to everyone not just men." While I did write the things I recieved, my emphasis as a child was in the feelings that surrounded me. Bringing a smile and joy to a child is so simple and I am discovering that if I search for my inner child Christmas can be happy and beautiful with just one gift and not many. The smiles we bring to Christmas are just as big with the handmade paper chain as with the expensive garland, if our joy is reflected in us not what we have.  Today we are going to make fudge the non fancy jet puffed way that I remember and loved as a child. Tommorow we are going to make gingerbread cookies. I will be filled to watch my children's joy and that will make this a Merry Christmas. (Photos coming soon)

Happy Thanksgiving

I am grateful for my health as last year I just barely got out of the hospital and found out we were pregnant. I am grateful to not be pregnant and have a healthy baby who is the best baby. I am grateful for my husband who works for us, for my beautiful healthy kids and for my growing talent with my camera! I am grateful for family far away and wish we could have been together today. I am grateful to Food for Less for actually offering Turkey's for 4 dollars (with a 25 dollar purchase) and especially grateful Lance got there right as they were loading the new Turkeys out so we got a 14.95 lb bird. (under 15 lbs was the 4 dollar special) I left a lot of the traditional sugary dishes out this year, and left the crust off the pie! I am not grateful for my weight! It was nice all the way around. Rori sang some cute Thanksgiving day songs! Now we are watching Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. Yes I am grateful!

Busy week in Photos

I will soon be starting a seperate blog for my photography so I can send people there without my personal life being intertwined. For now I will keep it here. I did three sessions this weekend. I learned I need some new lenses badly, the images in my my mind do not work with the basic 28-80 lens. I learned I like it when people wear darker solid color items, I learned that light is still my best friend and my worst enemy and I have learned that newborn photography is not as easy as it would seem to be. I forgot my space heater to make him warm, but I did get a handful of cute shots! I also learned when shooting at a Park that has ducks or geese do not let your family feed them until after the shoot is done so you are not attacked and your shooting area is ruined! I think I do not like giving direction so much and I loved the third shoot for this they went with the flow I could suggest adn they would just fall into it. Here are a few favorites from each session.
Session 6






Session 5






Session 4

My third shoot!

Things I learned from this shoot.... during the fall I will not schedule 1:30pm photo sessions! The light and shadows are so harsh that really we wasted a lot of the 2 hours and got the bulk of the good shots at the end. While walking and shooting make sure to look into the path in front of you. I was walking on cement and walked into a cutout of tree/rocks. I fell and messed up my knee pretty good and one hand. Thankfully the camera just tapped and my jeans (the only pair that fit right now)did not get a hole! I wish I had a bigger lens. Andrew is a cute kid but did not want to be candid! Every time he heard the click he was smiling and cheesing! If I could have distanced myself from him, I think I would have had some better boy moments. Here are a few of my favorites from this shoot!!!






This one wins my Favorite of all this session, I did a vintage treatment on it and just love it!