Family Pictures 2017

A few weeks ago we went for an adventure as a family.  We borrowed a canoe from my FIL, picked up some fountain drinks from the local Giant and headed out on a dirt road to a pond at the base of our mountain.  It turned out to be a little more exciting of an adventure than we meant it to be - Marcus stepped on a cactus that stabbed through his shoe and into his foot :( Maelee and Madi both let go of the rope swing too late and landed in shallow water, thereby effectively damaging various joints in their legs, and I... well... I have no upper body strength which, when mixed with trying to support my ghetto booty and thunder thighs on a rope swing... let's just say everyone fishing on the other side of the pond got quite a chuckle.  And Clint caught it on video.  Which needs to be destroyed.

ANYway, on our way back home, we stopped at the ranger station so the kids could show me where they saw a deer on their last visit and we were met with the most GORGEOUS dry grass meadow and MASSIVE cottonwood tree.  The photographer in me got all kinds of googly eyed over this somehow forgotten treasure and vowed this was where we would take our family photos this year!!

Hmmph.  Fast forward a month or so and it's now the day we have a chance to do our pics... and it's windy as all get out... and I somehow have 2 evening church meetings I have to go to :(  -SO- change of plans and pics on our bed it is!!!  Because evidently, that's how we roll lol!

And Clint was SO excited to be taking them, can't you tell?

We did get ONE good family photo...

And a few crazies...

Marcus has this thing lately where if Clint kisses me, HE has to kiss me.  Twice.  If Clint compliments me, HE gushes on the charm.  And so on... I think it's hilarious personally!  I mean, who WOULDN'T want 2 handsome fellas fawning all over them??

As you can see from the photo above, Clint doesn't always think it's as cute as I do haha!!  And a disclaimer from here on out, not all the photos are edited... I've been working non-stop on pictures for other people for about 4 weeks and I'm kinda done lol 



I was so excited for pictures in that meadow, I got mine and the girls' dresses from my friend Taytum who was a JUNIEblake consultant and I had all these pictures in my mind involving these dresses... none of which involved laying down hahahahaha!!!  My dress does good things for me and my hair has finally grown back out which was going to make for pretty great pictures... ah well.  This bed has hosted numerous family wrestling matches on Sunday afternoons, so these are pretty great for sentimental reasons I suppose ;)

Oh, my Madi.  These pictures are pretty much her at 11 1/2.  A spunky, beautiful, curly-frizzy, warmhearted tween.  I love that she's one of my friends, and that I'm one of hers :)

This boy.  He is 100% boy.  And I freaking LOVE him to pieces!  I didn't know when I fell in love at 19 that I would fall in love again at 27.  Dad GUM he makes me so happy!!!

And then there's Miss Maelee!!  Our aspiring comedian/cosmotologist :)  She keeps us on our toes by bouncing back and forth between stirring the pot and making sure everyone has a smile on their face.  Babies LOVE our sweet little coconut, which she loves lol

I've been telling these two turkeys to pretend that the other one is her best friend.  Give each other the benefit of the doubt like they do their best friends.  Be compassionate and loving like they are to their best friends.  It's helping, some days ;)

Watch Marcus' dart...

 

We're a mess.  But it's a good mess and I'll take it <3 br="">

Halloween 2017

This year All Hallow's Eve could have very easily been a total failure.  We had all 3 kids sick with a ridiculous virus that acts like strep but can't be killed with a pill (what the crap??!?  As if regular strep isn't bad enough??  Ugh.), and up until about a week before, Clint and I had NO IDEA what we were going to be.  I know, that's not really "failure" material, but the few years we've dressed up with the kids have been really fun (we really are just big kids you guys)(and I just realized I used the word "really" 3 times in that sentence... mmmmmkay.  Shows you just how tired I am!).  I'm still a little unsure as to why Clint wasn't on board with my Miranda Sings costume idea, I do a "real gooood" impression (insert pervy eyebrow raise and head tilt) and I thought he'd be one lucky guy to have her on his arm all night.  Weird.  Luckily, we found some pretty fantastic costumes on Amazon and with our handy-dandy free 2 day shipping they were here in time for the big day!

Actually, Amazon came through for a good chunk of our costumes this year - we got the inspiration for Madi's dragon costume from there, and both Maelee and Marcus' costumes found their way to us through our Amazon shopping cart.  But that's actually totally irrelevant haha!!  Back to Halloween!!!!

One of these years we are totally going to have a family theme and all dress coordinating - like the emotions from InsideOut, or cave people, or hill billies, or LOTR characters... or something.  But not this year!!  This year we had:

A very beautiful yet scary dragon

Our very own Moana

and the most adorably fierce pirate on the 7 seas (who refused to wear his eye patch, bandana or hat)

 

AND...

Let's not forget the biggest and the best...

A pair of sparring SUMO WRESTLERS!!!  Bahahahahaha!!

Aren't we beautiful??

 

The girls were SO EMBARRASSED by us and insisted on going off with their friends and avoiding us at the school's Halloween Carnival, which in my book is a total parenting win.  Go us!

It was a pretty chill evening, a regular bedtime and since everyone was either still sick or recovering we all (minus Dad, sorry Clint!!) slept in the next morning and got to school late.  Worth it.  Totally worth it!

 

I'm Having A Thought...

I pretty much suck at juggling.  I've never been one to just whip my hand up and catch a ball, that's why I pretty much sucked at sports.  And yet I'm finding myself lately with so many balls in the air and no clear way to keep them going without wounding myself and those around me by my pathetic attempts and flailing limbs.

I need to {gently} drop some balls.

It's hard to know what things in life are just "good" and not "great", ya know?  And yet we've been counseled by wiser men to let the "good" things go to focus on the "great".  While I TOTALLY agree with said advice, I find myself stuck between many rocks and many hard places: be a better mom or a better wife?  A better friend or better at finding my own peace?  Better at my calling or better at photography?  Better with the budget or a better chef?  Healthier or simpler?  Calmer or more on top of it?  Craftier or more focused?

My patriarchal blessing tells me to beware of the good things in the world because the evil one can manipulate even those things people often consider to be good and worthy to serve his purposes in deceiving us and destroying families.  Whoa.

I need to {gently} drop some balls.

I've thought about it, prayed about it, debated the answer I got, flat out rejected it actually, and finally relented and came back around to the one thing that makes the most sense to let go of - the one thing that stresses me out more than anything else in my life right now {and no, it's not my husband or kids... although they do run a pretty close second some days!!}:

My photography business.

*Sigh*

I've been so torn on this one for SO many reasons - this is supposed to be my creative release!  My outlet from the humdrum of the same day in and day out of every day life!  This is a way to identify myself and set me apart from my peers, a way to earn extra money and give myself some much needed freedom in a controlled way... 

But it's just not anymore.  I'm tired.  It stresses me out to get paid first and THEN have to do the work.  I'm such a perfectionist that it takes me dozens of hours per shoot to edit because I want every last miniscule detail just so.  And it's not like being a photographer makes me special - EVERYONE has a nice camera.  EVERYONE takes amazing pictures!  8 years ago when I started there were like 5 of us in this valley of 40,000ish people.  Now there are closer to 50.  And they're all pretty great!!  Ugh, and I get SO STRESSED out knowing there are people waiting on me to get their memories back that I can't fully enjoy ANYthing I do, ESPECIALLY focus on my own family's pictures.  I avoid getting my camera out because I know I'll never have the time to do anything with the images I capture.  THAT SUCKS.  I hate it.  I hate that something I love and identify with so much, has become a constant dark place in my mind and in my life.  But I need a way to earn extra money to pay for school clothes, Christmas presents, gymnastics, dance, choir, soccer, little league, sports gear, shoes, clothes for myself, books, random crap on Amazon, eating out when I just can't bring myself to cook dinner or something as simple as a fountain drink on a road trip.

But, if I stop now, am I done?  I mean, if I take a step back I will lose clients that I will NEVER be able to get back like school sports teams, town sports leagues, families I've worked with for 8 years, etc. Am I really ok with that?  Is there something else I can do to earn some extra money on the side and yet still let a HUGE stress go without adding a new one?

I hope so.  I really feel like there is.  Maybe I'll make and sell crafty crap on Facebook.  Maybe.  Maybe I'll get into meal planning and prep for others, or finally write some of the books tucked away in my brain and get lucky and become a millionaire by selling the movie rights {hahaha!!!}.  But, you never know.  Whatever it is, I feel really good about this decision.  Weirdly excited to be honest!  Almost giddy.  I'll limit myself this fall and be done for the most part (still do sessions for family and friends because I do still love it, and will hopefully love it more when it's back to being a hobby and not a business) by the end of November.  Just writing it and putting it out there already feels like I've let a huge burden go.

Balls {gently} dropped.

Goals, Thoughts and a New Purpose

The entire reason I started this blog was to document our family's memories and share them with family, friends and whoever else happened to stumble on our little corner of the blogsphere.  If you look to the post list on the right, you'll see that for years I was a rock star and kept pretty much on top of it - I LOVED my blog!  I loved everything associated with it - forming the stories in my head, imagining how I should take the pictures to best complete the memories shared, the comments people left, knowing those moments were being preserved in a way that my forgetful Mommy Brain wouldn't soon forget. 

And then 2 things happened... Facebook and child number 3.  Suddenly no one cared what I wrote, unless it was a quick Facebook post accompanied by a lower-quality picture caught on my camera phone because, let's face it, that's so much easier to keep up on for everyone!  And the arrival of our sweet baby boy... even though he was a dream baby and SO easy, there were so many added factors to our lives with this new addition.  Madi had just started school, Maelee was in the thick of the TERRIBLE two's, we were given the opportunity to sell our house and purchase our dream home all on TOP of visits with Becca (Marcus' birth mom) and her family, court paperwork and hearings and everything that comes with the process of adopting a baby.  Oh, and we went from a family of 4 to one of 5.  Crazy how that changes things!!!  Something had to give, and it was my beloved blog. 

Now, fast forward to FIVE YEARS LATER (WTF??) and here I am, longing to play catch-up and stroll down memory lane before it's lost forever and my kids are all grown up.  I worry I've lost so much already :(  Life won't stop.  Life won't slow down, it won't even let me catch my breath!

-SO-

Shoulders back, chin up, eyes focused, a tall glass of water by my side and a cushion under my tush - and I'm ready.  The original purpose of this blog was to document life as it happened.  Yes, that's still the goal, but now I'm hoping to expand that and add backtrack posts and actually do what I've regretted not getting to all this time - catching up as much as I can in the short time I have.  Some posts will be posted as a flashback, others dated to get them in the proper time frame so when I publish blog books everything flows chronologically.  I realize that most likely no one will read these posts except me.  Maybe Clint and someday my kids.  That's totally fine.  I don't need what I used to from this blog.  This is MY release.  MY record.  MY journal.  MINE.  I don't mind sharing, and if you're reading this don't feel awkward about continuing to check in on us from time to time.  All I'm saying is that where I used to feel a sense of pride in this blog because of how others reacted to it, now my pride will come from inside - knowing that I'm doing this for my family.  That's SO exciting to me!!  I can't wait to see their faces as they finally get the chance to flip through new blog books and see new pictures that I haven't had the time to show them and read the stories that go along with them... that gets me all kinds of giddy inside!!

I guess to wrap this up I ask for forgiveness.  More from myself and my family than from anyone else.  Time to let the guilt go.  Time to move forward by looking in the past and fleshing out what I find.  Holy crap, I can't friggin' wait!!!

The Day I Knew Would Come Too Soon

Not sure how to approach this new phase in my life.

Joy?  Weeping, and I mean like ugly, uncontrollable sobbing?  Sleep?  A happy dance?

All of my kids are in school.  Even my sweet baby boy has left me and joined his buddies (and his "girlfriend" lol!!!) in Kindergarten.  No fear, no clinging to Mom or sadness in his bright, hazel eyes - just pure excitement and go go go!  Marcus took that first step and hasn't looked back. 

Maelee grew up overnight and is suddenly in 3rd grade which where we live means switching classes between 4 teachers.  AND she graduated into the second highest class in gymnastics - whaaaaaaaat??  When did 8 become so OLD?  Speaking of 8 that also means she was baptized this summer by her daddy.  I cried ugly tears that weekend... 

And Madi?  Madi is 11 and a full blown tweeny-bopper.  She entered 6th grade with spirals in her hair, new glasses on her face and a skip in her step.  She came home talking about boys and new friends, new teachers and familiar faces. 

 All three.  Gone.  All day.  And I'm alone...

I'm sad because I love my kids!  No matter what else you've heard, I really do!!!  :)  We had so much fun playing card and board games this summer, and I don't feel like we got to do enough together.  I crave snuggling up with my munchkins and a movie...

I'm happy because I'm SO DONE listening to them argue and bicker and nag and tattle and whine and disagree and yell and on and on and on!  We're a team!  Let's support each other, you obnoxious knuckle heads!!  Get over it, stop name calling ya bozos and just BE NICE!!!

I'm thinking that I'm leaning more toward a "woohoo!!!" kind of emotion, mainly because I'm the kind of person who's on the go ALL THE TIME and it'll honestly be nice to not have to "worry" about my kids - Who's watching them?  What are they doing while I'm editing pictures or painting or crafting or cleaning?  Are they doing something that's rotting their brains or actually benefiting them?  How many freaking fruit snacks have they HAD today??  Do I let them watch just ONE more episode while I try to finish what I'm doing or do I slip out of "Tiffany" mode and back into "Mommy" mode now like my guilt is screaming at me to do?

That kind of worry, ya know?

I think the craziest part about being here is that this is the year I've talked about for ages!  "When my kids are all in school I'll FINALLY catch up on my blogging and scrapbooking and journaling!  I'll write that book or two that are floating around in my head!  I'll flesh out my photography business and start pushing myself to succeed there!  I'll stay on top of the housework and keep our home running smoothly by meal planning, couponing, budgeting better and finishing what I start!  I'll manage my time better!!"  Well lady, here it is.  That year you've been going on about.

So now what?  What first?  Where do I even start??  My best, most honest answer?  WHO KNOWS!!?!  I couldn't tell ya!  But I'm pretty excited to figure it all out!!